Our WONDERful first trip "home" to Alaska- A Trip Report -Finished 1/8!!! - The DIS Discussion Forums

happenin2you · 06-04-2012, 08:25 PM

Hi! I'm Deanna. If you don't know me, I'm 27 and happily married to my best friend, Chris. Here we are on the happiest day of our lives.

Fast forward to last year, we spent our 4th anniversary at Disneyland and did something we've been thinking about since our honeymoon at WDW, we bought DVC!

So we booked a cruise to Alaska on the Wonder for our first trip "Home" from May 21-28. Chris has been wanting to do an Alaskan cruise for some time and it just worked out perfect for us.

That's where the title for this report comes from, we cruised on the Disney Wonder to Alaska and it was our first trip "home" as DVC members, for those who don't know, it was our first vacation with our Disney timeshare.

The plan was to spend a couple days before and after the cruise in Vancouver, BC and Seattle, WA just exploring and searching for good food, which is what we always do on vacation

.
We are foodies, so there will be plenty of food porn to feast your eyes on.

Handy Dandy links to updates:
Saturday May 19: Leaving Las Vegas

Sunday May 20: Vancouver
Vancouver Aquarium part 1
Vancouver Aquarium part 2
Stanley Park and Vera's Burgers

Monday May 21: Getting to the Wonder
Lunch, exploring the Wonder, and Sail Away show with videos
Dinner and fun and games

Tuesday May 22: Art of Entertaining, Palo Brunch, more exploring
Tastings and Animator's Palate
Cove Cafe sunset and coffee

Wednesday May 23: Tracy Arm Day
Endicott Arm
Glacier!
Last of the glacier and dinner at Animator's
Dessert at Animator's and more

Thursday May 24: Welcome to Skagway
mmm... salmon chowder
Lunch and a museum
The brothel tour and dinner at Parrot Cay

Friday May 25: Juneau and the State Capitol
Capitol and Governor's Mansion
Mt Roberts Tramway
Top of Juneau and Pirates!
Taste of Alaska dinner

Saturday May 26: Character breakfast and Ketchikan
More Ketchikan and dinner

Sunday May 27: Captain's Gala and Till We Meet Again

Monday May 28: Discovering the Olive8 and Pike Place
Seattle Underground and lunch

Tuesday May 29: The Duck on land
The Duck on water
The last update!!!

Link to TR with Navigator's from this cruise

Birthday update Sunday June 10- Palazzo Suite and Cabana

Colorado mini TR Friday June 15- Monday June 18- Getting there, Aquarium, bang!, Sam's No. 3, Coors Brewing Company
Coors Brewery part 1
Coors Brewery part 2
Coors Brewery part 3
Coors Brewery part 4
Coors Brewery part 5
Family, Tea, and Steuben's

Various Foods non-cruise related
From my kitchen, John Mull's Road Kill Grill (Las Vegas), El Segundo Sol (Las Vegas), Snooze (Denver, CO), Virgilio's (Littleton, CO), Dbar (Denver, CO)
Jack N Grill (Denver, CO), Duffeyroll's (Denver, CO), Denver Biscuit Company (Denver, CO), Disneyland Resort

Up next: Leaving Las Vegas

pixie08 · 06-04-2012, 08:33 PM

I'm in. Sounds Amazing!

happenin2you · 06-04-2012, 08:56 PM

So I'm a mad woman, I always schedule myself to work on the day we're leaving for vacation. It's really ridiculous because I'm always my least productive when I'm dreaming about going away to somewhere exciting. So I got up bright and early on Saturday May 19 and went to work to sell drugs, at Walgreen's That's what I do when I'm not being a forever student, I'm a pharmacy technician. It was pretty slow that day so my boss let me leave early. We were all packed and ready to go so we just had some relaxing time for a bit before we left for our flight to Vancouver. We arrived in Canada about 12:45 am and I finally got a stamp in my passport!

I felt like that was the official start of my vacation so I started taking pictures of things in the airport.

