You’ll never get me on a cruise. Unless it’s to ALASKA! Recap and New PTR Link! 2/1

[MEK]

Pirate night seems like a blast. I wish I could see your costumes now, but I'm sure they are fabulous. What a fun end to a rainy day.

So funny that Jeff ran into someone he knows.

I think the hot tub in the cold sounds wonderful. Reminds me of skiing.

[eandesmom]

Originally Posted by BeachClubDee

Hi Cynthia- this is Natebenma (Dee) in super-stealth mode. Well, maybe not all that stealth. I plan on using this screen identity for BC/YC forum business and I'm trying to get to that 10th post that gives me "Superpowers"

Why am I picturing you in an incredible outfit right now/

Originally Posted by BeachClubDee

Ketchickan looked like a lot of fun. The coffee shop sounds like a perfect stop in the rain. I love the beautiful photo of the marina with the sun poking through the overcast. Then then you got to explore Creek Street. That seems very interesting. I too am salivating over the menu you posted from Annabelle's. Maybe it is a good thing you didn't get photos, because that could have started up some serious drool. Kung Pow Calamari? YUM!

It was very pretty! Kumg Pow Calamari does sound very good, I think I missed that! Why I didn't take food pics is really beyond me for that meal.

Originally Posted by BeachClubDee

That is a great picture of Evan. Does he love it too?

Yeah on finding the jacket!

Now I need to go back and read the Pirate post.

He doesn't, which I don't get at all. Ah well, kids.

Originally Posted by BeachClubDee

What fabulous pictures of all of you at Pirate Night.

I'm happy to hear that a lot of people were getting into it. I have a lot of pirate gear in lots of sizes (I chaired a Mom-Son dance, the Mother-Matey Pirate Palooza) so I would have a blast with something like this. My DH on the other hand- it would probably take more than a rum or coke or two or ten to get him to play along.

Yeah, I wonder if I can get Jeff to dress up for the next one? It will really depend on what we can or can't get for Palo. Maybe I will make him a shirt this time, he'd wear it at least.

Originally Posted by BeachClubDee

What a riot about the people who knew Jeff! The whole 6 degrees of separation and all that. It can be fun when you find the connections. Although I guess this one was a little easier since it was a "first degree" as he had already met them.

It's funny, I now remember that one of the families on the Taku excursion was also from our area. They weren't in our plane though.

Originally Posted by AAshleySEG

I absolutely love your TR! my DH and I are going on a Disney Wonder Cruise to Alaska on June 11, 2012. And I have gotten so many great ideas from you! We have never been on a Disney Cruise before and are super-excited about it! You have inspired me to write a trip report of my own. I wish I would have done them with some of my other Disney trips, I forget so many of the details and this is a wonderful way to keep them all intact! You are doing an awesome job! Judos to you for taking the time to keep your memories so close at hand!

Thanks and

I have help. Time stamps on pictures, receipts and all the navigators help a TON in recalling what we did. You will have an amazing time!

Originally Posted by MEK

Pirate night seems like a blast. I wish I could see your costumes now, but I'm sure they are fabulous. What a fun end to a rainy day.

Ok Miss fancy phone, can't you see it on that? I know you are blocked at work but....

The kids costumes....I didn't do squat. Although I did tie my new bandana around my wrist, that was kind of fun. I have new pirate earrings though for August.

Is it wrong I've been thinking about our Oct ADR's this week?

Originally Posted by MEK

So funny that Jeff ran into someone he knows.

I think the hot tub in the cold sounds wonderful. Reminds me of skiing.

Very much like skiing although not nearly as cold

[BeachClubDee]

Originally Posted by eandesmom

Why am I picturing you in an incredible outfit right now/

Funny you should mention this. There was some speculation going on over on the BC boards:

Originally Posted by Marlton Mom

So is this new persona a blond? Perhaps a little "cougarish"? I picture her with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth and a really expensive Harvey's Bristol Cream habit. The kids are grown and after the 3rd husband she gave up on marriage. Her hobbies are bingo, reality TV and 'Happy hour' at the corner bar.

So am I close??

~Marlton Mom

Originally Posted by BeachClubDee

Nah! I fancy myself a redhead. Lose the cigarette, gain a motorcycle and lots of leather. Tequila would be the drink of choice. I'm thinking common law significant other who shares my passion for karaoke.

[KatMark]

Your "pirates" are the best looking pirates, I've ever seen. I love Eric's dance.

[eandesmom]

Originally Posted by BeachClubDee

Funny you should mention this. There was some speculation going on over on the BC boards:

I could make you an avatar

Originally Posted by KatMark

Your "pirates" are the best looking pirates, I've ever seen. I love Eric's dance.

