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06-25-2012, 04:16 PM
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#106 | |||
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 379
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06-25-2012, 10:00 PM
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#107 |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 202
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Ahhh, we love that picture of us! What a great memory. And it actually had people in it, unlike the other 1999 pictures Darren took on the trip! We miss you guys, too! Let's start planning our next getaway!
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06-25-2012, 10:32 PM
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#108 |
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We love the Wonder and Magic of Disney cruising!
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Great Northwest
Posts: 934
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I am really enjoying your TR. Awesome photos! Can't wait for the next update!
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DL 1969, DL 1971, DL 1972, DL 1996. WDW 1974 Offsite, 1977 Offsite, 1981 Offsite, 1985 Offsite, 1988Offsite, Sept. 2005 Shades of Green, Sept. 2008 SOG, Sept. 2009 POR, January 2010 POR, Sept. 2011 POR, Wonder Alaska 8/27/12, Magic W. Caribbean 12/1/12, Magic Bahamas 5/10/13
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06-25-2012, 11:28 PM
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#109 |
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Collects Disney men!
I had to go and write a novel didn't I?! Come on over and join our thread 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: 13-14½ hours drive from WDW - depending on who is driving (lol) OR 5 minutes!
Posts: 18,108
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OP - would you be so kind to send your Navigator scans to be posted in DIS? The info to send them can be found in this link: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/cruis...-navigator.htm
Thanks so much
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   Disneynutinlondon hit me |
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06-26-2012, 02:14 AM
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#110 |
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Has a Masters in Margaritas
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: England
Posts: 4,298
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Oh wow, what an absolutely wonderful day
 Your photos are incredible  I am sooooo excited for this cruise and it's still nearly a year away 
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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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06-26-2012, 10:01 AM
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#111 |
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DIS Veteran
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 626
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Great pics! Looks like you guys were freezing!
I am shocked to see that pic with the boat next to the icebergs! I guess whenever I see peoples Tracy Arm pics I think those are just tiny little ice pieces floating around! I can't believe they are really that big! I'm not gonna lie...the first one we pass I may clenching just a tad  And as a side note: The pic of you guys on the deck for Tracy Arm, is that the 55-250 lens on your canon?
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06-26-2012, 10:17 AM
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#112 | |||||
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 379
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06-26-2012, 11:24 AM
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#113 |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 379
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Thank Goodness There Is A Restroom...Well Sort Of?
Today we finally get to hop off the ship into Skagway! The first actual port day in Alaska for us! Our trip seems to be going by pretty fast which is making me sad. We didn't make any excursion plans in Skagway and just decided to go it on our own and go hiking!
We were up and out of the room before we officially made it to port so I managed to see another boat while we were outside! I think it was the first larger boat we had seen since leaving Seattle.  We left our room and went up to Deck 9 to Goofy's Galley to grab quick breakfast of cereal and fruit before heading down to Deck 3 Lobby Atrium to get off the ship. At 7:00am, I really think we might have been the first people to get off because the whole town was deserted when we got down there. We were docked at the Congress Street Dock which was different than all of TR's I had read, they were all docked at the Broadway Dock at the end of the street!  We had a short little 1/4 mile walk to get to the town from the ship and passed a lovely little harbor which pretty much just screams small Alaskan town to me! It was so beautiful!  