We got a taxi to our hotel since we were told the shuttle didn't run this late, but were told to get a receipt and we would be reimbursed at check in. Our speed maniac taxi driver got us to our hotel super quickly and then said he didn't take credit, which was ok since I had ordered canadian currency from our bank, but then we forgot to ask for a reciept. When we checked in Chris told the girl what he was told about reimbursement for the cab fare and that he forgot to ask for the receipt and she just asked how much we paid and gave it to us anyways. This was the first of several great encounters with great customer service and friendly people in Canada. They're just so happy up there!

We were exhausted from a long day of traveling and fell asleep pretty quickly.

Next up: A full day in Vancouver

happenin2you · 06-04-2012, 09:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pixie08

I'm in. Sounds Amazing!

Hi! Thanks for joining in!

DisSarahK · 06-04-2012, 09:46 PM

Yay, an Alaska trip report! Post lots of details (I'm so demanding!) because I'm sooooo excited about our cruise in August and want to live vicariously through everyone else while I wait!

happenin2you · 06-04-2012, 09:50 PM

The next morning I woke up bright and early and checked my lovely view from our window and saw this

Nice. We just so happen to have a membership there and were planning to buy some bottled water to keep in our stateroom. I'm really specific about water, I hate spring water.

That's all they had so we didn't get any, but we did find the amazing cookies they had on our flight in, so we grabbed a box of those to bring back to the states. When we were checking out, we discovered our membership had expired, in April.... we weren't planning to renew it right then, so we were going to leave, but the manager came over and swiped his card so we could buy the cookies. Score!

After our Costco adventure, we went back across the street to our hotel and waited for the shuttle to take us back to the airport so we could pick up our rental car. We didn't get it the night before because the shuttle was free and we didn't see any reason to pay for the car for an extra day. When we got to Hertz, we were offered an upgrade to a Ford Fusion for $16 or a small Mercedes SUV for $25. This is what we got

Crazy, right? Chris has been thinking about buying one and he thought it would be a good opportunity to see if he really liked it, which he did.

From here we went in search of my favorite Canadian coffee chain, Tim Horton's.

We got a chocolate glazed donut, a boston creme, a sour cream donut, and two caramel iced capps! Delicious! I don't ever pass up a chance to have a Tim Horton's Iced Capp, they're amazing!

The plan after this was to drive by the cruise port so we had an idea of where it was and the spend some time exploring Stanley Park. While we were safely parked in our car in the Tim Horton's parking lot, setting the navigation to our next destination, a woman parked her car right next to ours and opened her door right into my passenger side door, with me sitting right there!

Are you kidding me? Then she acted like nothing happened and went in to Tim Horton's. I was going to run after her and throw a fit, but I looked and there wasn't any damage on the car. This of course was right after we had denied the insurnace from Hertz. Since there wasn't anything visibly wrong, we decided to go on with our day and not waste our time trying to figure out American and Canadian insurance companies.

We were staying in Richmond, which is where the airport is, and the drive to Vancouver was probably 15-20 minutes. It is absolutely beautiful there. I should have taken pictures of the scenery in the city, but I was working with the navigation and I'm not very good with miles:kilometer conversions, so I never really knew how far away we were from something and was constantly watching for the next turn. We found the Canada Place cruise port fairly quickly and easily, and then we moved on to Stanley Park. By this point it was raining. Chris had planned for us to rent bicycles and tour around the park, but the weather was not permitting and I wasn't feeling like getting soaked and cold. Instead, we opted for indoor activities.

Next up: The Vancouver Aquarium

happenin2you · 06-04-2012, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DisSarahK

Yay, an Alaska trip report! Post lots of details (I'm so demanding!) because I'm sooooo excited about our cruise in August and want to live vicariously through everyone else while I wait!

I'm glad to have you! I saved all the navigators and things so I will have lots of details between those and my memories. Thanks for joining in

Momma2Jax · 06-04-2012, 10:46 PM

Joining in! Can't wait to be on the opposite cruise (SEA to Vancouver repo) in Sept!!

DisSarahK · 06-04-2012, 10:53 PM

People do that more and more with car doors--I've been in my car a couple of times lately and been banged into and the people haven't cared one whit! One lady even got annoyed with *me* because I wasn't pleased that she whacked my car with her door! So frustrating. I'm glad there wasn't damage to your rental.

trimix · 06-05-2012, 01:03 AM

I will be on the Wonder in two weeks and am really looking forward to the rest of your report!

