This board was such a wealth of info as I prepped for our cruise and I'm hoping I can return the favor.
I am planning to do a full trip report, but these are the highlights... I apologize if I ramble and welcome any questions.
Our group: Me, DH, DD7 and DD3... but we were part of a larger group, a total of 30 family members.
Cruise date: June 22nd - 29th, arrived in Vancouver on June 20th, Saturday.
Saturday, June 20th
Hotel: Blue Horizon - centrally located near a ton of restaurants, a Whole Foods and multiple bike rental shops. And shopping in the other direction.
Bike Rental: Spokes (15% discount for Blue Horizon guests)
Dinner: Zakkushi on Denman - a delicious yakitori restaurant. Small space, so if you want to go, I suggest arriving when they open or making a reservation.
Sunday, June 21st
On Sunday, we used the HOHO trolley to visit the Aquarium and Granville Island Public Market. When you get on the trolley, they give you a coupon book that has a coupon for a free ferry ride to the Public Market, but it's only for one way. So try ask for extra books if you can for the round-trip. Another thing to note for the HOHO is that the last trolley is around 5:15 PM, depending on the stop. This was a surprise to me and caused a slight change in plans for transportation to dinner.
Lunch: Japadog stand in Stanley Park - who knew that seaweed went so well with hot dogs and sausages?
Dinner: The Fish House in Stanley Park - great food and great service
Monday, June 22nd
Breakfast: Abode at the Blue Horizon - delicious pancakes
PAT 11:30 AM!!! We took a cab to Canada Place and arrived at 11:30 AM. Walked through the security line and had a short wait for customs. Nothing to write home about.
Our boarding group was called right after we got our KTTW card. Took a quick pic w/ Mickey and we were on our way!
Stopped at Port Adventures to get our Meet & Greet tix and drop off our autograph items.
We were at lunch at Parrot Cay by 12:45 AM. Great tip to go to a MDR for lunch (vs the buffet). It was great to be seated and have drinks brought to us.
By the time lunch was done, our cabin was ready!
Cat 9C on deck 2, aft... perfect location. I loved that our cabin had two sinks and the tub and toilet were in separate rooms.
Our dining rotation was Triton's, Animator's Palate, Parrot Cay.
Our assigned character breakfast was Parrot Cay, Tracy Arm day (but apparently we were the last assigned breakfast).
Took the girls up to the Lab to get their Magic Bands after dinner. I was a bit irked that the Magic Bands weren't included in the cost of the cruise. Oh well.
I seem to have rambled, so I'm going to skip to our port days and excursions. All of our excursions were booked directly with the vendor and each experience was awesome.
Skagway
Temsco - Helicopter to Denver Glacier to the dog sledding camp. What a great experience. If you can do this, I highly recommend it. The price is the close to Disney's price and the only difference is that you have to walk to their location (15 mins for us) vs. having a shuttle provided. They did provide a shuttle back to the ship after the excursion. Both of my girls loved it. Especially the dog sledding.
Fronter Excursions - White Pass Summit train w/ gold panning. We were on the train that broke in Dead Horse Gulch and in the longer tunnel. After we arrived in Fraser, Tyler (our driver) made sure we could make all of our photo stops and still do the gold panning and make it back to the ship on time. The folks at the gold panning stop were awesome. There were 10 of us and they gave us our own guide and table. It was very personalized.
And yes, we made it back to the ship with a little time to spare. We didn't get to walk through Skagway, but I was okay with that.
Juneau
Adventures in Alaska - Captain Jack & Captain Alan were great for our whale watching tour. I highly recommend them. Captain Alan took us out in the Scania and our total group was 8 people, our family and two other couple (not with our traveling group). We saw a pod of Humpback whales and a calf and her mother. And we saw bubble feeding! Captain Alan was great.
As part of the excursion that I reserved, they provided transportation to Mendenhall Glacier. Despite the rain, we walked to Nugget Falls and were very glad that we did. We didn't take the city shuttle back to town, we called George who drove us to the Glacier for our pick-up. Cost-wise with four passengers it was about the same as the shuttle and he dropped off me and DD7 in town and took DH and DD3 to the ship.
Sadly I did not have a chance to eat at Tracy's Crab Shack.
Ketchikan
Duck Tour - Great way to see the town and go out on the water.
Alaska Fish House - Tasty lunch... everything was good, the salmon, the Dungeness Crab.
One of the shops offered golf cart rentals (Rain Barrel) and that seemed like a fun way to see the sites.
Monday, June 29th
Disembarkation day... I don't want to talk about it.
We were off of the ship by 8:45 AM and at the hotel shortly thereafter. A room was available so we could drop off our stuff before our next adventure.
The free shuttle to Capilano Suspension Bridge stops right at the Blue Horizon and quite often as well. We took the shuttle to the bridge and spent the morning there. DD7 liked the ranger activities. DD3 liked jumping on the bridges.
Lunch - Santouka Ramen... Hot restaurant (literally, no a/c), but so tasty.
Dinner - Miku... high end sushi restaurant that was so good.