For anyone taking the White Pass Rail excursions, the track literally stops at the boats, You could throw a rock from Deck 4 of the ship and hit the train it is so close! There was a train pulling into the other dock while we were walking into town so we did have to wait until it passed, before we official made it into town!  The first place we stopped was the Visitor's Center to pick up a Walking Tour Map, as well as a Skagway Hiking Trail Map, then we were on our way!  We went by all of the most famous sites in Skagway, it is such a cute little town. Although it is a bit overrun with cruise line stores and shopping places. There are still a few cool places to get authentic souvenirs, if you are looking for things like that! In front of one shop Jeremy noticed a truck that he wanted!  When we were finished with the city tour we started making our way out to the Gold Rush Cemetery and Lower Reid Falls. That walk was 4 miles roundtrip and it was a lovely walk at that, I had forgotten to use the Little Girl's Room before we left town, so I was looking for a restroom everywhere! As we were making our way to the Cemetery through the Train yard I heard a train coming and took the time to take some video of it! Then I saw it!!!  I was so excited! I went inside and thought to myself...I didn't know they still has outhouses in 2012? Apparently they did, because all that was inside here was a big open hole with a toilet bucket sat on top which had a seat, some TP, and seat covers, and some Purell...luckily, Thank GOODNESS for the Purell!! It looks so unassuming from the outside though right? Back to the pretty things now! It was a very short easy hike from the Cemetery to Lower Reid Falls, and they were beautiful!  We met a lovely couple up there who had a dog with them, and it made me miss my babies at home. I kept thinking how much Saghani (our Alaskan Malamute) would love this place! The water from the Falls was so crystal clear Jeremy even contemplated drinking it for a moment, he didn't though.  When we got back down to the tracks another train was going by so we stopped and waved at all of the Disney Cruisers taking their train ride, we even knew some of them! We also took the time to post a few pictures on Facebook and makes some calls since we had been technology deprived for 2 whole days...LOL We started making our way back towards town and Jeremy decided he wanted to see if there were any geocaches in the vicinity. We went to look for one which was going to be too annoying, so we skipped it and headed for another one closer to town. OH and FYI, Alaska has some BIG mosquitoes!  We got to the coordinates and Jeremy was looking everywhere and couldn't find it. I again needed to go to the restroom, so I sat down on the old piece of railroad something or other, while he kept looking. Finally after a while he came back toward me and all I heard was, "You got to be kidding me!", I had been sitting right next to it the entire time!  By now it was about 10:15am and we started getting a little hungry. We happened upon Skagway Brewing Co. They didn't start serving food until 11:00 so what were we going to do until then? Well it was Beer O'clock somewhere in the world, so Jeremy got a sampler of their house beers plus and Alaskan White!  It gave me a little bit of time to catch up on TR notes, which was a good thing! For lunch, we ended up ordering loaded tater tots and some burgers and fries! Not the healthiest of lunches but we were going to hike it off anyway so what the heck! I also know that it wasn't the most Alaskan of meals but we were planning on eating King Crab tomorrow and Halibut in Ketchikan, so we weren't too worried about it, besides he did have some Alaskan Beer right?? That counts! |
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06-26-2012, 01:10 PM
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#114 |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Avon, IN
Posts: 86
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We took one of the train rides in Skagway that you mention.
First, as we were leaving town, someone in our railcar noticed a tent city set up right next to the tracks. The young lady who was acting as a guide in our railcar (a college student, as they all appeared to be) explained that the #1, in fact the main industry in Skagway is tourism. Therefore in the summer tourist season, many people need to move to town for these temporary jobs. But there isn't enough housing. So they bring a tent and set up in this little make-shift village, and....... they pay $300 a month for a little piece of land just big enough to pitch that tent. No running water, no electricity. SMH! I could not imagine living that way even if only for the summer. Second, there was a full grown black bear the came right up next to the train as we were ascending. When we reached the US/Canadian border and reversed the direction of the train, everyone was looking for the bear again, but it was gone. I have pictures of all of this (tent and bear), but no idea how to upload them to this site.
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WDW offsite 1980, 1982, 1993 & 2001; Carnival Cruises in 2006, 2007, and 2009. WDW Swan/Dolphin 2005; WDW Villas @ Wilderness Lodge 2007; WDW Fort Wilderness 2010; DCL Wonder to Alaska 2012; headed back to WDW Villas @ Wilderness Lodge 2013.
