321GO - The Alternative West Coast PTR

[Chilly]

Welcome to my PTR for my latest adventure. I'm very excited about the holiday which is in 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days, but we only booked it yesterday which is very unusual for us as I love to plan but real life got in the way with getting something booked and now it seems very close and nothing is sorted. What makes me extra nervous about it being so close and having nothing organised is that DH is planning this holiday not me, I promised him back in 2010 that he could pick where we went this year but I said he couldn't pick and then leave me to do all the hard work. I cannot help interfering here and there though and have to keep proding him to research stuff. So at Christmas we decided enough was enough we were booking a holiday, I sat DH down with the laptop and told him to pick somewhere. Three days later he says to me i've got 3 options, I nearly cried when he told me because they all contained a bit of Disney and I was having serious Disney blues. I was happy with all 3 options so let him pick the one he liked best. We've mulled it over these last 3 weeks and as I said finally booked part of it yesterday so the plan is, drumroll please...

4 nights in Vancouver
7 night Disney Wonder Cruise to Alaska
2 nights in Seattle
3 nights in San Diego

So very excited to be doing a Disney cruise again. Although its ironic that when we did our honeymoon cruise it was January and rather cold we said we'd do a cruise again in hot weather and we've ended up on a cold cruise again. Also happy to be finally seeing San Diego after missing it out on both of our West Coast Trips in 2005 and 2011.

So far we've booked the cruise with Dreams and the flights with BA inc an internal flight with AA through Expedia. We had hoped to fly Virgin and use our airmiles to go PE but they only start flying to Vancouver a week after we fly! No hotels are booked yet but may have decided on the Seattle one, need to keep the cost down on hotels as much as possible as the trip is really adding up. On the cruise we're just in a inside cabin to save on money and on the honeymoon we never used our balconey.

I'll be back soon with more info and details plus why its called the 321 TR but i'll leave you with this photo for now as DH has challanged me to lose enough weight to fit into this dress in time for Palo again!

[tony64]

Sounds fantastic Claire, you'll have to tell us more at Tony Romas.

[wilma-bride]

Wow, you just coul;nd't wait to get the pre-trippy started. Glad you (sorry, Mike) got it booked. And at least you get to choose where you go next year

I know what you mean, being nervous about leaving Mike to do all the planning. Gary could never do it (actually, that's a lie, I could never leave him in peace to do it )

Looking forward to hearing more about your plans. That's a gorgeous dress, by the way. If I lose enough weight, can I borrow it for MY holiday in August

[Chilly]

Originally Posted by tony64

Sounds fantastic Claire, you'll have to tell us more at Tony Romas.

Not a problem!

Originally Posted by wilma-bride

Wow, you just coul;nd't wait to get the pre-trippy started. Glad you (sorry, Mike) got it booked. And at least you get to choose where you go next year

I know what you mean, being nervous about leaving Mike to do all the planning. Gary could never do it (actually, that's a lie, I could never leave him in peace to do it )

Looking forward to hearing more about your plans. That's a gorgeous dress, by the way. If I lose enough weight, can I borrow it for MY holiday in August

This makes it more real Joh. I have to say i'm not doing very well at leaving Mike to it. You can of course borrow my dress.

[Chilly]

Well to start with it feels like a race to get everything booked, researched and organised and we're in the starting blocks now. But it also symbolises the different bits of the trip...

3 flights - 2 countries - 1 cruise

3 states - 2 new to us - 1 we've been to before

3 ports on the cruise - 2 days at sea - 1 cruising day

i've got some more but they're a bit of a stretch so i'll leave it there!

[Claire L]

Oh sounds like a great holiday, you will love Seattle

I so want to go to Alaska and San Diego so will be good to hear your thoughts once you have been.

[mandymouse]

Your plans sound fab Claire I look forward to hearing more about them Good luck with your diet, that's a lovely dress

[cannp123165]

Love the name! Sounds like a great trip, and definitely something I would love to do!

[Chilly]

Originally Posted by Claire L

Oh sounds like a great holiday, you will love Seattle

I so want to go to Alaska and San Diego so will be good to hear your thoughts once you have been.

I liked reading about Seattle in your TR gave me some ideas.

Originally Posted by mandymouse

Your plans sound fab Claire I look forward to hearing more about them Good luck with your diet, that's a lovely dress

Diet is so far going terrible

Originally Posted by cannp123165

Love the name! Sounds like a great trip, and definitely something I would love to do!

I can't wait.

[Chilly]

I am so excited for the cruise for various reasons. Number 1, it will be a nice reminder of the honeymoon, number 2, the food esp Palo, number 3 it'll be fairly relaxing with lots of down time, and number 4, i'm very excited to go to Alaska. This is the itinerary, I like that we board in one port but return to a different one:

7-Night Alaskan Cruise on Disney Wonder - Itinerary C
May 21 to May 28

1 Vancouver, Canada onboard 4:00 p.m.
2 At Sea
3 Tracy Arm, Alaska Cruising Day
4 Skagway, Alaska docks 7:15 a.m. onboard 7:30 p.m.
5 Juneau, Alaska docks 7:45 a.m. onboard 5:30 p.m.
6 Ketchikan, Alaska docks 11:15 a.m. onboard 4:30 p.m.
7 At Sea
8 Seattle, Washington 9:00 a.m. end of cruise

None of the ports are very big so we will probably book excursions in each one, as we need to save money we'll be looking to not book these through Disney so this weekend will probably be spent doing some tour guide research.

We've opted for an inside cabin to save money and have cabin 7619 which is right by our honeymoon cabin so happy with that. We're by the secret deck so that might be a good spot for the Tracey Arm day if the main decks are busy and i've heard that other than that day the decks remain pretty empty because of the cold.

[irongirlof12]

Sounds amazing

[Linda67]

Wow this sounds like a fantastic trip

I'd love to do an Alaskan Cruise and can't wait to hear more about your plans

[princess_ariel_85]

Sounds like it's going to be one heck of a trip!

Can't wait to hear more x

[DISWolves]

Just hopping' on board....looking forward to the Alaska report

[Chilly]

I logged on to the BA website to pick our seats but when I saw you had to pay I deicded against it, I'll just have to hope when I do online check in the day before I can get some ok seats. We won't be staying at the airport the night before and i'll leave booking our transport to the airport till nearer the time just in case we've moved so that's way down on the to do list, we'll be hiring a car in San Diego so that's still to sort but this weekend we did book our 3 hotels so that is a big thing off the list.

In Vancouver we've opted for Blue Horizen for 2 reasons, 1 its location and 2 it's supposed to have good views.



For Seattle again location was key as we aren't there for long so we've picked the Monaco after a Disser suggested it, we had been going to pick the Westin after another Disser suggested it but decided to go for a smaller hotel with hopefully nicer rooms.





In San Diego I of course wanted to stay here...



but that was way out of the budget so we're staying nearby at another Disser suggested hotel the Glorietta Bay Inn.





Next on the to do list is picking our cruise tours.