I wish I had met you before now - I live just about halfway between Seattle and Vancouver, and could have given you some food suggestions!

lovealldisney · 06-05-2012, 06:14 AM

Sounds like this will be a great TR! Joining in.. Thanks for sharing...

jenf22 · 06-05-2012, 08:04 AM

Woo hoo! I am so happy there are now TWO of you guys doing trip reports from this cruise! We're doing the reverse (Seattle to Vancouver) in September and I am SO EXCITED

I can't wait to read the rest and (hopefully) see Navigators! Thank you for doing this!

Mamapapa · 06-05-2012, 11:27 AM

Sounds like fun - I'm in!!!!

Señor DonDuck · 06-05-2012, 11:28 AM

You had me at food porn.

Joining in!

Linda67 · 06-05-2012, 02:13 PM

Count me in

06-04-2012, 08:25 PM	#1
happenin2you Mouseketeer Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Las Vegas, NV Posts: 376	Our WONDERful first trip "home" to Alaska- A Trip Report -Finished 1/8!!! Hi! I'm Deanna. If you don't know me, I'm 27 and happily married to my best friend, Chris. Here we are on the happiest day of our lives. Fast forward to last year, we spent our 4th anniversary at Disneyland and did something we've been thinking about since our honeymoon at WDW, we bought DVC! So we booked a cruise to Alaska on the Wonder for our first trip "Home" from May 21-28. Chris has been wanting to do an Alaskan cruise for some time and it just worked out perfect for us. That's where the title for this report comes from, we cruised on the Disney Wonder to Alaska and it was our first trip "home" as DVC members, for those who don't know, it was our first vacation with our Disney timeshare. The plan was to spend a couple days before and after the cruise in Vancouver, BC and Seattle, WA just exploring and searching for good food, which is what we always do on vacation . We are foodies, so there will be plenty of food porn to feast your eyes on. Handy Dandy links to updates: Saturday May 19: Leaving Las Vegas Sunday May 20: Vancouver Vancouver Aquarium part 1 Vancouver Aquarium part 2 Stanley Park and Vera's Burgers Monday May 21: Getting to the Wonder Lunch, exploring the Wonder, and Sail Away show with videos Dinner and fun and games Tuesday May 22: Art of Entertaining, Palo Brunch, more exploring Tastings and Animator's Palate Cove Cafe sunset and coffee Wednesday May 23: Tracy Arm Day Endicott Arm Glacier! Last of the glacier and dinner at Animator's Dessert at Animator's and more Thursday May 24: Welcome to Skagway mmm... salmon chowder Lunch and a museum The brothel tour and dinner at Parrot Cay Friday May 25: Juneau and the State Capitol Capitol and Governor's Mansion Mt Roberts Tramway Top of Juneau and Pirates! Taste of Alaska dinner Saturday May 26: Character breakfast and Ketchikan More Ketchikan and dinner Sunday May 27: Captain's Gala and Till We Meet Again Monday May 28: Discovering the Olive8 and Pike Place Seattle Underground and lunch Tuesday May 29: The Duck on land The Duck on water The last update!!! Link to TR with Navigator's from this cruise Birthday update Sunday June 10- Palazzo Suite and Cabana Colorado mini TR Friday June 15- Monday June 18- Getting there, Aquarium, bang!, Sam's No. 3, Coors Brewing Company Coors Brewery part 1 Coors Brewery part 2 Coors Brewery part 3 Coors Brewery part 4 Coors Brewery part 5 Family, Tea, and Steuben's Various Foods non-cruise related From my kitchen, John Mull's Road Kill Grill (Las Vegas), El Segundo Sol (Las Vegas), Snooze (Denver, CO), Virgilio's (Littleton, CO), Dbar (Denver, CO) Jack N Grill (Denver, CO), Duffeyroll's (Denver, CO), Denver Biscuit Company (Denver, CO), Disneyland Resort Up next: Leaving Las Vegas __________________ Me DH A WONDERful Alaskan trip report May 21-28, 2012 Last edited by happenin2you; 01-08-2013 at 06:03 PM. Reason: New links!