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06-26-2012, 01:32 PM
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#115 | |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 379
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06-26-2012, 02:09 PM
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#116 |
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I was having a bit of a blonde moment
Married my prince at WDW 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Essex, England
Posts: 12,731
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Its great reading your TR as so far we've done pretty much different things. I wonder if you ever stay up late? I guess i'll see.
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Claire   2012 May Alternative West Coast & DCL Alaska  2011 Mar/Apr Disneyland via a road trip  2010 Sept/Oct WDW POFQ  2009 Dec/2010 Jan DFTW WDW GF, Poly & AKL + DCL Wonder  2008 Jul Engaged DLRP Santa Fe  2007 Sept WDW Pop  2006 Sept WDW Offsite  2005 May Disneyland Offsite |
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06-26-2012, 02:43 PM
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#117 |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 379
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We Hiked All This Way.....For That???
After we finished up with lunch, we decided to do one more geocache before going on our hike! We found it really quickly, made a pitstop, after all we were going on a 7 mile hike, and then we were off! We started going up the trail, following the signs, now this was our first problem. We wanted to go to Icy Lake and Upper Reid Falls, so we were following the signs for that, when we should have read and followed the signs for Lower Dewey Lake first! If we had done that, we would have read this little piece of information. "A short distance up the hill the trail branches off to the right, continuing straight up is a steep power company maintenance road." Well the Icy Lake and Upper Reid Falls pointed that direction so that is the way we went! That little "shortcut" turned out to be an almost completely vertical trail. We were so out of breath from that first part, it was crazy! We kept having to stop over and over because of how difficult it was for us. After 30 minutes or so going up this way, Jeremy pulled out the map and realized our mistake...we had been doing the HARD trail otherwise known as the "unimproved road" by the map key! Finally, 45 minutes later, we made it to the trailhead for the Icy Lake/Upper Reid Falls trail. When we got here, we seriously debated not even going any farther. There was a nice easy downhill trail going back toward Lower Dewey Lake...
 Or a semi-inclined trail going up to Icy Lake and Upper Reid Falls.  At one point we just put ourselves back to back, and on the count of 3 each of us went the way we wanted to go. We ended up choosing to go ahead and go on up the trail, after all we were in Alaska, we might as well do it! There was a guy coming down the steep beginning hill, who told us it did eventually flatten out , which was very nice to hear! Jeremy was so excited about that!  So we kept going and going and going, just like the Energizer bunny. When we were almost to Icy Lake we saw another guy coming down, except strangely enough he was wearing a blazer and chuck taylors. We thought that rather odd, and kept going. I mean we have on like hiking pants, and hiking boots, and this guy looks like he is going to dinner? We finally made it to Icy Lake!  At the front side, we were seriously thinking, did we just climb that...for this? But, once we made it around to the other side we were happy with our decision to go up. Now, onward to Upper Reid Falls! Lower Reid was beautiful, so we have high expectations for the Upper Falls! So we keep going and going and find a lovely little sandy beach (glacial silt) and then an elusive creature, the orange jacket of the Alaskan Wilderness!  That jacket was just randomly hung in a tree, no one around, we never even saw anyone other than those 2 guys the whole time we were hiking! Then for the last 1/4 mile of the trail you have to walk along a pipeline which is diverting water into Icy Lake from Reid Falls. After 1 hour and 45 minutes of hiking up this mountain, we made it to the end of the trail...  Literally, a sign that said End Of Trail. We could hear the waterfall, we could BARELY see it though the trees. So basically, we hiked all that way over 800 feet in elevation gain, and 3 1/2 miles to see a bench...  and hear a waterfall, blocked by trees, at a cliff edge, and a power company shack, with everything roped off so you can go no further...  You would think that they would mention in the hiking trail guide, that you cannot actually see Upper Reid Falls when you actually get there. That would have been helpful information to know. Oh well, what can we do about it now...it is actually kind of amusing, now that we are back at home. At the time though, we were so disappointed, and then aggravated a little that we wasted all of that time, for pretty much nothing. Our way back down was much faster but much harder on our feet. By the time we got to the bottom, my heel was bleeding from my shoes rubbing against it. We knew that we needed to get a magnet and 2 postcards from Skagway, so we made our way down Broadway, picked those up and headed back to the ship!  