A special birthday, a diamond anniversary and a west coast adventure COMPLETED IN THIS FORUM 12/2 - Page 37 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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I left my purse behind in Epcot's Norway once. Realized it after strolling over to Canada.... so not too long. And sure enough, by the time I got back to Norway they had just sent it to Lost and Found in the front of the park! I ran up there and actually beat it. Had to stand around and wait for it! Anyway, just happy to hear they're just as efficient on the cruise ship.
Oh that's classic - and where else in the world could you get such an efficient service?
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And happy it's not raining for you guys this time around!
I could deal with the rain last time around, as we weren't outside as much as we were on this excursion....
I love this photobook idea! I wish Skip was open to travel like that as that would be such a fun way to surprise him....though his first words would be he couldn't go then....no matter what the date was....just his natural response.
Oh that's such a shame.
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I am excited to see how your excursion plays out!
I can tell you one thing - the whale watching was nowhere near as good as yours....
What a great idea to use a photobook to reveal Mark's birthday gift! The Iceland trip sounds amazing, and I'm happy to hear that Mark is a Game of Thrones fan, as that is my favorite show!
What a great idea to use a photobook to reveal Mark's birthday gift! The Iceland trip sounds amazing, and I'm happy to hear that Mark is a Game of Thrones fan, as that is my favorite show!
Unfortunately, I've never seen and, from Mark's description of it, I don't think it would be my sort of thing, so I've never tried it.
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Loved the photo book you made for Mark's birthday. Everything you got planned looks so exciting! Glad you were able to retrieve your sweatshirt so quickly.
All caught up! What a wonderful way to surprise Mark for his birthday - loved the photo book!! Glad you were able to find your sweatshirt so quickly. That is the worst feeling when you realize you left something behind and the whole time you're on your way back to look for it, you're hoping it's still there or that someone turned it in.
Friday 4 September – part three: walking the Trail of Time with Caleb and the tale of the young bear….
We were soon at our first destination, which was the Trail of Time over to the Mendenhall Glacier. On the way there we had a bit of excitement, when a bear was spotted in a field right by the road and David, our guide for the day, introduced himself to us, and explained about his background in photography. His shots were just awesome and he knew so much about the subject, and would tell us so much over the course of our tour.
After yesterday, we were quite tickled that this was the first thing we saw!
As we made our way along the trail, which is approximately a mile, we were encouraged to look at what we were seeing, and try different angles to our photography, and to move off the automatic setting, which I did, but only some of the time. David gave us lots of ideas, although my only criticism was that he’d suggest how to photograph a certain scene, and be moving us on literally 30 seconds later, not really giving us time to compose the shot. Sure, you could linger behind, but given we found bear scratchings early on (we never actually saw one though), I didn’t think that was a good plan.
I was quite pleased with how some of my more arty shots came out:
We passed over a stream, where we were able to get a great view of the salmon here:
It was about this point that we had a hill to go up, but really nothing terrible.
Ok, now here I have to mention Caleb, the youngest member of our party and the only child. There was an age restriction of no child under the age of five, and the recommendation was for no kids under the age of 10, and he was under that age. He certainly had no issues with his confidence, shall we say? He asked incessant questions of David, and they were coming so thick and fast, his grandparents (as I’m sure that’s what I heard them refer to themselves as) ended up putting a rule in place that he had to ask them any questions first, so they could see if they could answer them. If they couldn’t, then he would be allowed to ask David. I have to say I liked their approach, as while it was cute to begin with, soon it did become annoying, and I could see others in our party getting irritated that they couldn’t ask more photography based questions.
We carried on walking along the trail, with me finding lots to photograph:
[/b]Not what I wanted to see after yesterday! [/b]
Then we stopped at this shack, which was actually the first visitor centre for the glacier, where David told us a story about a bear. They’d come across what he reckoned was a three-year-old bear who kept coming towards them. He ended up about three feet away from him (I know how that feels now! ) and he had his bear spray out and ready to use, but he was conscious that in 20 years of the company operating this tour, no-one had ever used bear spray, and he didn’t want to start now on a youngster. The youngster reared up a bit, so David did no more than repeated the action back at him, and the terrified small bear fled off into the wood, so a happy ending to what again could’ve been a much less happier story.
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I ran up there and actually beat it. Had to stand around and wait for it! Anyway, just happy to hear they're just as efficient on the cruise ship. 
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Pixie Dust
and David, our guide for the day, introduced himself to us, and explained about his background in photography. His shots were just awesome and he knew so much about the subject, and would tell us so much over the course of our tour. 
David gave us lots of ideas, although my only criticism was that he’d suggest how to photograph a certain scene, and be moving us on literally 30 seconds later, not really giving us time to compose the shot. Sure, you could linger behind, but given we found bear scratchings early on (we never actually saw one though), I didn’t think that was a good plan. 
He asked incessant questions of David, and they were coming so thick and fast, his grandparents (as I’m sure that’s what I heard them refer to themselves as) ended up putting a rule in place that he had to ask them any questions first, so they could see if they could answer them. If they couldn’t, then he would be allowed to ask David. I have to say I liked their approach, as while it was cute to begin with, soon it did become annoying, and I could see others in our party getting irritated that they couldn’t ask more photography based questions. 
[/b]Not what I wanted to see after yesterday! 
) and he had his bear spray out and ready to use, but he was conscious that in 20 years of the company operating this tour, no-one had ever used bear spray, and he didn’t want to start now on a youngster. The youngster reared up a bit, so David did no more than repeated the action back at him, and the terrified small bear fled off into the wood, so a happy ending to what again could’ve been a much less happier story. 
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