Wonder 7-night August 2016 - Alaskan Adventure

That's so funny! We were happy with our dining rotation as we got Triton's for both formal and semi-formal night, and going to Parrot Cay the last morning was so convenient as we were deck 2 aft. I hope you'll end up doing a trip report as well!
We loved our rotation as well :)

Alas, I don't think I have enough spare time for a trip report but one never knows..... :)

Thanks,
Heather
 
At the Vancouver airport by Summer, on Flickr



on the Skytrain to downtown Vancouver by Summer, on Flickr



After Flyover Canada, we walked to a restaurant for dinner called Scoozie which served a unique Italian/mediterranean style menu. I got a unique dish that was sort of like an Italian take on quiche. It had a layer of crust along the bottom, then on top of that it had eggs, on top of that was a thin layer of tomato sauce then toppings on top of that (I had a variety of veggies) and then it was all topped off with mozzarella cheese. It sounds odd, but it was delicious. Roger enjoyed his dish of meatballs with tzatziki sauce. Emmaline had salad and pita breads. They didn’t have a children’s menu, which, I actually think they should have in order to earn the Yelp designation of “good for kids.” She was happy enough, though.
Emmaline is such a doll baby :) I miss her so much - please tell her I said hello! Your dinner at Scoozie sounds really awesome so if we ever make it back to Vancouver, I'm adding that to my list (and removed White Spot, lol).
After breakfast we went outside at 8:30 to catch the 8:40 shuttle bus to Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. The bus was pretty full and included the Jarretts, who I had become friends with online and we would be sharing some further adventures with later in the week. The bus ride took 20 minutes and we bypassed the line since I had bought tickets online and headed straight for the bridges. It was great getting there early because it definitely filled up later in the day.

Totem poles at Capilano Suspenon Brigde Park by Summer, on Flickr

The park is really amazing. There is one main suspension bridge, then they have walkways up high in the trees from tree to tree and a couple of different cliff walks. Near the end of our visit, it started pelting rain, which we were unprepared for (leaving all our rain stuff at the hotel since there wasn’t a very good chance for rain - I guess a 10% chance is still a chance). It let up fairly soon after I obtained some of the free ponchos they were handing out in the gift shop!

Capilano Suspension Brigde Park by Summer, on Flickr


View from the tram at Grouse Mountain by Summer, on Flickr

Back at our hotel, we freshened up and I called the restaurant we where were interested in eating (Cardero’s). They said that there wasn’t a wait, so we got ourselves ready and walked over. By the time we were ready and made the 15 minute walk, they were on a 45 minute wait. Great. So we walked back a little ways to a White Spot, which appears to be Canadian Applebee’s or something. It was…fine.

We left there and walked over towards the waterfront, where we walked along the water towards Canada Place where we were meeting some people from our Facebook cruise meet group for gelato. We had originally planned to go to the famous Bella Gelateria, but had discovered the previous day that the place regularly has a line around the block (planning fail on my part) so we switched to a different gelato place around the corner. On the way we stopped to see the Olympic Cauldron and the 8-bit Orca. After dessert, it was pretty late so we went back to our hotel via taxi so that we could repack and get a good night sleep before boarding the Disney Wonder the next morning!
I'm so glad you guys made it on the first bus to Capilano! I was really surprised how full it was when we boarded at Canada Place. The plan worked well as you mentioned since it really got crowded later on and that lovely rain shower :)

Grouse Mountain is still on the list (especially after seeing your pictures!) and just not enough time to do it all. It just gives us another reason to return one day. I think we had a nice little meeting group and it was nice to put a face to some names, for real.

Ooh can't wait for you to board the ship next :)

Heather
 
Juneau - Friday, August 12, 2016

Another day of fog, drizzle and overcast skies. We woke up at 6:30 and headed town to Parrot Cay again for breakfast, once again forgetting our syrup. We’ll get it one of these times! We were off the ship around 8:00 and made our way over to the tiny little Juneau Car Rental Company shack. I had reserved a “mid size” car and we were handed the keys to an old silver ford focus with 224,000 miles on it. This thing had zero frills. Remember when you had to use a key to unlock doors? If it had power steering, it was low on fluid. But it worked so off we went to the Mendenhall Glacier in the rain.