We did have one more geocache to do, which was on the way, to drop off some Travel Bugs. We got back on the boat by 4:15 and went up to the room. Now...should we go see Avengers or go to the hot tub? As it turns out, neither. Well we tried to go to the hot tubs, but they were both full when we got there, so we decided to go swimming in the pool instead. It was nice for a little while, then...we had to get out! In 40 something degree windy weather, that is a whole different kind of challenge in and of itself! After the pool we came back to the room to get showers and dressed to see what else was happening out and about around the ship! There wasn't really anything we wanted to do until 8:00 and it is 6:05 now, so we decided to go and check out Cove Cafe! Tonight we were going to stay awake after dinner!!! We just had to! Jeremy had a nice mocha latte and I had a vanilla one!  We walked around the ship a bit after having our coffee, we were hoping to run into our friends The Schindels, but it never happened  It was about time that Mickey was scheduled to be in the lobby atrium, so we stood in line for him. It was really great though because Minnie turned out to be with him!  Tonight we had our first dinner at Animator's Palate! We both skipped appetizers but had the Baked Potato and Cheddar Cheese Soup, For my entree I ordered the Asian Marinated Beef Tenderloin, and Jeremy the Lemon-Thyme Marinated Chicken Breast. When Mario brought out the entrees, he brought me the Veal Chop. I am not one to say anything, and I really HATE, hate, hate to waste food. So I just ate it anyway. After I had almost completely finished eating it, he brought out the other entree! I'm glad I didn't eat an appetizer after all because now I had a whole other entree to eat! At the end of our meal, Tricia gave us a riddle of 5 crayons making a horse, and we had to move one of the crayons to make the horse be facing another direction. Dumb Horse...well dumb us really because we never did figure it out and she had to show us in the end. For dessert tonight I got the Buckled Warm Apple Crumble, and Jeremy the Double-Fudge Chocolate Cake. We saw the show at Animator's and you will never guess what next! We actually stayed awake to go and see the Match Your Mate show in Wavebands! After the show all we could think about was, "In the queue line for Batman, at Six Flags over Georgia", that ride will never be thought of the same again by us. On our way back to our room we ran into a Sleepwalking Goofy!  Aren't you guys proud of us! We stayed up to do something after dinner was over! But now it was time for us to get to bed, we had a very early port time in Juneau tomorrow morning! |
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06-26-2012, 03:15 PM
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#118 |
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Missing Mickey...
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Western Washington State
Posts: 1,472
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All that hiking to see a bench?! I seriously think I would have cried! That is frustrating!
I love Goofy's jammies--I'm really hoping we encounter him in his jammies. So cute and definitely not an outfit you see in the parks!
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 plus  age 9 and  age 7Disneyland 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  |
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06-26-2012, 04:02 PM
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#119 | |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 379
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I was so happy to see Goofy in that outfit, because it was totally not a scheduled time for him to be there, so he was just randomly walking through the halls! It was fantastic!! |
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06-26-2012, 04:34 PM
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#120 |
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I was having a bit of a blonde moment
Married my prince at WDW
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Essex, England
Posts: 12,731
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OMG all that way for a bench! You'd think the guy you saw might have mentioned it. I didn't have to wait long to find out the answer to will you stay up. Isn't Match your Mate funny. Love sleepy goofy!
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Claire 2012 May Alternative West Coast & DCL Alaska 2011 Mar/Apr Disneyland via a road trip 2010 Sept/Oct WDW POFQ 2009 Dec/2010 Jan DFTW WDW GF, Poly & AKL + DCL Wonder 2008 Jul Engaged DLRP Santa Fe 2007 Sept WDW Pop 2006 Sept WDW Offsite 2005 May Disneyland Offsite |
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