06-04-2012, 08:33 PM	#2
pixie08 DIS Veteran Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: New York Posts: 4,837	I'm in. Sounds Amazing! __________________ *Mary* Too many times to count...

06-04-2012, 08:56 PM	#3
happenin2you Mouseketeer Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Las Vegas, NV Posts: 376	So I'm a mad woman, I always schedule myself to work on the day we're leaving for vacation. It's really ridiculous because I'm always my least productive when I'm dreaming about going away to somewhere exciting. So I got up bright and early on Saturday May 19 and went to work to sell drugs, at Walgreen's That's what I do when I'm not being a forever student, I'm a pharmacy technician. It was pretty slow that day so my boss let me leave early. We were all packed and ready to go so we just had some relaxing time for a bit before we left for our flight to Vancouver. We arrived in Canada about 12:45 am and I finally got a stamp in my passport! I felt like that was the official start of my vacation so I started taking pictures of things in the airport. We got a taxi to our hotel since we were told the shuttle didn't run this late, but were told to get a receipt and we would be reimbursed at check in. Our speed maniac taxi driver got us to our hotel super quickly and then said he didn't take credit, which was ok since I had ordered canadian currency from our bank, but then we forgot to ask for a reciept. When we checked in Chris told the girl what he was told about reimbursement for the cab fare and that he forgot to ask for the receipt and she just asked how much we paid and gave it to us anyways. This was the first of several great encounters with great customer service and friendly people in Canada. They're just so happy up there! We were exhausted from a long day of traveling and fell asleep pretty quickly. Next up: A full day in Vancouver __________________ Me DH A WONDERful Alaskan trip report May 21-28, 2012

06-04-2012, 09:46 PM	#5
DisSarahK Missing Mickey... Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Western Washington State Posts: 1,472	Yay, an Alaska trip report! Post lots of details (I'm so demanding!) because I'm sooooo excited about our cruise in August and want to live vicariously through everyone else while I wait! __________________ plus age 9 and age 7 Disneyland 9/16-20 '08 & 9/13-18 '10 at the DI&S and the DLH 9/10-17 '11 and the Grand 2/26-3/2 '13 Disney Wonder to Alaska 8/20-27 '12...next cruise Disney Wonder to the Bahamas 11/23-30 '13

06-04-2012, 09:50 PM	#6
happenin2you Mouseketeer Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Las Vegas, NV Posts: 376	Vancouver The next morning I woke up bright and early and checked my lovely view from our window and saw this Nice. We just so happen to have a membership there and were planning to buy some bottled water to keep in our stateroom. I'm really specific about water, I hate spring water. That's all they had so we didn't get any, but we did find the amazing cookies they had on our flight in, so we grabbed a box of those to bring back to the states. When we were checking out, we discovered our membership had expired, in April.... we weren't planning to renew it right then, so we were going to leave, but the manager came over and swiped his card so we could buy the cookies. Score! After our Costco adventure, we went back across the street to our hotel and waited for the shuttle to take us back to the airport so we could pick up our rental car. We didn't get it the night before because the shuttle was free and we didn't see any reason to pay for the car for an extra day. When we got to Hertz, we were offered an upgrade to a Ford Fusion for $16 or a small Mercedes SUV for $25. This is what we got Crazy, right? Chris has been thinking about buying one and he thought it would be a good opportunity to see if he really liked it, which he did. From here we went in search of my favorite Canadian coffee chain, Tim Horton's. We got a chocolate glazed donut, a boston creme, a sour cream donut, and two caramel iced capps! Delicious! I don't ever pass up a chance to have a Tim Horton's Iced Capp, they're amazing! The plan after this was to drive by the cruise port so we had an idea of where it was and the spend some time exploring Stanley Park. While we were safely parked in our car in the Tim Horton's parking lot, setting the navigation to our next destination, a woman parked her car right next to ours and opened her door right into my passenger side door, with me sitting right there! Are you kidding me? Then she acted like nothing happened and went in to Tim Horton's. I was going to run after her and throw a fit, but I looked and there wasn't any damage on the car. This of course was right after we had denied the insurnace from Hertz. Since there wasn't anything visibly wrong, we decided to go on with our day and not waste our time trying to figure out American and Canadian insurance companies. We were staying in Richmond, which is where the airport is, and the drive to Vancouver was probably 15-20 minutes. It is absolutely beautiful there. I should have taken pictures of the scenery in the city, but I was working with the navigation and I'm not very good with miles:kilometer conversions, so I never really knew how far away we were from something and was constantly watching for the next turn. We found the Canada Place cruise port fairly quickly and easily, and then we moved on to Stanley Park. By this point it was raining. Chris had planned for us to rent bicycles and tour around the park, but the weather was not permitting and I wasn't feeling like getting soaked and cold. Instead, we opted for indoor activities. Next up: The Vancouver Aquarium __________________ Me DH A WONDERful Alaskan trip report May 21-28, 2012