The boy has white man's disease (total spastic dance lol) in a big way but oh he is cute when he does it!

[eandesmom]

Our last day, how could it be!

We slept in a bit and started our day with…our walk around the promenade. I didn’t bring the camera and it was a bit bittersweet knowing it was likely our last time. We hoped to get one in the last morning but weren’t really sure how that would all play out. Afterwards we stopped by Cove Café for one last coffee, using up our punch card. Heading back to the room we got the gang away from the TV and headed up to breakfast. Today we’d be hitting their favorite Beach Blanket, for the buffet. A quick note on breakfast on the Wonder, at least our experience. We ate at Beach Blanket twice for the buffet (the kids 3x), Parrot Cay buffet 1x, Room service 1x, Parrot Cay for our Character Breakfast and Animators for our disembarking breakfast. Jeff and I also had Palo. If I were to do it again I’d skip the Parrot Cay buffet entirely. I’d probably still go to the Character Breakfast since it was a ton of fun, and the disembarking simply b/c we wanted to say goodbye to our table mates and servers. But in both cases the food was not remotely memorable. Room service was fine and hit the spot for something quick on a day we wanted to hit port early.

But, back to Beach Blanket. The boys LOVED beach blanket and really wanted to do a lunch or a dinner there…we never did.

Evan had an exciting breakfast of…sugar. And was happy to show off all his pins. He doesn’t look quite awake yet does he, guess he needed those froot loops! He is also wearing one of the new cheap shirts although you can't see the full design.



Eric looks like he slept in his clothes, talk about bed head! He too showed off his pins



Eric was on a mission to get all of the cruise special pins…and was doing a good job! If memory serves, he ended up with 4 out of the 5. I think the deal was if you spent $25 in the store, you got one mystery pin (one of the porthole ones) for $2 that you could then trade. I thought they were awfully cute, better than a lot of the trading ones I see at WDW. Or at least different!



Serious trading going on



You can see my breakfast in the foreground, yum! I’m not sure what it was but beach blanket had the BEST grapefruit!

Sugar kicking in. The bed head cracks me up, he looks 2 years younger in this am pictures to me.



After breakfast thing get a little fuzzy. I think the boys went to look at pins or trade, and then go for a swim. They wanted to see Pirates since they hadn’t stayed up with us to watch it on pirate night (meaning we didn’t let them lol). I promised them we'd hit the store in the afternoon so they could burn through the rest of their funds. LOL! Jeff and I walked around a bit…and ran into this guy.









Of course I had to get a picture! Someday Jeff will earn to take more than one shot. Arrgh.



We decided we weren’t ready to be done with coffee after all, plus it was windy, so hopped back into Cove Café for a refill!





It’s awfully cute in there, we never actual sat in there though.



Coffee in hand we wandered into Treasure Ketch. I’d been eying something the whole cruise and needed to make a decision. We putzed in there quite a bit checking things out. We found a great t-shirt/hat combo and Jeff really debated about getting it, it was by far the best deal. After debating prices I finally made my selection. A few of the things they had for sale. Most of these pictures are not mine, I have borrowed them from a few different places.



We saw a TON of people in the navy hooded sweatshirt over the course of the cruise, especially on Tracy Arm day. I think they made a killing on that one.















It was a little bit of a bummer. The kids stuff was VERY little kid looking and while the E’s loved some of the adult designs, they were just too darn big. I don’t have any pictures of the actual kids shirts but they were similar (but better actually) than this generic one they are now selling online. I can't recall if the kids shirt even said inaugural sailings or not but a lot of the adult stuff did so I guess that means it will be different stuff this summer.



They also only had one of the special pins. At least I’d gotten to see pictures of the others! I'd checked on that the first night and several times throughout the cruise, they never got any other ones in.







My purchase in hand, we split up.

Continued in next post

[eandesmom]

I wasn’t sure I was done shopping but since I needed to go back with the boys later in the day anyway, I was done for now. I was headed to the stateroom to do laundry, Jeff to the deck or Outlook Café if it was too windy, to sit and read. In retrospect I’m really not sure why I did this. I would not do it again. I did two loads and spent far too much time sitting on the verandah reading and having my coffee so I’d be nearby for the flip (not wanting things stolen). Unfortunately not all passengers were as thoughtful and a few of the machines would get tied up, and dryers not completely drying and so the whole thing took longer. I know at the time I felt like I needed to do this since I’d be putting a full work day the day after we got back and it’d be Saturday before I could really get to laundry again. However I think I wasted hours that I should have spent enjoying the ship. If I’d have needed to do it mid cruise, that would be one thing and while I do like taking home clean stuff, it turns out I missed many things that should have been washed anyway and so it didn’t help the way I thought it would. Plus, thanks to all the shirts they’d bought, no one was low in that area! My goal had been to get things organized so the evening packing wasn’t crazed.