Those are the long highlights.
I am planning to do a full trip report, but these are the highlights... I apologize if I ramble and welcome any questions.
Our group: Me, DH, DD7 and DD3... but we were part of a larger group, a total of 30 family members.
Cruise date: June 22nd - 29th, arrived in Vancouver on June 20th, Saturday.
Saturday, June 20th
Hotel: Blue Horizon - centrally located near a ton of restaurants, a Whole Foods and multiple bike rental shops. And shopping in the other direction.
Bike Rental: Spokes (15% discount for Blue Horizon guests)
Dinner: Zakkushi on Denman - a delicious yakitori restaurant. Small space, so if you want to go, I suggest arriving when they open or making a reservation.
Sunday, June 21st
On Sunday, we used the HOHO trolley to visit the Aquarium and Granville Island Public Market. When you get on the trolley, they give you a coupon book that has a coupon for a free ferry ride to the Public Market, but it's only for one way. So try ask for extra books if you can for the round-trip. Another thing to note for the HOHO is that the last trolley is around 5:15 PM, depending on the stop. This was a surprise to me and caused a slight change in plans for transportation to dinner.
Lunch: Japadog stand in Stanley Park - who knew that seaweed went so well with hot dogs and sausages?
Dinner: The Fish House in Stanley Park - great food and great service
Monday, June 22nd
Breakfast: Abode at the Blue Horizon - delicious pancakes
PAT 11:30 AM!!! We took a cab to Canada Place and arrived at 11:30 AM. Walked through the security line and had a short wait for customs. Nothing to write home about.
Our boarding group was called right after we got our KTTW card. Took a quick pic w/ Mickey and we were on our way!
Stopped at Port Adventures to get our Meet & Greet tix and drop off our autograph items.
We were at lunch at Parrot Cay by 12:45 AM. Great tip to go to a MDR for lunch (vs the buffet). It was great to be seated and have drinks brought to us.
By the time lunch was done, our cabin was ready!
Cat 9C on deck 2, aft... perfect location. I loved that our cabin had two sinks and the tub and toilet were in separate rooms.
Our dining rotation was Triton's, Animator's Palate, Parrot Cay.
Our assigned character breakfast was Parrot Cay, Tracy Arm day (but apparently we were the last assigned breakfast).
Took the girls up to the Lab to get their Magic Bands after dinner. I was a bit irked that the Magic Bands weren't included in the cost of the cruise. Oh well.
I seem to have rambled, so I'm going to skip to our port days and excursions. All of our excursions were booked directly with the vendor and each experience was awesome.
Skagway
Temsco - Helicopter to Denver Glacier to the dog sledding camp. What a great experience. If you can do this, I highly recommend it. The price is the close to Disney's price and the only difference is that you have to walk to their location (15 mins for us) vs. having a shuttle provided. They did provide a shuttle back to the ship after the excursion. Both of my girls loved it. Especially the dog sledding.
Fronter Excursions - White Pass Summit train w/ gold panning. We were on the train that broke in Dead Horse Gulch and in the longer tunnel. After we arrived in Fraser, Tyler (our driver) made sure we could make all of our photo stops and still do the gold panning and make it back to the ship on time. The folks at the gold panning stop were awesome. There were 10 of us and they gave us our own guide and table. It was very personalized.
And yes, we made it back to the ship with a little time to spare. We didn't get to walk through Skagway, but I was okay with that.
Juneau
Adventures in Alaska - Captain Jack & Captain Alan were great for our whale watching tour. I highly recommend them. Captain Alan took us out in the Scania and our total group was 8 people, our family and two other couple (not with our traveling group). We saw a pod of Humpback whales and a calf and her mother. And we saw bubble feeding! Captain Alan was great.
As part of the excursion that I reserved, they provided transportation to Mendenhall Glacier. Despite the rain, we walked to Nugget Falls and were very glad that we did. We didn't take the city shuttle back to town, we called George who drove us to the Glacier for our pick-up. Cost-wise with four passengers it was about the same as the shuttle and he dropped off me and DD7 in town and took DH and DD3 to the ship.
Sadly I did not have a chance to eat at Tracy's Crab Shack.
Ketchikan
Duck Tour - Great way to see the town and go out on the water.
Alaska Fish House - Tasty lunch... everything was good, the salmon, the Dungeness Crab.
One of the shops offered golf cart rentals (Rain Barrel) and that seemed like a fun way to see the sites.
Monday, June 29th
Disembarkation day... I don't want to talk about it.
We were off of the ship by 8:45 AM and at the hotel shortly thereafter. A room was available so we could drop off our stuff before our next adventure.
The free shuttle to Capilano Suspension Bridge stops right at the Blue Horizon and quite often as well. We took the shuttle to the bridge and spent the morning there. DD7 liked the ranger activities. DD3 liked jumping on the bridges.
Lunch - Santouka Ramen... Hot restaurant (literally, no a/c), but so tasty.
Dinner - Miku... high end sushi restaurant that was so good.
Those are the long highlights.
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