When we got to Mendenhall around 8:30, there was almost nobody there, which was part of the plan and one reason I decided against using the shuttle bus (the other reason being price, which would have worked out to be more money at $15 round trip/person). We made our way to the viewing area (“Photo Point Trail”) and viewed the glacier and waterfall. It was very different in appearance to the Dawes Glacier we had seen a couple of days earlier. We walked back to the main path and decided to make the one mile walk along the “Nugget Falls Trail” to get a closer look at the glacier and waterfall.

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After spending some time next to the falls, we walked back to the visitor’s center and used the bathrooms and regrouped before we tried one more pathway (“Steep Creek Trail”) to see if we could see any bears fishing for salmon. We didn’t see any bears but we saw a lot of salmon swimming upstream in the creek.

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We got back in our silly little car and made the twenty minute drive back to Juneau where we parked the car and did a little more shopping. The rain was picking up a bit and we had debated having lunch in town or having lunch on the ship. Ultimately we decided to save some money and have lunch on the ship.

After a quick stop in our room to regroup, we went to Triton’s, since we often prefer the sit down restaurant, but nothing on the menu appealed to me so instead we went up to Beach Blanket Buffet and ate lunch there.

At 12:30 we disembarked the ship and met the Jarretts at a taxi that had been hired to take us to Auke Bay for our whale watching trip with Rum Runner Charters. I met Heather both through the Disboards and our facebook group and she had posted that she was looking for a group of three to split a private whale watching trip with. I had gone round and round about how I wanted to organize our day in Juneau since I knew I wanted to do whale watching and see Mendenhall, but I wasn't sure logistically how to work everything out. But we decided that the private whale watching sounded great and the price was within the same price range that I was looking at for larger excursions so we decided to go for it. Ultimately, I’m really happy with the way our day went. Here's a photo of the Mendenhall Glacier as seen from Auke Bay.

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So taxi to Auke Bay and we’re onboard the little boat and we head out to find some whales. The weather, which had been rainy and grey in Juneau was beautiful and sunny out in the bay. After about 20 minutes, the boat comes to a stop near a pod of about 9-10 humpbacks. As I climb to the upper level of the boat, getting my camera ready, a whale breeches. This is a rare and exciting sight! We all watch as a second whale breaches, then another, and another until all told, we witness seven breeches in a row. The tour guide/captain jokingly says, “Okay, then, that’s it, let’s head back because it isn’t getting any better!” Unfortunately, I didn’t get a single one on camera (though Heather aka @IBelieveInTheMagic got a couple of amazing photos, maybe she will post here).

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We continued following the pod from a safe distance for the rest of the tour. We saw a lot of other boats watching the same pod but lots of them had a large number of people on them and I was really glad we were on a small boat with a private tour. While we didn’t see any further breeches, we did see multiple bubble net feedings and at one point, we lost sight of them for awhile and then suddenly they appeared right next to the boat! That was pretty thrilling to hear them blowing so close. It was absolutely amazing. All too soon it was time to head back (where did the time go). On the way back I got some good photos of some eagles and sea lions.

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We got back into the taxi to head back to the ship. About partway back to Juneau, we enter back into the overcast skies and rain (which was now more than a drizzle). Then back on board the ship at around 4:00 with more hot cocoa and cookies waiting for us in the lobby.

We dropped our things off in the room and Emmaline and I went back to the lobby atrium for the Pixar Pals party while Roger decided to take a little personal time and have some coffee in Outlook. After the Pixar party, we went back to the room to relax a bit before dinner at 5:45 where we were back in Parrot Cay for the Captain’s Gala menu (and also semi-formal night, but we didn’t dress up).

After dinner, we passed by the Sumdum Glacier and I took some photos of that. The captain and cruise director (as well as some other officers) were in the lobby greeting and Emmaline wanted a photo with the captain and cruise director and we also got a photo with Sulley before the show Toy Story the Musical. This show is on it’s way out to make way for a new Frozen show coming this fall. We enjoyed seeing it before it’s gone. Once again, after the show, it was time for bed after our busy day.

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Ketchikan - Saturday, August 13, 2016

Another day dawned, you guessed it, grey and rainy. While I have been pointing out the weather, I don’t mean it to sound negative. It really didn’t phase us. We had the right outerwear and we just sort of went with it. It didn’t impact our enjoyment of the trip at all. We knew that going to Alaska we might deal with this weather so we were mentally prepared. We just let it roll off our backs. It did help that it was always pretty light. If we had constantly been in pounding torrential rains, it might have been a different story.