It did however give me a chance to enjoy the verandah





And take some pictures of our few of our FE goodies!

















In between loads, I also visited guest services to check on our bill (I don't like surprises and get paranoid with room charges adding up...like to keep tabs on it!) and made a call to the rebooking desk! I can’t recall if I’d mentioned it before but I’d requested a quote early on and we’d gotten it back. I’d then requested a couple more. After discussing it with Jeff, we decided on a booking and placed a call telling them to go ahead and book it, using the CC on file. This way I never actually waited in line or visited the desk. I admit, I was nervous about this actually working! Especially since I didn’t actually talk to a live person, I just left a voicemail. I did have all my quote numbers and such but hoped I wouldn’t have to call or try to take care of it that evening as I could picture just how long that line would be!
In between the next loads (drying) I went to Shutters, figured out our picture selections and placed the order for a couple additional of 5x7’s that would be ready the next day to complete the package. That took WAY longer than I’d expected, I had a hard time narrowing it down. Still, it was nice to take care of it without any kids or husbands rushing the process.
I am honestly not sure how long I was in the room doing laundry and packing but I do know it was far longer than I’d expected to be. I must have had lunch at some point but I can’t recall. I’d started at 11:30 and by the time I finished everything it was somewhere in between 2-2:30. What I should have done was take care of the rebooking and Shutters and do some organizing…but skip the whole laundry thing. If I’d have really needed to do it, I should have done it mid cruise. Oh well. It was nice sitting on the verandah and taking care of things solo (so much faster) but I couldn’t help worrying I was wasting a bit of my last day. Once it was all done it felt good, though Jeff was clearly a little bit annoyed with how long I’d been gone.

What now?

[natebenma]

Last day. So sad!

That's a great wrapup review on the breakfast restaurants.

Bummer about spending more time on laundry than you wanted to. How far away were you from the laundry room?

At least you had some nice verandah time.

Have you made it ok through today's weather? Is it as bad as they are hyping it around here?

[glennbo123]

The bed head....I don't remember being that way at their age, but I probably was. James will "comb" his hair with his fingers or just put a hood up and try to sneak out the door.

Yes, I was wondering how you folks are making out with the weather also. Are you hunkered down watching the snow accumulate?

[tinacaplan]

Incredibly cute pictures with the boys. I love the shot you got of Mickey just strolling around. Its neat how they have so much cruise specific merchandise. Why can't they do that with the resorts anymore?

So sad to see it end...thanks for all the beautiful photography you've shared with us and you've given me yet another trip to look forward to when Max is a little older. Its one of those trips I'd want him to really remember.

[eandesmom]

Originally Posted by natebenma

Last day. So sad!

Very sad! Though I still have a lot for this day so it's not over yet!

Originally Posted by natebenma

That's a great wrapup review on the breakfast restaurants.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by natebenma

Bummer about spending more time on laundry than you wanted to. How far away were you from the laundry room?

At least you had some nice verandah time.

We weren't far at all actually, just down a LONG hall. It was more about the limited number of machines and the high demand and some not drying fast at all. You needed to be nearby or it really would be rude. If I could have done 2 loads at once, I'd have cut the time in half and I should have just stuck to one load but oh well. I did appreciate it once we got home.

Originally Posted by natebenma

Have you made it ok through today's weather? Is it as bad as they are hyping it around here?

After living in Chicago, Seattle is a funny town. We really come to a halt when it snows. It does it 1-3x per year but we just aren't equipped for it. We have hills, lots of them and a few plows and sand trucks to try to hit them all. We live in what is called a "convergence zone" so often, if it does snow, we will get more than many. Our biggest problem is literally getting out of our own street, which is a hill. Once you get to the bottom you hit main streets and there are long ways around that are pretty flat, well traveled and plowed.

That said, I generally just work from home when it does this. Too many idiots on the road that don't have the right car, know how to drive in it, etc. Not worth it. In the big picture of snow, we've had nothing. I think we got tops a total of 6" max. I worked from home yesterday and today, and might tomorrow...we will see. Lost internet for a couple of hours tonight. It will be day 3 of no school for the kids tomorrow so they are pretty happy. The buses do NOT do well on the hills with any ice. I did go out yesterday around lunch and hit the grocery just to be safe so we are in good shape in that area. It actually got downgraded quite a bit but worst case, there are 2 mini marts in walking distance if we had to!

