National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 5 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Wednesday 7 September – part two: a needle’s eye view!
The elevator ride up to the top of the Space Needle is very cool and pretty quick. You could immediately see that we were going to have some beautiful views, as it was very clear outside. Sure enough, we did have some wonderful views...
I was delighted that you could go outside to look at the views, rather than through glass, as it makes for much better photos. It’s a bit tough to get photos of the underneath area, thanks to the design of the Space Needle, as it has elements underneath, but apart from that, the views are just perfect. We walked round slowly, taking it all in and taking lots of photos.
Just about everywhere, we kept seeing signs, apologising for the work they were doing here, as the Space Needle turns 50 in April 2012 and they’re doing a lot ahead of that, although to be honest, it didn’t impact on the views and that was what I was interested in.
Once we’d done a circuit outside, we went inside to use some of the computer terminals they have. Some tell you about the various attractions in Seattle, while others can be used to control the various cameras they have up here. There’s also lots of information about how they built the Space Needle and it was really interesting to read. It was certainly a challenge to construct this thing!
It was created for the World’s Fair in 1962 and is 605 feet high. Despite the photos we saw of the construction (my goodness, health and safety would never let them get away with those things today! : ), not one life was lost during its construction, which seems like a minor miracle. It’s weathered earthquakes fine, so good was its construction, with one of the information placards explaining that it escaped any damage at all in the last one in 2001, and has only been closed a handful of times during its history due to high winds, so it’s quite some structure!
We eventually headed back down to the ground floor and through the gift shop, where we got a few bits and pieces, including a Christmas ornament, scrapbooking kit (I have never seen so many of these on my travels! ) and the obligatory fridge magnet.
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What a gorgeous day for viewing! It's fascinating how they built these things years ago.
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Tanya
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Wednesday 7 September – part three: exploring the world of Avatar
Then it was across to the Experience Music Project, known generally as the EMP on all the signs in this area, which also incorporates the Science Fiction Museum. It’s a weird building and is meant to represent a smashed guitar, and was designed by architect Frank Gehry. It’s hard to tell, but I could kind of see the idea better than I thought I would, although I know Mark didn’t get it at all...
It opened in the year 2000 and was conceived by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. The Science Fiction Museum was added in at a later stage and originally they were two separate admissions, but they found that wasn’t working (from what I can understand, this has had its share of financial difficulties over the years), so the ticket now covers both and you’ll find sci-fi exhibits next to music ones, which is a little surreal.
We headed inside and showed our City Passes. Our first stop was the exhibition about Avatar, which was fascinating and I would say worth the cost of admission alone. There was so much I never knew about how this film was made and it was really interesting to learn all about the processes they used. The stuff they had on display and for you to play with was really out of this world – no pun intended.
From there, we walked through into the main viewing area, although it wasn’t showcasing any music we were interested in. It changes throughout the day and shows off all sorts of things.
The next area we came to is a really interesting one, as it’s home to a massive guitar sculpture. It’s very impressive to look at, but perhaps even more impressive is that you can pull on a pair of headphones and hear some of them playing. I have to say that watching them play themselves, if you like, is a bit of a freaky experience. It’s called Roots and Branches and is beautiful to look at. It’s not so tuneful to listen to though...
Off this area are various exhibits, including one on Nirvana. I like a couple of their songs, but the exhibit didn’t do much for me, whereas I knew nothing about Jimi Hendrix before I went through that exhibit and I learnt a lot and really enjoyed it. Go figure....
We learnt about the history of guitars..
We also went through the audio archive, where they’ve got various audio bits from musicians, producers etc. Most of them I hadn’t heard of, but I’d heard of Alan Manken and it turned out that his piece was all about the “Colours of the Wind” from Pocahontas, which was really interesting to listen to and watch.
From there, we headed upstairs to see the Battlestar Galatica exhibition and Mark was in his element, as he’s watched both the film and the series. I hadn’t seen either, but they did a very good about explaining about it to idiots like me who’ve never seen it, so I didn’t feel too left out and actually it sounded like it was an interesting series with some interesting dilemmas for some of the characters involved.
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: ), not one life was lost during its construction, which seems like a minor miracle. It’s weathered earthquakes fine, so good was its construction, with one of the information placards explaining that it escaped any damage at all in the last one in 2001, and has only been closed a handful of times during its history due to high winds, so it’s quite some structure!
)!
It’s called Roots and Branches and is beautiful to look at. It’s not so tuneful to listen to though... 
before I went through that exhibit and I learnt a lot and really enjoyed it. Go figure.... 
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