I woke up earlier than my family again and went to have something to eat on deck 9. I had a croissant and some cocoa and grabbed some fruits and muffins to take back to the room. Everyone else slept in because we had a later arrival into port this morning. Once awake, Emmaline wanted to go to the Wake Up with Disney Jr. event in the Promenade Lounge at 8:30 so I took her to that after she ate a little food. Then at 9, Tinkerbell was greeting and we hadn’t met her yet (this trip) so we hopped in the very short line to meet Tink.

Then we came back to the room and I got ready for spin class at 9:30. This time I was on the list so I jumped right on and had another great class with Carlin. The view was incredible and it didn’t fog up at all. During the class we made our way down the channel towards Ketchikan and the scenery was amazing. It was such a great way to spend the morning. During the spin class, Roger and Emmaline relaxed in the room and watched some cartoons on the stateroom TV.

After spin class, I came back to the room and showered and just sort of spent a relaxing morning doing not much of anything. We ordered some room service around 11:15 for lunch, which arrived around 11:45.

After lunch, we disembarked the ship and explored the town, walking on Creek Street and doing a bit of shopping. We tried to make a stop at the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center, but they are closed on Saturdays. Then we tried to ride the funicular, but it was broken. We made a quick stop on board to drop off our purchases before meeting at the visitor’s center for our kayaking trip with Southeast Sea Kayaks.

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The other members of our trip were already there (they were also from our Facebook meet group). We walked to the boat that was their base of operations and donned waterproof pants, life jackets, rain jackets (we handed over our rain jackets in exchange for theirs), and waterproof aprons for the kayaks.

The other group were a family of four and were placed in two kayaks with an adult and child in each. Roger, Emmaline and I were all together in a three person kayak and we made our way around the harbor and up to Creek Street to get used to the kayaks. During this time, it became clear that with two adults in one kayak, we had an advantage. With two guides, they decided to split us up and our guide, Clay, took us out across the channel, right under the bow of the Wonder, to the other side and then we kayaked down the bank a little ways before heading back across the channel, and back into the harbor.

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After we got all our wet gear off and retrieved our rain coats, Roger and Emmaline went back to the ship while I did a little more shopping. Back on board, waiting for me in the lobby was more hot cocoa and chocolate chip cookies. Yes, please! (Again!)

At 5:00 we noticed that Jack Sparrow was greeting near the Walt Disney Theatre so Emmaline and Roger got in line, while I raced back to the room to put on my “Sparrow is my co-pirate” t-shirt (it was in the laundry, but whatever). I raced back upstairs (yay for being on deck two!) and got back in the line just as we were second from the front. Jack was super fun and immediately remarked on my shirt. As I began to leave, he pulled me back in for a hug saying, “I’m not done with you. We’re having a moment here.” He was hilarious and definitely a fun character meet. After meeting Jack, we were able to get in line to meet Remy.

Then it was time for dinner (after changing my shirt back) and we were back in Triton’s again for the Prince and Princess menu. Our table mates were wearing all their pirate garb because they hadn’t realized there was no pirate night and they wanted to wear their stuff. They all looked really cute and we encouraged them to meet with Jack for his second meet and greet at 7:30.

Between dinner and the show, there were more characters that Emmaline wanted to meet. We were able to meet Mrs. Incredible and Jessie before it was time for the show. We also took a quick photo on the Ketchikan backdrop they had set up. Regrettably, I wasn’t really that happy with how those photos came out.

The show for this evening was another variety act, The Magic and Illusion of Shawn Farquar. He was fairly good, but not the most amazing illusionist I’ve seen. Though, his last illusion, a lengthy slight of hand with a deck of cards set to Sting’s “Shape of My Heart” was quite good.

Once again, we fell into bed exhausted from the day, but not before turning our clocks forward as we would be returning to Canada the next day.
 


I think we saw your group in the kayaks when we were on Creek Street! You have great unique pics of the Wonder from that excursion! We also went to the 5PM Jack Sparrow meet--he was great! DD16 had this meet on her list of 'musts' for the cruise.
 
I think we saw your group in the kayaks when we were on Creek Street! You have great unique pics of the Wonder from that excursion! We also went to the 5PM Jack Sparrow meet--he was great! DD16 had this meet on her list of 'musts' for the cruise.

It was super awesome to see the ship from that perspective. We tendered last year in Grand Cayman on the Magic, but somehow that was different than being right on the water in a tiny craft right underneath the ship. It made the ship feel HUGE!

I think we saw you at the Jack meet and greet. :) He was so great.
 
I am REALLY enjoying your TR! We will be first time DCL cruisers next July when we head to Alaska. I am super excited and have been investigating and trying to learn as much as I can from a planning standpoint. I appreciate all your detail. Cheers!
 


