Sorry I haven't been around to work on my trip report. It's been an absolutely devastating week for our city. We live in Calgary, AB and our city a large portion of our province has been ravished by floods. It has been a terrible time and absolutely heartbreaking. Thankfully for us we were unaffected directly. Our house was fine and we were not evacuated. Unfortunately for our immediate family, they did not have such luck. Two of our brothers currently have water up to the ceiling in their basements. Things are starting to subside and while it is so hard to move on from such an emotional experience, they are doing the best they can.
That is a before and after shot of the area surrounding our hockey arena. Things are different around here and hopefully our city will begin to pick up the pieces and put it back together. As of now our downtown area is still closed to the 300,000 people who work there. They anticipate by mid week they should be allowed back in.
Having said all that, I wanted to update my report just a little. Can't leave everyone hanging.
I appreciate everyone who has tuned in and taken the time to comment. I'm happy to help everyone out and I love reliving my vacation, especially at a time like this!
I want to finish of Juneau day as this day was definitely an overload. I hope they have changed this around for future cruise as I did not like how it played out. It was Pixar night and semi formal night, all on top of being a port day...
Once we were back on the the ship, around 3:00, we took the kids to club and the younger kids for a nap. I kept checking on the main lobby as I knew that there was a meet and greet posted with Woody and Jesse right following the 4:30 Pixar party. The screen in the lobby had been saying so all day long. My 2 year old LOVES Buzz and Woody and we could not miss an opportunity to meet Woody. Around 4:00 we woke him up from his nap and took him up to the lobby to get in line for Woody. We were standing in what I thought was a line until I realized it was a little jumbled. Then the Pixar party started and it disintegrated. I asked a CM what happened to the line and then I was told there was no meet and greet, it was a mistake they made posting it on the board! There were A LOT of upset people around us. We found the best possible spot to watch the party from where we were and tried to make the best of it.
Basically there were a few Pixar characters who came down the stairs 2 at a time and danced. Two would dance on the steps while the other characters mingled with those dancing in the lobby. Thankfully they were spread out and it worked out that we were in a good spot as there was always a character dancing right beside us. I appreciated that they moved around so we got to see some of them right up close. I did not appreciate then when we tried to take pictures of our kids with the characters we got snapped at by the CM's near by telling us there were no pictures of characters with our kids, only dancing. We took pictures anyways and I'm glad we did. We weren't trying to pose with the characters, my kids were dancing with the characters. It was definitely a new experience for the CM's as I don't think they really knew what to do and I assume that's why they were getting short with some of the people around us. There were some photographers wandering around, so we did get some photos they snapped for us as well. It was all really strange and very confusing.
In the end our kids got to dance with Elastigirl, Dug, Woody (thank goodness), Sully and Flik. Each one of those characters had a companion but they took their turns dancing on the other side of the lobby so we did not see them.
The party was definitely congested and unorganized but my kids really enjoyed it. I did not see value in going to the later show so we skipped it. We later found out it was much more organized and there were many pictures taken.
I didn't like that this was semi formal night as my 2 year old was wearing his Buzz costume. It was a fight to get it off him but I really wanted to get some family photos done so I needed him to be dressed nicer. It was a rush getting everyone into their gear so we weren't put together as nice as I wanted, but I do love how our pictures turned out.
After photos we headed to dinner, late again. I was seeing a trend and decided late dining is definitely better for our family.
We got to the dining room and my parents were already there, as usual. Asked them how their day was and my mom almost started crying. I guess when they went to go on their excursion they were told there was no wheelchair bus booked for them. They booked it through Disney and took all the right steps. They called after booking to inform Disney that they had a wheelchair, they double checked again a week before the cruise, and they were called down to port adventures upon boarding to double check what was necessary. THEY STILL GOT IT WRONG!! My parents were not able to get off and see Juneau because the CM that was in charge of port excursions that day told them that they could get a shuttle into town but were not guaranteed a shuttle back. I was furious when I heard this.
I felt so bad for them and they were obviously extremely upset about it. I can't believe that Disney screwed up and I can't believe they made my parents feel like it was there fault. I wish I was there with them when this all happened as it is illegal for them not to provide my father transportation when they are providing it for everyone else. There is no reason why they couldn't have at least gone into town and looked around. I did personally talk to guest services and it was rectified but there is nothing they could have done to give that opportunity back to my parents. It was sad.
To top it off, it was Toy Story menu night and the menu was terrible in our opinion. If you don't want lobster, there wasn't much else to choose from. I think it was the worst menu I have ever seen on a cruise and I hope they fix that for future cruises. My father didn't like anything on the menu so he ordered chicken noodle soup. I wish I had taken a picture of it. It was basically chicken broth with a large chunk of chicken in it. No noodles, no vegetables or anything. It was gross. So he left dinner very hungry.
I just love this photo of my husband and baby. I wanted to share it to show you what the border is like on the restaurant photos.
They did have a bubblegum ice cream sundae and my kids did enjoy that, as did I.
Tonight was the Toy Story show in the theater and I could not let my 2 year old miss that. Even though it was late and he was woken up from his nap earlier in the day, he never took his eyes off the show. He LOVED it! I was surprised, I thought for sure we would leave half way through. I know a lot of people say they don't enjoy this show, but I really did like it and my kids definitely liked it.
I was happy to head to bed after the show. It was a long day with emotions running high and low. I am sure my parents felt the same way. It was hard because we had experienced the best excursion and they had such a terrible day. Thankfully every day is a new day and we get to start over again after a good night's sleep.