To Alaska and beyond

[DesertGal]

Awesome trip report. You have answered lots of questions. I've packed mainly jeans and long sleeves for the kids. I'm packing for myself tomorrow. I'll plan accordingly. Out tshirts for sail away are long sleeved. I think it will be perfect

We were hoping to upgrade to a verandah at port but our cruise is almost full.

I love the iceberg in the goofy pool thing. So fun.

Did you happen to notice if they have blankets on deck? We can only bring 4 suitcases without paying extra and I was hoping not to have to lug blankets.

Thank you for such a great report. Enjoy Malificent. I can't wait to see it.

 

[shanhop]

I so appreciate you taking the time to do this. As someone who is setting sail on the 9th, it's super helpful to have up-to-date information.

 

[The4Woods]

Hello all. Well this is going to be another post with just words and no photos. They are all in my photo bucket or on my laptop, but the internet here is SO slow it takes from 45seconds to 2 minutes to open a webpage. Photobucket won't even open for me. Which brings me to this point. If you're looking for wifi in Skagway the only free place is the library. And if you go to the library make sure you sit in the community room beside the stairs. I made the mistake of not seeing the sign and sitting at a table and the librarian pointed this out to me speaking loudly and slowly like I was from another country. I was like um American. And I asked her if I could buy wifi somewhere like at a coffee shop where I could pay for coffee and get wifi or pay for coffee and wifi. She looked at me like I had two heads and said no they had nothing of the sort here. Strange.

I'll add pictures to everything tomorrow in Juneau cause surely Juneau has to have decent internet I'd hope...

To answer a few questions. The castaway gift is the over the shoulder sling bag. I'll add a picture tomorrow. I was very glad it wasn't the tote. Dan likes this bag better. My kids are still in club/lab. D is 10 and C is 9. I'm going to take D sometime down to Edge to check it out and see what he thinks cause next time we're on the Wonder he'll be 11. They have been a little more bored with the Lab/Club this time since there are less kids on board. But they still enjoy it.

 

[The4Woods]

And the Character chasing continues this morning. Last cruise C didn’t get to see Rapunzel EVER. And she’s C’s leading lady. The Navigator said she’d be at Preludes at 8:45 AM. Whew a little early, but whatever it takes to make dreams come true right. So C and I decided to have a girls breakfast together. Parrot Cay was closed for a character breakfast so Tritons it was. It was delightful to have a sit down with my princess. We ate and then rushed off to get in line. The rest of the morning raced by. Here’s a recap. Picture with Rapunzel then we had to wait a half hour for Cinderella so we went back to the room. Now you’ll NEVER believe me especially because I don’t have pictures to back this up, but when we were in the room we went out on our veranda and I saw a whale. I know old news right? Wrong. I saw the whole whale jump out of the water. I mean the whole thing. I tried to grab the camera, but I missed it. Dan would be heartbroken. But it was cool and totally burnt in my memory. I could have stayed there all day, but Cinderella couldn’t wait. We got her picture then met the boys in Treasure Ketch. I took both D and C to Promanade Lounge to make the door hanger craft and Dan went to take pictures. The door hangers were the perfect space filler until Belle made an appearance. She happens to be my favorite princess so I had to hop into the photo.

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Then the kids ran off to the Lab allowing Dan and I to nature watch on the balcony. We instructed them to come back at noon so we can find some lunch. I’ve heard rumors about the BBQ on deck and Base Camp for the kids. Dan and I enjoyed watching out our balcony for whales which were in abundance. Dan got tons of pictures of whales waving their tails at us. I’ll have plenty to look through. Right on time the kids were back and hungry for lunch. We went up to Beach Blanket to find some grub. The BBQ was outside in the sitting area of Beach Blanket in the aft. They offered venison sausage, salmon, steak and marinated chicken breast. I got salmon and steak. We sat on deck 9 to eat and then went to the Wide World of Sports on deck 10 to see if Basecamp was open. It doesn’t open until 1:30 promptly. So we ran back down to see Dan and what he wanted for lunch. Somehow we miscommunicated cause Dan thought we were bringing it down to the room. Ahh we suck at communicating. We put the kids in their snuggy hats and gloves for boot camp and then headed back up. I got the kids checked in. For any concerned parents the Base Camp is in the netted in area of the Wide World of Sports so the kids are secure and locked in still. I went to Cove Café to get a hot beverage and then grab Dan a burger and fries. Then back to my perch on the veranda. Where I stayed for the next 2 hours.

