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

[AZMermaid]

Great report so far! I'm in!

[caitlinsdad]

Thanks , we will be on the Wonder next year from Vancouver, Thanks for the city sights

[barbbarnes]

What a great trip report! I'm also a foodie and can't wait to read and see more

[happenin2you]

Hey guys! Just wanted to let you all know that I haven't forgotten about you or abandoned my trip report. Tomorrow is my 28th birthday and since Thursday night I've been getting together with various family members and friends to celebrate. I'm planning to make another update in the next few days, and then we'll be off to Denver, CO for my husband's uncle's 50th birthday celebration. Hope you all are having a great week!

[jenf22]

Originally Posted by happenin2you

Hey guys! Just wanted to let you all know that I haven't forgotten about you or abandoned my trip report. Tomorrow is my 28th birthday and since Thursday night I've been getting together with various family members and friends to celebrate. I'm planning to make another update in the next few days, and then we'll be off to Denver, CO for my husband's uncle's 50th birthday celebration. Hope you all are having a great week!

Happy birthday! Hope you have a great time in Denver. We've been having great weather - hope it holds out for you. There is a big fire right now (not near Denver), so there may be some smoke.

Love your trip report! Thanks so much for doing it!

[punkin413]

I'm here....I'll catch up later! Can't wait to hear all about it!

[happenin2you]

Originally Posted by Leshaface

Mmm, his burger looks amazing! Not so sure about the fries though.

Holy moly that's a lot for booze! I'm so glad we brought some alcohol with us on our cruise. I hate paying jacked up prices, when I know I can make it for myself for less than half the price.

Chris was pretty into that burger. The liquor prices were obscene! I was pleasantly surprised by the not crazy high drink prices on board the Wonder.

Originally Posted by disneydiva16

Count me in!!! Your trip report sounds awesome so far. Love all the pictures. I cant wait to visit Alaska one day

Welcome! Alaska is beautiful! You'll love it.

Originally Posted by Momma2Jax

Great report about the aquarium and totem poles! We are looking for things to do when we disembark in Sept!

Meanwhile...you have all these pictures of the rain, fog, and humidity, then a picture of your hair all nice looking. Um, what the heckl

Can't wait till the next one!

Stanley Park was a good time. It would have been so much better if we could have done all the outdoorsy stuff we wanted, but we still had a good time. The funny thing about my hair is it's sooo straight, humidity does nothing to it. Unfortunately, it doesn't like to hold a curl or no matter how much product I use, it refuses to be voluminous. I'm over it. Thanks for the compliment though

Originally Posted by trimix

Your waist and cholesterol numbers will probably be glad that we didn't meet before your cruise. One place I have to recommend in downtown Vancouver is a dessert restaurant called Death by Chocolate. The last time I was there, I worried that I would be diagnosed with diabetes the next morning!
And on the drive to Seattle, in White Rock which is immediately before the border, there are several fish & chips restaurants overlooking a bay. Moby Dick's is my favorite, and you can easily make yourself sick trying two or three at once to notice the subtle differences in flavor.

We saw Death By Chocolate, but I think we were trying to hurry to the ship at that time so we couldn't stop. The other places we would have missed because we didn't drive between Seattle and Vancouver. Maybe next time we will try that though. It seems a lot of people did and they enjoyed it.

Originally Posted by Linda67

Great update, love the pictures

I hope it stops raining for you soon

The rain does stop at just the right moment.

Originally Posted by Chilly

I remember that rain. Glad I didn't go get some alcohol then if it was pricey. It'll be interesting to read about the cruise I was on from someone elses perspective.

That's what I was thinking. I've subscribed to the other reports I've seen so far and we all saw and did different things.

Originally Posted by AZMermaid

Great report so far! I'm in!

Thanks! Welcome!

Originally Posted by caitlinsdad

Thanks , we will be on the Wonder next year from Vancouver, Thanks for the city sights

Glad to share!

Originally Posted by barbbarnes

What a great trip report! I'm also a foodie and can't wait to read and see more

There will be more, I promise.

Originally Posted by jenf22

Happy birthday! Hope you have a great time in Denver. We've been having great weather - hope it holds out for you. There is a big fire right now (not near Denver), so there may be some smoke.

Love your trip report! Thanks so much for doing it!

Thanks! We're driving up early Friday morning. California catches on fire every summer it seems, and we get their smoke, so it won't be anything new for us. Honestly, I like the way it makes the sky orange. Are you in Denver? Any reccommendations for food or sights?

Originally Posted by punkin413

I'm here....I'll catch up later! Can't wait to hear all about it!

Thanks for stopping by! I just finished reading your report earlier. I love how you finished on such a positive note.

