Kicking off the 2017 Alaska Season! May 22-29, 2017 Alaska cruise on the Wonder (complete 7/14)

ironz

DIS Veteran
Joined
Dec 2, 2003
Hi, all...
Recently home from our second Disney cruise (both on the Wonder), so I will try to share some information, thoughts and opinions, and some photos from the first Wonder-ful cruise from Vancouver to Alaska of the 2017 season. Hope this is helpful and/or enjoyable for those reading. :)

Right up front, I want to thank my friend Anricat (DIS name) for her helpful reports, answering my questions, helping me not stress about the FE gifts, and just general Disney enthusiasm. Maybe one of these days our trips will actually coincide with each other!

A bit of background--
I used to do some contract work in Ketchikan, and always knew I wanted to do an Alaskan cruise and get to experience SE Alaska more as a tourist (relax mode). 5 years ago (May 2012) my then boyfriend came up to visit me in Ketchikan, and we took photos at the dock with the Wonder in the background, with the idea that one day, we would return on that ship. Dreams do come true! In 2014 we honeymooned on the Wonder to the Bahamas. We loved that ship and the experience so much!
Mind you, we're not young newlyweds-- I was 51 and he was 46 when we married. So this report will have the perspective of middle-aged folks. DH has grown kids and we have a baby granddaughter, although we did not take them with us. I'll be sure to invite them when we win the lottery--LOL.

We booked the cruise in April 2016, the first day that we could do so as Silver Castaway Cay members. Man, that felt like a long time to wait and plan, though we did save approximately $1000 on the Cat 7A cabin by doing so. It also was a strategy to save money by cruising in May, as opposed to the pricier summer options.
We booked our flights from Texas to Vancouver, thanks to the companion fare offered to Alaska Airlines Visa cardholders (less than $700 roundtrip for the two of us). Over time, and with some input from @anricat, we booked a hotel at the Blue Horizon in Vancouver for 2 nights prior to sailing.

Things we planned prior to the sailing:
--via a social media group, we found some people to share a whale watching charter in Juneau with Harv and Marv's. This saved us a little money compared to DCL prices, and also had the advantage of being on a smaller boat with about 15 people. Thanks to K for arranging that.
--At the time of online checkin, we booked the White Pass Snowshoe Hike and Train Ride for Skagway (offered seasonally), the Glacier Explorer for Tracy Arm day (though we went to Endicott Arm, which was lovely), Palo for night 7, and got tickets for the Princess meet and greet for our first sea day.
--I have friends in Vancouver, Juneau, and Ketchikan, so we had some communication with them prior to sailing to catch up.

OK... that's the background. Time for Vancouver with a few photos!
 
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Vacation days 1: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

We flew from our home in Texas to Vancouver, connecting in Seattle. Good thing about early morning flights is that it gives you a buffer for flight delays and you have more time at your destination. Tough thing is that you figure out eventually that night that you have been up for 20 hours! :)
Note to self: double check flight times (they had changed the times a bit, so we had a shorter layover at SEA than I thought--but no big deal, we just had to wait to eat lunch. At least the flight from SEA to YVR is short).

Upon arrival at YVR, we found our luggage (eventually, since I read the wrong carousel number off of the monitor) figured out how to navigate customs (we've both traveled out of the country, but not since the new computer kiosks/photos/facial recognition). Had a little trouble with the kiosks, as one wouldn't print out the receipt you give to the customs/border patrol officer, then the next machine didn't want to take my photo. All fine, though. The staff at YVR was very helpful. Once through, we had lunch at the Tim Horton's in the airport, which was a good location to scope out the location of CDS baggage service that we would use on our return trip.
We found our way to the SkyTrain station and bought our tickets to downtown Vancouver. We had gotten some Canadian cash to use for things like this, though a credit card would have been fine. I want to say it was something like $12-15 CAD for the 2 of us to ride downtown on a Saturday.
Going through the turnstile, I guess my brain was still foggy from the flight, I couldn't figure out how the card/ticket reader worked. Turns out, the turnstile was either set as 'off' or for exiting passengers only, and I just needed to go through the next turnstile over.
At that point, between not noticing the flight time change, missing the luggage carousel, not getting my photo right at border checkin, and screwing up the simple use of the turnstile, I announced to DH that our dream of racing The Amazing Race was officially over! LOL Really, I usually travel well, I think I was tired. :)