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Here’s my honest opinion. Please no one hate me. I found Tracy Arm super underwhelming and a little anticlimactic. Ahhhhh I hate myself for typing this. It was most likely my fault and I’m probably contributing to this epidemic by writing this trip report. But I had read so many reports and planned and everything. In my mind I assumed we’d get right up to the glacier, a chunk of glacier would break off and crash into the water and cause a huge wave that bobbed the boat and then seals would on cue flop up on ice berg chunks and make adorable faces. Since it was so early in the year the ice chunks hadn’t melted down very much which kept us from getting very close to the actual glacier. And we didn’t see one seal. Well maybe we saw one, but it was super far away and could have been dead. . . or a log. All that said, it was BEAUTIFUL! The mountains and the icebergs and everything was so calming. Dan and I spent a super enjoyable afternoon together just relaxing on our veranda. I would imagine as the summer progresses the Wonder will be able to get back farther and the seals will be more willing to preform.

So towards the end of the Tracy Arm viewing I needed my afternoon nap again. Sorry folks it’s vacation and I need to sleep too. I napped for an hour. Then got up and redid my hair then it was time for some family character pictures. We got just about everyone. Donald, Chip and Dale, goofy, and Minnie and Mickey all in their Alaska gear. I even convinced Dan to hop in the shots.

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I was about time for our evening show. It was the Adam Ace comedian again. He was super hysterical last night so I figured his family show would also be great. It wasn’t. It was terrible. He bombed so badly. I was super confused. He was supposed to be a comedian, but he kept doing circus type tricks and not telling jokes while doing them. I just couldn’t figure it out. One of our Facebook/Dis friends said she saw him at the bar after the show so clearly he wasn’t impressed with his performance either. We went to Diversions to play The Wheel gameshow, but they were having technical difficulties and we headed to book our next cruise. We ran into some friends by the deck 4 elevators, so instead of going to the future cruises desk to book #3 we stood there talking until dinner. We still have 4 more days. Dinner was in Parrot Cay. This is one of my favorite meals. I love the crab Martinique and mixed grill. Dom asked if people could ever talk to the Chef. We asked Lito and he said sure. So after dessert the Chef came out. I feel horrible, I can’t remember his name but he was from Jamaica. We thanked him for the wonderful food and service. He offered to give us a galley tour sometime this cruise. We said sure and he promised to call and set one up. After dinner we came back to the room, showered and hit the hay. We had an early morning to participate in Liarsville Gold Panning. Thanks to everyone reading!

 

[noahdove]

I'm subbing, great so far. I will cruise in July 2015 and we will cruise with our dear friends. We are surprising our husbands We will celebrate 4 major events while on board, our 40th wedding anniversary, my husbands 60th birthday and our friends are both retiring!!! We are so excited. I even had to get a new email so that my husband wouldn't read the cruise emails So, please keep this report going...thank you

 

[stuffedw/fluff]

Thank you so much for doing this!! We also sail on June 9, so this is very helpful to know what to expect. This will be our first Alaska cruise, but second with Disney. I hope your trip continues to be as much fun as it already has been!

 

[KatHuss]

This is wonderful, thank you! We sail in two weeks (!) and I cannot wait! Getting so very excited. Hadn't thought to pack a blanket and just might have to put one of my Tinkerbell fleece blankets in the bag. Reminds me to find my gloves too, lol.

 

[AngieBelle]

Thanks for the report! I'll be boarding that same ship on Monday so it was fun to get a sneak peak at the Navigator! I'm especially excited to see the talent show sign up listed- I'll have to remember to bring some sheet music. I'm also very happy to see that they will be offering the character breakfast this time. We did a Med. cruise last year, and they didn't have either the talent show or the character breakfast, and I was disappointed.

 

[jetskigrl]

Awesome trip report. You have answered lots of questions. I've packed mainly jeans and long sleeves for the kids. I'm packing for myself tomorrow. I'll plan accordingly. Out tshirts for sail away are long sleeved. I think it will be perfect

We were hoping to upgrade to a verandah at port but our cruise is almost full.

I love the iceberg in the goofy pool thing. So fun.

Did you happen to notice if they have blankets on deck? We can only bring 4 suitcases without paying extra and I was hoping not to have to lug blankets.

Thank you for such a great report. Enjoy Malificent. I can't wait to see it.

On all of our Disney cruises, they have had blankets available. They are usually in one of the cabinets around the pool deck but I think we had to go to the adult pool to find some on one cruise. Any CM working in the pool area can help find some. We use them every cruise to watch late night movies on the Funnelvision.