I am REALLY enjoying your TR! We will be first time DCL cruisers next July when we head to Alaska. I am super excited and have been investigating and trying to learn as much as I can from a planning standpoint. I appreciate all your detail. Cheers!

Thank you so much! I read sooooo many trip reports when planning. I'm happy I can return the favor.
 
At Sea - Sunday, August 14, 2016

Oh bittersweet day! Even though we lost an hour, I still woke up again at 6:30 AM and felt great sadness that we would have to disembark the following day, but also happiness at another day spent enjoying the ship and scenery. On our first cruise, I genuinely wondered what people did on sea days. Then on our second cruise, I was nervous about having two but we had so much fun! For this one, I wasn’t sure about having three! I needn’t have worried. There are so many great things to do. I didn’t even get to do all the things I wanted to!

So it’s 6:30 AM and everyone is asleep. I quietly put on my running clothes and stumble up to deck four for another run. The weather is… yup, grey, drizzly, and foggy. The fog horn blows and I’m off for another nine laps around deck four. There are decidedly fewer people this day. I enjoy the little jaunt through the interior of the ship a the bow and stern. It’s always fun to see what the workers are up to. On my first run, the guys in yellow jumpsuits were getting hooked into harnesses to clean or repair something. Today those guys were out again preparing to do something, but there were also some guys in green moving around big sheets of plywood. Maybe something to prepare for the upcoming dry dock? I’ll never know.

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After my run, I came back to the room to get showered and changed so we could all eat breakfast before our Frozen meet and greet at 9:30. Roger and Emmaline went to the Frozen meet and greet and I went up to deck 9 (for some reason I don’t recall now) and saw Goofy in his Alaska gear. Emmaline had really wanted to meet all the character in their special outfits and was sad she missed Daisy and Goofy. I sent Roger a message and got into line for Goofy. It turns out there really wasn’t a line so I hung out and chatted with Goofy’s handlers, one of whom was the lead character in the Golden Mickey’s (Ensign Benson). Emmaline finished her Frozen meet and came up and spent some time with Goofy. He was really great and it was a fun meet.

Then it was back to the room as we had decided to do some more laundry because clean clothes are easier to pack than dirty ones. Also, it’s nice to come home from a trip and have clothes at the ready and not have to do laundry right away. So we did laundry and started packing until 10:40 when we went to the Walt Disney Theatre for a showing of Pete’s Dragon. We were happy to be in the Walt Disney Theatre because I had found the Buena Vista Theatre (where they usually show movies) to be really cramped and, also, it doesn’t have cup holders in the arm rests.

I grabbed some sodas from deck nine (since the ones near the theatre come in cans and inexplicably cost money) and we bought a popcorn for Emmaline and I to share. The movie was fun, though there were some moments that were sort of tense for Emmaline, but she enjoyed it in the end. After the movie, we went up to Beach Blanket Buffet for lunch (since I had already scoped out the menu at Triton’s and didn’t see anything I wanted).

Back to our room, we ran into our stateroom host and he said he wanted to teach Emmaline how to make some towel animals. While Roger and started packing our suitcases, Satriawan showed Emmaline several animals.

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At 2:00, Emmaline and I went to the Walt Disney Theatre to see Michael Holly perform. He does “physical comedy” which I thought Emmaline might like. He did some juggling and some other very random silly things. I think it was enjoyable and there were definitely some funny moments, but like the other variety acts, I wasn’t really blown away or anything. While Emmaline and I were at the show, Roger went for a run on deck four.

After the show at 3:00, I took Emmaline to the lobby atrium for a character dance party. I had really wanted to go to a Theme Park Innovations presentation in Wavebands (for adults) but Emmaline wanted me to stay with her so I did. At the end of the party, we ran into her friend Katie (from dinner) and the girls wanted to have ice cream. So I went with them up to deck nine to get ice cream.

I needed to get some more packing done, so I left Katie and Emmaline to their own devices. They said that they were going to go back to Katie’s room to play. I went back to our room to keep packing. Around 4:00 Emmaline came back and said that she was done playing with Katie, so at 4:15, I dropped her off at the Promenade Lounge to do “3D Crafts” while I continued packing.

Continuing the theme of having an absolutely jam-packed day, at 5:00 was the rehearsal for the talent show in Wavebands. Roger took Emmaline to do this, which was to be a piano performance of Sleeping Beauty Waltz. While they were there, I got ready for our dinner at Palo and then went to Wavebands to relieve Roger so he could come back to the room and get himself ready.