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06-04-2012, 10:46 PM	#8
Momma2Jax DIS Veteran Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 611	Joining in! Can't wait to be on the opposite cruise (SEA to Vancouver repo) in Sept!! __________________ Me DH DS 4

06-04-2012, 10:53 PM	#9
DisSarahK Missing Mickey... Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Western Washington State Posts: 1,472	People do that more and more with car doors--I've been in my car a couple of times lately and been banged into and the people haven't cared one whit! One lady even got annoyed with me because I wasn't pleased that she whacked my car with her door! So frustrating. I'm glad there wasn't damage to your rental. __________________ plus age 9 and age 7 Disneyland 9/16-20 '08 & 9/13-18 '10 at the DI&S and the DLH 9/10-17 '11 and the Grand 2/26-3/2 '13 Disney Wonder to Alaska 8/20-27 '12...next cruise Disney Wonder to the Bahamas 11/23-30 '13

06-05-2012, 01:03 AM	#10
trimix DIS Veteran Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Bellingham, WA Posts: 1,891	I will be on the Wonder in two weeks and am really looking forward to the rest of your report! I wish I had met you before now - I live just about halfway between Seattle and Vancouver, and could have given you some food suggestions! __________________ Disneyland more times than I can count. WDW 8/2008 Disney Magic - Western Caribbean 8/2009 Disney Wonder - West Coast repo 4/2011

06-05-2012, 06:14 AM	#11
lovealldisney Lover of all things Disney! Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 1,392	Sounds like this will be a great TR! Joining in.. Thanks for sharing... __________________ Disney 1972-77 Fell in love with Disney! Offsite 1985 POFQ 1997 POFQ 2003 POP 2007 DH Me DS 19 DD 16

06-05-2012, 08:04 AM	#12
jenf22 DIS Veteran Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Beautiful Colorado Posts: 592	Woo hoo! I am so happy there are now TWO of you guys doing trip reports from this cruise! We're doing the reverse (Seattle to Vancouver) in September and I am SO EXCITED I can't wait to read the rest and (hopefully) see Navigators! Thank you for doing this!

06-05-2012, 11:27 AM	#13
Mamapapa Twins fill our house with chaos, and our hearts with love. Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: New York Posts: 291	Sounds like fun - I'm in!!!! __________________ . . Me ..DH ..DS9 DS2 DD2 2008 - First "Family of Three" Trip! (Poly) 2011 - DS7 "No Twins" Trip (PopCentury/Hurricane Irene) 2012 - Mom/Daughter Trip!! (POFQ/DH & the kids stay home!) 2013 - Mommy/Son Dream Cruise! (Daddy & the twins stay home!) 2015 - First "Family of 5" Trip to WDW!!! (aka: the twins finally leave NY!)

06-05-2012, 11:28 AM	#14
Señor DonDuck DIS Veteran Join Date: Feb 2010 Posts: 574	You had me at food porn. Joining in!

06-05-2012, 02:13 PM	#15
Linda67 Has a Masters in Margaritas Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: England Posts: 4,217	Count me in __________________ Disneyland TR - April 2013 Cick Here To Read My May 2012 Dining Review!! Click Here To Read My January 2012 Disneyland Paris TR!! Click Here To Read My October 2011 Dining Review !! Click Here To Read My May 2011 Dining Review !! Check Out My February 2011 Disneyland Paris TR Here !! Click Here To Read My March 2010 Dining Review !!

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