But word of warning, they are not very warm. We would end up with three or four wrapped around us.

 

[Dustmouse]

Thanks so much for the trip report and navigator posts! We are leaving on June 2 as well and can hardly get any work done for all the last minute DIS'ing I'm doing!

 

[The4Woods]

We're on an excursion now of the Mendenhall glacier. It's absolutely amazing. My plan is to go back to the ship afterward and update all my posts and put up pictures etc. Thanks everyone for your patience. This is a lot of fun reporting for you.

 

[dclwonderprincess]

We all really appreciate your reports & including us in your vacation!

 

[wallawallakids]

We're on an excursion now of the Mendenhall glacier. It's absolutely amazing. My plan is to go back to the ship afterward and update all my posts and put up pictures etc. Thanks everyone for your patience. This is a lot of fun reporting for you.

Can't wait to hear all about it! Have fun and thank you!

 

[pascalstongue]

We're on an excursion now of the Mendenhall glacier. It's absolutely amazing. My plan is to go back to the ship afterward and update all my posts and put up pictures etc. Thanks everyone for your patience. This is a lot of fun reporting for you.

Glad to hear that you are having a great time. Thanks for taking the time to complete your report, it's much appreciated!

 

[The4Woods]

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Today started out pretty slow. For the life of us we couldn’t get moving. I got up at 06:30 to shower and get ready. At 0700 I started opening the blinds a little bit at a time to slowly wake up the rest of my sleeping family. We were already docked and 3 other ships were there. Two Princess ships and a Holland. I had to force the kids to get out of bed and get dressed. Dan was a little more willing. I was bummed that we had to get up so early cause we stayed in Skagway until 7:45pm. But we had the Liarsville excursion to get to. We ate breakfast at Tritons because that’s where Jack and Lito were.

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We had a nice sit down breakfast and we were in Wavebands before our 8:45 call. I felt pretty proud of us for getting together so well. We met up with some other Facebook/Dis friends and got to sit in the same bus as them. The ride out was beautiful and we had a neat lumberjack looking drive whose name was Buttermilk. He told us all about the sites along their 5 block wide city. He said the whole city was 5 blocks by 23 blocks. It was genuinely pretty small. We got to Liarsville. Here’s my advice: if you get to Skagway and the weather is over cast opt for warm not cute. I wore a thermal long sleeve and my North Face vest and I was freezing my tail off. I’m a good mom and forced my kids to bundle up and they were just fine. Thankfully they had hot apple cider and cookies to welcome us. The first this we did was have a chance to look around a little. Then we went to the meeting area and they told about the true history of Liarsville followed by a fun story about a prospector. The meeting time concluded with a lesson in how to pan for gold. They passed out scavenger hunt cards and led the kids around the basecamp to answer the clues. C my little smartypants didn’t wait for the clues and just figured out the final puzzle. The scavenger hunt would probably be more fun for the younger age groups. All the aside it was time for the main attraction. Gold Panning! They have rows of troughs lined up to do the panning. We were very intent on panning and didn’t realize that Pluto had come up and was going to help. We paused to snap some pictures and then down to the panning again. I think D and C misunderstood that this was just a fun activity for the souvenir. I think they thought they were going to really strike it rich and be able to quit school and live a life of luxury the remainder of their years. So they took the panning very seriously. So seriously that we were the last family to leave the panning area. And two cast members had to come by and offer to help them finish their pans. So all our gold was collected then we noticed Donald Duck! We really weren’t observant. So of course we got pictures with him. Then we headed back to the campfire to roast marshmallows. Or my version, roast mommy. I was chilled through. We roasted some marshmallows and then went into the gift shop but hardly looked around when a cast member came in and said we only had 35 minutes left there and the lunch was ready. Jeepers. So we rushed across the road and gobbled food. It was super good. The salmon was amazing. Just super good. Then it was time to head back to the bus and into town.

Some shots of Liarsville:

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[The4Woods]

We wandered around the town for awhile looking for memorabilia. We got a cool 2015 calendar and Dan got a neat t-shirt that said Skagway to prove that he’d been here. When we got back to the ship the kids headed off to the club and Dan grabbed some lunch and took care of some business. We had some cell coverage so unfortunately Dan had to be a grown up for an hour or so of our vacation. I went back into town to find internet. And I already posted about the library. Seriously this isn’t a cute town to grab a coffee and blog while enjoying scenic views. I wasn’t able to get the internet to work well so I posted my words and saved the pictures for next port.