I should note that the talent show practice was at the same time as Friendship Rocks so she was unable to do that this time around, which was a shame. We gave her the option and she picked the talent show.

At 5:45 we took Emmaline to Animator’s Palate for dinner, where she would eat with our table mates, while Roger and I went to dinner at Palo. Months ago, when we had logged in to make our Palo reservation, we didn’t realize that the talent show would be at 7:30, so when we were seated for our 6:00 reservation, we explained to our server that we needed to be done by 7:30 to go to the talent show. She was very understanding and accommodating. Our meal moved at a nice pace but I never felt rushed or nervous about the time, so the timing worked out.

The timing didn’t work out so well for having Palo on the last night. Our reasoning was to skip the last night’s menu, which isn’t a favorite, but there were some problems with this. First was the scheduling I brought up with all the activities we were trying to cram in. Second, it made packing very tricky since we had to mostly pack before our reservation, but also leave room for bulky dress clothes. Finally, we were sad that there were no photographers in Palo for the last night. We had bought the photo package and really liked our Palo photo from last October on the Magic, but we were unable to get a follow up. We took a selfie instead.

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I have to say, regarding the food in Palo, that I’m just not sure it is worth it. It’s nice for Roger and I to have a meal alone, but I’m just not convinced it’s worth the upcharge. The food is good, but it’s not amazing. I had some meals I liked better in the main dining rooms. The chocolate souffle was great, but certainly didn’t make up for the rest of the meal.

We left Palo at 7:30, raced back to the room and changed out of our fancy clothes before making our way to Wavebands. Meanwhile, Emmaline had already attended dinner in Animator’s Palate and Officer Pin Trading at 7:15, getting some great pins. The talent show was underway in Wavebands. We had arranged at the rehearsal for Emmaline to feature later in the program since we weren’t sure how long our Palo dinner would be.

The talent show was super cute and the kids all did a great job. Emmaline had fun playing her piece and being on the stage. Our table mates and the Jarretts both attended to watch Emmaline which was super sweet of them all (and a testament to the friendships we made during our seven days on board).

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After the talent show, it was time for our final show in the Walt Disney Theatre: Disney Dreams. We saw this show in October on the Magic, but we still wanted to see it. It’s a really great show, probably my favorite of those we’ve seen on DCL. This version was slightly different than the one we saw on the Magic, missing a Frozen segment they had over on the Magic.

After the show, we went back to the room and tossed everything else we wouldn’t need for the rest of the night and the next morning into our suitcases before shoving them into the hallway just in time for the 10:00 deadline. At bedtime Emmaline cried and was very sad that we were leaving the next morning. I was sad, too. I could have stayed another week!
 
Vancouver - Monday, August 15, 2016

As I mentioned earlier, we had second seating for dinner for our first two cruises and this time we went with main dining. One down side of main dining is breakfast disembarkation morning is early also. So instead of eating at 8:30 or 8:45, we had to be at Animator’s Palate for our last meal on board at 7:30. Ouch.

Roger and I woke at 6:30 and got ourselves ready and then I woke Emmaline up at 7:15 and got her dressed and ready to go. There were more tears. After I picked up our photo CD from Shutters, we enjoyed our final meal with Nebojsa and Chanman. Our table mates skipped breakfast in the main dining room and Emmaline was sad that Katie wasn’t there to have breakfast.

We reluctantly left and went to wait in the Promenade Lounge to wait for them to announce that our group could disembark (Green Tinkerbell). We had never been through this waiting time before since, with second seating, by the time we were done with breakfast, all the groups had already been called and we could just leave the ship when we were ready.

As we were disembarking, we ran into our table mates and the girls were able to say goodbye. We picked up our luggage and made our way through customs easily and found the CDS baggage service so that they could transfer our baggage to the airport for us. It turned out, they were able to transfer them directly to the Fairmont hotel at the airport where we would be staying overnight. That done, we made our way up to the street to catch a bus to Stanley Park a little after 9:00. It was a beautiful warm and sunny day. We were all wearing long pants and I think we all regretted it before long!

I’m super glad that I had already purchased our day transit passes at London Drugs prior to embarking on our cruise. That way, we were able to just head right out to the bus. We hopped on the number 19 bus which ended right at Stanley Park and got off to go to the Vancouver Aquarium. This time around I had not purchased tickets online because there was a discount if you display a public transit ticket. I showed the tickets, netting us $2 off per ticket.