[happenin2you]

This morning we woke up, went down for breakfast in the hotel, then came back upstairs to get ready for the day and check out. Well... while I was blow-drying my hair, my blow dryer made this crazy mini-explosion noise, the motor stopped whirring as loudly, and there was smoke... Seriously? If you knew me, you'd know that I make a lot of sound effects. At this time it was something like a freaked out EHHH! Chris came in quickly to investigate why I was freaking out and he looked freaked out. I think I saw the fear in his eyes that this broken hair dryer could greatly affect the rest of our vacation. I just shrugged it off, threw it in the trash, and used the hotel dryer to finish the last section of my hair that needed drying (thank goodness I was mostly done anyhow).

We had passed a Zeller's the day before, which is kind of like a K-Mart or Target, and I knew they'd have hair dryers so we set out to look into that. They had a lot of dryers, but none of them looked like anything I wanted. They were all Conair ones that I could get at Walgreen's for 14.99 but they were selling them for $40 and up. I decided to skip it because the one I had, I had only gotten last year after the one I've had since high school finally broke, and I thought that if I bought one in Canada and it broke too, then I wouldn't be able to return it or warranty it from another country. At this point I had spent way too much time pondering this and we were now running late to return the rental car without being charged for a second day.

We booked it to Canada Place where we dropped off our luggage. We got gas, for a crazy high something like $1.69 per litre, luckily we didn't drive very far and put less than $10 in, and got the car back just in time. Funny thing was we returned the car in downtown Vancouver and the lady that helped us was the same one who had rented it to us the day before at the airport. She told us that it was a short walk from there to Canada Place, and although it was raining, it wasn't raining very hard and we decided to walk. We just had our two small carry-on bags with us and the walk was pretty easy until about half way, when we conveniently reached a London Drugs, when the rain started coming down harder... We went in there, found another Tim Horton's where we got two more Iced Capps, and bought another umbrella for Chris because his waterproof jacket was starting to leak on the back of his neck and get his shirt wet. Just as we're getting to the end of Granville, there's this huge Price Waterhouse Cooper building and we weren't sure to go to the left or right of it to get around to Canada Place. Well of course we choose the wrong way and that was to the right. We climbed a few flights of stairs carrying our heavy carry-ons, which were full of water, and got to the top where we saw an amazing view of the Wonder and lots of signs telling us there was no access to Canada Place from there. It seems it must be some sick joke to watch travelers with their luggage in tow expecting to get to their ship and have to turn around and go back down the stairs. The accountants at PwC probably just laugh all day about it. Oh well. We'll take the exercise. What we did find up there, though, was a lovely view of the Wonder!





We quickly made our way back around, sped through the boarding process and next thing we knew the Disney Wonder was welcoming the Pardo family aboard! We went straight to Studio Sea to try for a Palo brunch reservation because they had been completely booked when we tried online. We got the next day at 11:30 am. A little late, but we were happy to get one at all. After this we were talking about going to get something to eat when they annouced our rooms were ready, way ahead of the time they tell you. We were desparate to get rid of our carry-ons, so off to the room we went. We were down on deck 2 in 2605, a Deluxe Interior.





















I was so excited to check it out, but the room looked exactly the way they do on the DCL website, so not much of a surprise. We loved it though. On our way to the Beach Blanket Buffet, I was admiring the ceiling sculpture in the atrium, when Goofy approached us and wanted a picture. Well, Ok Goofy First magical Disney moment!



Up next: Exploring the Wonder and lunch

[DisSarahK]

Yay, you're on the ship!! Not so good though to have a waterproof jacket leaking before you make it to Alaska!

[Linda67]

Woo Hoo, you are on-board

Can't wait to hear about the rest of your trip

[jenf22]

Originally Posted by happenin2you

Thanks! We're driving up early Friday morning. California catches on fire every summer it seems, and we get their smoke, so it won't be anything new for us. Honestly, I like the way it makes the sky orange. Are you in Denver? Any reccommendations for food or sights?

We're in Aurora, about 30 minutes south of Denver.

I guess it depends on how much time you have... I can't recommend Rocky Mountain National Park or Mt. Evans enough. RMNP has a cute little town called Estes Park at it's base. Lots of great things to do. But they're 1-2 hours away from the heart of Denver. As far as downtown Denver, you might want to wander around 16th street mall or go see the big, blue bear at the Convention Center. Most of the places we eat downtown are chains - Cheesecake Factory, Rock Bottom Brewery, Rodizio - we don't venture out into the unknown often Hope you have a great time!

[towels]

There's always the unique Denver dining experience of Casa Bonita...

[jenf22]

Originally Posted by towels

There's always the unique Denver dining experience of Casa Bonita...

You know, I lived here for 17 years total (mixed between college and now) and have NEVER been to Casa Bonita! Now that we have a 5 year old, people keep telling us to go. They all say the food is awful, but that we have to go!

[SirGoofy]

Enjoying reading your TR. The pictures are great. We're on the Aug 27 Alaska cruise, so am eager to read your future posts. (If you get an opportunity, would you post the navigators from your cruise?)

Thanks!

[Señor DonDuck]

Sounds like you had a mini-adventure getting to the ship. Nice to see the updated rooms on the Wonder. Can't wait for the next update.