Skagway:

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Then I went back to the ship. I grabbed some lunch and ice cream with C. Dan took D and did the same thing. Here’s where our plans got a little snagged. The kids wanted to go to the club and Dan and I wanted to go to the featured movie The Million Dollar Arm. So the plan was the kids would go to the club until 7 then head to the room and watch cartoons until we got there. I told them NOT to eat dinner at the club cause we’d go to the main dinning room. Well an hour into our movie I get a text from D asking if he should eat dinner in the club. No we told you already come to the theatre. 10 minutes later C called freaking out that D was gone. So I had to get up and get her. So from what I saw Million Dollar Arm was a sweet touching movie with a great moral. Kids make movie watching difficult. We hung out in the room for the hour before dinner. Then it was off to Tritons for dinner. This menu was amazing! More accurately this dessert menu was amazing. If you ever get the chance to have the Prince and Princess menu (I think it’s only on longer than 7 day cruises because I’ve never had it before) holy cow try every single dessert. If you have to run 10 miles to justify it that night DO IT. I was in heaven. The flourless cake was SO good. The Strawberries and Cream was light and heavenly. Seriously yum. I purposely wore leggings tonight so I didn’t feel my pants getting tight. Worth it! We concluded the night with showers and bed. After talking in the gift shop and hall with our lovely Seattle friends. We’re boring.

 

[The4Woods]

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I'm sitting in the cabin and we just now pulled away from Juneau. I'm filled with bittersweetness. This was an AMAZING city! I loved every part of today. If you're thinking about booking a tour in Juneau, DO IT! Even if the weather is overcast like it was today, it even rained a little (a lot but for a little amount of time), it was beautiful and worth every penny we spent. The city is so charming. The touristy part wasn't overwhelming but the beauty of this place was. The only side note I have to offer is that we were the only ship in port until 1pm. That helped in not seem so overcrowded. We didn't have an excursion planned before hand. We knew we wanted to do the Mendenhall Glacier and that was about it. There's a free shuttle right when you step off the ship. It takes you to the downtown shopping district. Then there's a line of lemonade looking stands of people offering their tours. We just went up to one and asked about taking a bus there. They offered us a discount on a city van tour and trip to Mendenhall for a good price. So we said why not. It was great.

We got to see the Capitol building, something Dan was looking forward to. They took us out to a lookout point that we took some cool shots of the ship. And then he took us to a Shrine for St. Theresa. We aren't Catholic, but oh my it was so beautiful! I could live there every day and look in the rocks for seashells and starfish. Then was the big attraction. We drove out to Mendenhall.

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The drive gave us an hour there. It was a perfect amount of time with kids, but by myself I would have wanted 2-3 hours. We walked down the shore as far as we could to the glacier. And took pictures and played in the water. Then we went to the bear trail. D was freaked out about bears, but I just wanted to see one even if it was eating me. Kidding! We tromped around and got pictures, but NO BEARS! Biggest disappointment of the cruise. But it was beautiful!!!

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At 12:45 the driver took us back to the ship. We were STARVING! And Dan's ankle was hurting. We got back on board and ordered room service for lunch since everything decent to eat (Beach Blanket and Tritons) were closed by the time we made it back to our rooms. I got my first Mickey Bar of the cruise! Whoo Hoo!

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After eating the kids took off for club and we haven't seen them yet. Up next is the Pixar Pals Party and then dinner! Until tomorrow, have a great evening!

 

[HiddenMickeynKat]

I really want to talk my family into going on an Alaskan cruise next summer.
Can't wait to hear more about your trip.

 

[HiddenMickeynKat]

Love all the pictures. I think they will definitely help convince my husband to go next year.
It looks like you are having a great time. Enjoy!!!
Thank-you for the rolling reports.

 

[mwmom]

Love your TR! We will be sailing in 3 weeks, so I am loving the information. I laughed at your comment about your dress in Skagway as I was just thinking how cute your outfit was with the thermal shirt and North Face vest when I read your comment! I will remember to dress warmly.

If you get a chance to check the onboard store for a blanket, can you take a picture of one or describe it? I really want to have my own blanket onboard and will buy one if they have one for sale. I love bringing them home and remembering my trips every time I use it. I bought a Mickey blanket and a castle blanket at WDW when we were there 2 years in a row. I just don't know if they sell them or not.

Keep the information coming! We appreciate it!!