The aquarium was very nice. It wasn’t overly huge, but we enjoyed all the exhibits there for about an hour and a half. We left the aquarium and set off to find a bus stop for the Stanley Park Shuttle operated by Vancouver Trolley. The shuttle came every 30 minutes and we had missed one 10 minutes earlier so we had to wait 20 minutes. Eventually one came by and we got on board. A full loop of the park took one hour and they had two shuttles running. We realized that if we got off the shuttle to see any sights, we wouldn’t make our reservation at 12:30 at the Stanley Park Teahouse. We arrived a bit early to the Teahouse (12:15) but they had no problem seating us. We probably didn’t need a reservation.

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The Teahouse was perhaps a bit overrated and a little spendy. I knew it would be spendy, but I guess I was expecting more for the money we paid. We probably would have been better off at one of the other restaurants in Stanley Park.

After lunch we jumped back on the shuttle and rode to the totem poles and enjoyed wandering around there before we walked over to the Brockton Point Lighthouse to take in the view. We hopped back on the shuttle and rode it back around to the bus stop to take the bus back into Vancouver.

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We got off the bus in Gastown to check out the Steam Clock. While in Gastown we also picked up some snacks for the airplane the following day as well as some pastries to tide us over the next morning in our room. By late afternoon we were pretty tired and scrapped our original plan for dinner (which would have required another bus ride) and instead ate in Gastown. We had a hard time finding a place that was kid-friendly, but eventually settled on pizza that was...fine. Emmaline was tired and a little cranky so we took the bus to the nearest train station and took the train over to the airport for our final night stay in Vancouver.

We checked into our room at the Fairmont in the airport and reshuffled our luggage a bit for the trip home. Our flight the following morning was at 6:45 so we would have an early morning the next day. We said goodnight to Vancouver and crawled into bed for our last night of vacation.

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Thank you for writing this trip report! I loved the information you provided. I can't wait until my husband and I go next summer!! I'm just beginning the planning process. :)
 
Awesome report, Summer! I showed it to David yesterday. :)

p.s. I almost cried reading about the sadness on departure day.
 
Final Thoughts

Wow. What a vacation. I’m really trying to come up with a way to accurately distill our vacation down into some final feelings about everything we saw and experienced. I did so much research, looked at all the options, read so many trip reports and nothing really prepared me for the unbelievable beauty and immense scale of the scenery. It was just so amazing.

One of the really neat things about an Alaskan cruise is sailing the inside passage. The water, for the most part, is smooth and glassy. It’s not like being in the ocean at all. And often land is visible on both sides. Obviously, we had some fog and that caused some issues with scenery viewing, but when we didn’t, it was almost like you could reach out and touch the mountains.

I was really happy with all the excursions we chose, our room choice and the choices we made in Vancouver. If I had it to do over again, the only thing I would do differently is book second seating (instead of main dining). The only time it was a benefit was the night they were showing the movie. We were able to be “done” for the night a little early that night because we didn’t attend a show later. Otherwise, we just really felt like we have more time on second seating and it seems to work better for our internal clocks.

We came home with over 1,000 photos from our camera, two iPhones and the ship photography. Unfortunately, this was the first time I was unhappy with our photos from the ship photography service (for a variety of reasons I won’t go into here).

Our service was amazing all around. Our serving team, our stateroom host and everything in between was fantastic. We were so happy with everything on board. The ship itself was great but I think it will definitely benefit from the improvements that were made to the Magic. It was little things, but I think the changes made to the Magic were generally positive.

Coming off the ship this time around was definitely the hardest transition in our three cruises. Ordinarily, after a longer vacation, I’m getting homesick and I’m ready to be back home. Not this time. I could have stayed on that ship longer! It really felt like home away from home after a week on board. Our next cruise (a 5-night) is going to feel so short in comparison!
 
THis was a great trip report and your pics are fantastic! THANK YOU!!!
I just booked our first Alaska Cruise--- disney Wonder here we come!
 
Thanks for the report! Great ideas for excursions. The pictures were great!
We're travelling in May, too - I'm so excited!
 
We are going on an Alaska cruise in July 2017. This was so much fun to read!!!! Thank you for posting!
 
We are going on an Alaska cruise in July 2017. This was so much fun to read!!!! Thank you for posting!

You're welcome! You're going to have an amazing time. The beauty is absolutely breathtaking. I get goosebumps just thinking about it all again.
 

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