Last time it did this, I was coming home from my Germany trip and had quite the time getting home! Poor shuttle couldn't make it up the street so we had to "roll" my suitcase home in the snow.

Originally Posted by glennbo123

The bed head....I don't remember being that way at their age, but I probably was. James will "comb" his hair with his fingers or just put a hood up and try to sneak out the door.

The funny part of it is that Evan is VERY concerned about how his hair looks. You can tell he was in breakfast/vacation mood. Eric on the other hand will just go...and not even notice.

Originally Posted by glennbo123

Yes, I was wondering how you folks are making out with the weather also. Are you hunkered down watching the snow accumulate?

We may have had some wine by the fire...the kids may have been sledding for 2 days...and there may be a pot of chili on the stove....

It's funny, both Jeff and I were like BRING IT ON! A snow day or two, is not always a bad thing! Turning to rain at the moment but we are high enough up that it is likely to get us more snow tonight. Yesterday was probably the most frustrating. K's school called it early. The E's schools called a 2 hour delay and then LITERALLY as we were taking them to the bus, getting ready for a patrol carpool, they called it closed. Granted it hit Jeff not me (on a budget conference call, fun stuff) but seriously...they could have called it 30 minutes earlier and spared a lot of confused folks. Jeff ended up running home a couple of Evan's friends from the snow route stop and several other kids were there...entirely confused. Good thing we both can work from home.

Originally Posted by tinacaplan

Incredibly cute pictures with the boys. I love the shot you got of Mickey just strolling around. Its neat how they have so much cruise specific merchandise. Why can't they do that with the resorts anymore?

The funny part though was that there was a ton of "warm" cruise merch, lots of castaway cay stuff etc. For those of us that had never been it was a little frustrating as there was more (proportionately) than generic DCL or Alaska themed stuff.

I agree with you about the resorts. I would love some resort themed coffee mugs and nope...don't have a one!

Originally Posted by tinacaplan

So sad to see it end...thanks for all the beautiful photography you've shared with us and you've given me yet another trip to look forward to when Max is a little older. Its one of those trips I'd want him to really remember.

Oh we still have a lot to go, I'm not done yet!

[englishrose47]

Great update as usual Cynthia !!The Bed Head pix is soooo cute !!Kyle's hair is always so short he never has bedhead !! Now Steph has some sceery bedheadTakes after her Mom

[eandesmom]

Originally Posted by englishrose47

Great update as usual Cynthia !!The Bed Head pix is soooo cute !!Kyle's hair is always so short he never has bedhead !! Now Steph has some sceery bedheadTakes after her Mom

I love the fact that Evan went out the door with bedhead, that means he was really in vacation mode. Eric on the other hand...has bedhead everyday no matter what!

[CarolynK]

Hi There! I recently found your report, it's been fun reading. I haven't read much of the comments (I've mostly just clicked on your links), so I apologize if this has been asked already, but I'm curious about swimming on your cruise. We went on a Princess AK cruise a few years ago, and despite the fact that the pool area was covered, it was freezing in there because people kept leaving the doors open. We hardly swam, it was just too cold (my kids were 10 & 8 then). But, I'm guessing that on a Disney cruise where there are a lot more kids, a better attempt is made to keep the pool areas warmer?
Despite being native to Chicago, I need the air temperature hovering around 85 degrees to even consider getting wet

[eandesmom]

Originally Posted by CarolynK

Hi There! I recently found your report, it's been fun reading. I haven't read much of the comments (I've mostly just clicked on your links), so I apologize if this has been asked already, but I'm curious about swimming on your cruise. We went on a Princess AK cruise a few years ago, and despite the fact that the pool area was covered, it was freezing in there because people kept leaving the doors open. We hardly swam, it was just too cold (my kids were 10 & 8 then). But, I'm guessing that on a Disney cruise where there are a lot more kids, a better attempt is made to keep the pool areas warmer?
Despite being native to Chicago, I need the air temperature hovering around 85 degrees to even consider getting wet

Hi and

Well...not exactly. It's not a covered area (at any of the 3 pools) so you can't really keep the exterior area warm. The pool however is around 82 and the hot tubs 90's or higher so once you are in the water, it's lovely. Air temp in AK isn't going to get close to 85 though...warmest we had was probably mid 70's and that was on departure day out of Vancouver. The hot tubs do have a roof so I suppose if it was raining they'd be warmer than the pool but it's not truly enclosed at all. Very much like hot tubbing after skiing. It's a different kind of cold than Chicago (I lived there for 10 years) and typically will feel colder to a Midwesterner than it is, due to the change in humidity, it's a "damp" cold that you don't get in the midwest at all.