Taking the SkyTrain to the Vancouver City Centre station was easy, and I had already gotten directions to the hotel. It was about a 1 km (0.6 mile) walk-- not super fun with our luggage, but the day was nice and we'd been on a plane all day, so why not?
The Blue Horizon was lovely. Clean and conveniently located, and less expensive than staying right at the port. A room was available when we checked in (maybe around 1 pm?), so we took our luggage up and relaxed for a bit, while I made sure where we were to meet friends for dinner that night. I'd have photos of the hotel, but we had a camera glitch early in the trip, and lost some of our Vancouver photos. We were on the 19th floor, which was plenty high for me-- could see for quite a way across Vancouver.

The weather was gorgeous! It was sunny and relatively warm, and people were out in droves, what with the nice day, the holiday weekend (Victoria Day), and the start of the cruise season kicking into gear. We rested a little bit, but had planned to ride bikes in Stanley Park that day, so found some energy to do so.
We rented our bikes at Bikes on Robson St, a few blocks from the hotel, even though our hotel offered a discount at Spokes bike rental. Our theory was that the prices were pretty much the same, and this place was a little closer, so we could ride most of the way back, instead of dropping off the bike and having to walk uphill to the hotel. It was fine (note: bring a credit card or passport for deposit), though, when we went back 2 days later to get a water bottle, they weren't as friendly as at Spokes.

Stanley Park was packed! It was warm and sunny out. So many people out riding, walking, running, and just enjoying the day. We did the bike loop around the park on the Seawall. It's about 10km (6.2 miles). Pretty much flat. Hardest part was dodging other bikes, though at least (for the most part) it is one-way bike traffic and the bikes are separated from the pedestrians by a curb.
We stopped and took photos at the totems and at the 'Girl in a Wetsuit' ("with a bird on her head") statue. And I took photos of baby Canadian geese (though I was warned by a local that the mama geese can get aggressive if you get too close).

And....I will add photos when I can figure out how to resize them-- sorry!
Will need to continue later.
 


Yay!

I'm going for a 2nd Alaska cruise this summer (both on the Wonder), so I'm super excited for any and all trip reports this year.
 
Following!! We are on the August 28th sailing this year!!! Also, we live in the Vancouver area so I love seeing the views from a tourists' perspective. That weekend was a long weekend here so on the Monday that you departed to Alaska we had gone downtown to Stanley Park and then over to Canada Place to see the Wonder before it left.:flower1:
 


Following!! We are on the August 28th sailing this year!!! Also, we live in the Vancouver area so I love seeing the views from a tourists' perspective. That weekend was a long weekend here so on the Monday that you departed to Alaska we had gone downtown to Stanley Park and then over to Canada Place to see the Wonder before it left.:flower1:

We loved Vancouver! We may have waved at you from the deck at SailAway! :wave:

Is that photo ok for y'all? I suppose I could set up a photobucket if it makes them easier to see.
 
Vancouver, day 1, continued.

We finished up our bike loop around Stanley Park, and rode back to drop off the bikes. On the way to the hotel, we grabbed some gelato on Robson St. to tide us over until dinner.
After a very short rest, it was time to clean up and go meet local Vancouver friends for dinner. We walked about 1/2 mile to Adesso Bistro on Haro St, and there we found our friends (2 couples I have known for several years, having met them on a cycling trip years ago-- it was about time we got to Vancouver to visit!). Dinner was delicious and relaxing. I was so happy for my friends to meet my husband at last! They said he's a keeper, and they are correct.
This was a very long day for us, so after dinner we caught a ride from our friends back to the hotel to rest up for sightseeing with them the next day!

