National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 78 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Saturday 17 September – part two: fun for both the small and big kids!
We decided to do our usual trick and head right to the top and then work our way back down again. The first section we came across was all about the human body. Called YOU! The Experience, it certainly was an experience. It was also a bit when we came across this...
Heather settled down to see what she’d look like in 10, 15 or 20 years’ time, but I saved her blushes and didn’t photograph the results. I thought they were pretty unflattering and I’m willing to bet that when that time comes, she’ll look a darned sight better than they claimed.
We then wandered through the science of storms, which takes you through every type of storm. I have to admit that I passed through the tornado section very quickly, as I had no desire to learn anymore about them. I know all I need to know about those things, they’re deadly and I never want to be near one.
There were some really neat hands-on things. Heather and I enjoyed the one about magnetism in the liquid metal, as it created some awesome shapes.
And then there was one about the periodic table, where you could select various different elements and combine them to see what, if anything, they would create. As I said to the member of staff there, if they’d had something like that when I was a kid, I’d have taken a heck of a lot more interest in chemistry.
We moved around the corner and found the air pressure blasters, which you could use to keep a ball in the air. We all had a lot of fun with that, both big and small kids!
Then I tried to shoot a hoop with a virtual basketball. I was so useless and only got it on the final of six attempts and that was when the system showed me what trajectory to take.
The next section we headed for was 727 Take Flight, which takes you onboard an aircraft and explains all about flight. This was really interesting.
I felt a real stirring of nostalgia and felt very proud to be British when I saw the Spitfire and its German nemesis the Stuka on display from World War Two.
As we were looking down from upstairs, we could see a very cool level underneath. It’s called the Great Train Story and, as you can see, it’s a huge miniature railway, so we headed that way next.
The kids missed out on some of the first things we looked at because they were fascinated by making their own goop! They had an employee set up on the bottom floor where anyone (kids...) could step up to the table and start mixing this and that (I don't remember anymore) and create their own goop, and make it whatever color they wanted. They absolutely loved it! It's such a hands on museum - literally! The air pressure thing with the balls was great fun too!
__________________
Tanya
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Last edited by disney_duke; 03-01-2012 at 08:24 AM..
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Wow! That museum is huge! I wish they had something like that in Baltimore. Although, I'd probably bypass the human exhibit, since just looking at that stuff makes my stomach do flip flops.
The kids missed out on some of the first things we looked at because they were fascinated by making their own goop! They had an employee set up on the bottom floor where anyone (kids...) could step up to the table and start mixing this and that (I don't remember anymore) and create their own goop, and make it whatever color they wanted. They absolutely loved it! It's such a hands on museum - literally! The air pressure thing with the balls was great fun too!
Kids love anything like that - I knew I used to! It is a great museum for kids.
Was your room as small as the one you stayed at in 2008? Because those were some small rooms!
I definitely need to get up there and visit the museums!
Hmmm... not sure, I'm thinking it may have been even smaller actually - the room configuration was different with this one and we only opened one case. I honestly don't think we could've opened anymore and I know at the last place, we had a couple of cases open, which makes me think that was a bigger room.
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Saturday 17 September – part three: watching a baby chick hatch!
First we explored the steam train they had there...
... then we all wandered around the miniature railway display in awe. This actually showcases rail travel from Chicago to Seattle and was absolutely fascinating. I particularly loved the fact that they even had the El running round in the Chicago area. The kids seemed to love it. Mind you, I think they loved every section we came to, as we regularly joked with Tanya that was them gone for the day.
Heather and I were just about finished and were trying to work out where the Baby Chick Hatchery was, when Mark came across, waving at us. He’d found it and thought we should see it, as he’d just seen one hatch. This has to be one of the coolest parts of the museum and apparently they’ve been doing this since 1954. I was amazed at how poor and pathetic the little chick was when it first got out of the egg. It would lift its head a little, then drop it down again, as if that had taken all of its energy reserves. I did want to come back and see how he was doing, but we never got the chance.
Another one was just starting to crack open as well as we were there...
Then in another cubicle were the chicks when they were a couple of days old. Altogether now – aaaaah! They were just so cute!
There was one other thing that I knew we had to see while we were here and that was the U505 Submarine display, as Mark loves submarines, so we headed off that way.
On the way, we went through Suited for Space, which was closing in a few days’ time, so there wasn’t much to see there.
Then we went through the Circus section...
I’m not sure what he was doing now, but he was having fun, which is the main thing!
The Eye Spy section didn’t do much for me, although one of the final scenes did delight me!
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when we came across this... 
I was amazed at how poor and pathetic the little chick was when it first got out of the egg. It would lift its head a little, then drop it down again, as if that had taken all of its energy reserves. 
I did want to come back and see how he was doing, but we never got the chance. 
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