May as well add this here: Vancouver is such an easy city to get around. I'm from a city in Texas with massive growing pains. Vancouver exemplified the combination of increased density and workable transportation options that my city only dreams of. If you have the biking and walking infrastructure-- safe bike lanes that are for the most part separate from car traffic, and *good* public transportation in the form of trains and busses, it works. If you don't have that sort of infrastructure and live in a car-centric place and it's not as safe to be on a bike, it doesn't work as well. One of my Vancouver friends, an attorney, bikes to work every day. (of course, it helps that it's not 100 degrees all summer, either)
 
Sounds like you're from Austin. Looking forward to your report since we're on the 8/28 sailing.
 
Yay! I'm so excited to read your trip report. I'm glad I was able to help out. :)
 
My family is on the first Alaska cruise next year, I'm hoping to live through you until it's our turn :teeth:
 
Thanks for reading-- I'll try to make the next part quick, so we can get on to the cruise!

Vancouver--Day 2 of vacation

On this lovely Sunday morning, my husband got up early to go run-- he basically ran from the hotel to Stanley Park and did the 10k loop around the park. I was lazy and slept in. (If anyone has seen my running/fitness mojo, please send it back to me!)

We ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which was good, then took a walk down to the port area, as we had already bought tickets for FlyOver Canada for I think 11 a.m. (saves about $4 to buy in advance, and we used the option of "FastLane"--sort of like FastPass-- to choose a 30 minute window in case there was a long line. There wasn't a long line.)
While we were waiting for our time to come up, we walked over to see the Olympic Cauldron and the Pixelated Orca. I love whales, and the Olympics, so these were great to see up close! torchcopy.jpg 20170521_103625_resized.jpg

Oh, hey, I just noticed how to upload a real photo! ;)
I think we tried to find a geocache at this point (I just wanted to find one at each port). Sort of tough to geocache when you are trying to not use up a bunch of data or are roaming, when you use your phone as your primary method. We did eventually find one at Canada Place. Not something I wanted to spend a ton of time doing, but just a little extra thing we sometimes do when we travel.

FlyOver Canada was cool. I really enjoyed it-- it's very much like Soarin', though I think a bit longer. Once we were done, we gathered our belongings and (didn't) take small children by the hand, and exited. ;)
We were going to meet our Vancouver friends in Gastown for a day of sightseeing, with local narration. On the way to our meeting spot, we stopped at the Canadian Mountie Gift Shop (not far from the port at all), and found a postcard to send to our granddaughter. How nice that they sold postcards there with either pre-paid postage, or you could buy postage to mail back to the States. Thank you to the nice shopkeeper for letting us know that separate postage would be a little cheaper.

We met our friends for lunch at Brioche-- they have soups, salads, sandwiches, and paninis at lunch. It was good.
Our friends then drove us to Lynn Canyon Park. They say it's sort of like Capilano-- maybe not as huge, but has the huge trees, hiking trails, waterfalls, and a suspension bridge (and it's Free). It was really pretty, but crowded--again with the nice weather and long weekend.
lynnbridgecopy.jpg vanwaterfallcopy.jpg

From there, we went to an overlook at Cypress Park (basically these two locations--Lynn Canyon and Cypress Park-- are on either side of Capilano/Grouse Mountain, on that same side of the waterway).
(photo off the internet)
cypressparklookout.jpg
We then drove over the Lions Gate bridge and over to Queen Elizabeth Park. There are lovely gardens, and you can see most of Vancouver, over to the mountains, and to the water.
qegardencopy.jpg qevanccopy.jpg tulipcopy.jpg
From here, we went to one of our friends' homes for a relaxing home-cooked meal: good food, good friends, a beverage or two... very relaxing.
We so much appreciate the personal tour!

Next up: Embarkation Day!
 

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