And a Wonderful First DCL Cruise It Was, 7/6-7/13/2015, Alaska (Completed 3/27/2016)

[MickeyD74]

Question - On "Cruise Casual" how were people dressed? I know in the Caribbean most people seemed to be dressed relatively nice, but I am thinking in Alaska it may be jeans and nice tops? Thanks again for all of this great information.

 

[MickeyD74]

One more question - when I was on a cruise there were no ticketed events so I am not clear how it works. For the tickets events (both character breakfast and characters) is there more than one time for each or one event? Thanks

 

[jtba]

Question - On "Cruise Casual" how were people dressed? I know in the Caribbean most people seemed to be dressed relatively nice, but I am thinking in Alaska it may be jeans and nice tops? Thanks again for all of this great information.

yes, that's exactly what i wore, jeans and nice tops. i also wore nice slacks once if i recall correctly. i brought a skirt too but ended up not wearing it. DH had nice khakis and polos, as well as long-sleeve button-down shirts.

One more question - when I was on a cruise there were no ticketed events so I am not clear how it works. For the tickets events (both character breakfast and characters) is there more than one time for each or one event? Thanks

there is, and they will assign you to a specific time. for us, one of the five events didn't work out due to the timing, so i asked them (very nicely) if they could please change it. the CM wasn't hugely happy about it, but she did change it for us.

 

[bcwife76]

I'm sure you're busy updating the end of this *cough*

 

[jtba]

I'm sure you're busy updating the end of this *cough*

oh i know, i'm terrible, aren't i? lol

it actually shocked me to see the title of this thread, where it says "day 6 posted 1/26/16"--holy cow, has it really been that long since i wrote up day 6??? i oughtta do something about that, i suppose...

 

[MomoMama]

Found your TR and I'm all caught up!

Great report with the photos and details. I don't know much about Alaska cruise, and your report helps to get some ideas. I would love to do Alaska cruise one day, but I am thinking to wait till DD is a little older. She is all about pools and beach fun right now, and I don't think she would appreciate an Alaska trip.

BTW, I agree, souvenir shopping is no fun...Gifting should not feel obligated. I don't buy souvenirs any more, unless I happen to see something that I know someone would love.

I hope you will come back to update!

 

[jtba]

Found your TR and I'm all caught up!

Great report with the photos and details. I don't know much about Alaska cruise, and your report helps to get some ideas. I would love to do Alaska cruise one day, but I am thinking to wait till DD is a little older. She is all about pools and beach fun right now, and I don't think she would appreciate an Alaska trip.

BTW, I agree, souvenir shopping is no fun...Gifting should not feel obligated. I don't buy souvenirs any more, unless I happen to see something that I know someone would love.

I hope you will come back to update!

hiya! and i'm reading through yours!

yeah, i don't know how much DD4 (at the time) got out of the trip. she enjoyed seeing the characters and all, but after a few ice bergs, waterfalls, and whales, she had enough of nature. i'm hoping DD8 will remember more of it.

i am halfway done with day 7. am hoping to finish and post it by the end of this weekend...

p.s. so glad your little one got to meet all the princesses at last! (and it was good that GS sorted out the issue with the M&G tix, even if you had to go down there at midnight)

 

[jtba]

(this entry is dedicated to @bcwife76 , without whose prodding this would've taken even longer to come out )

Day 7, Sunday, July 12, At Sea

Our last full day on the ship, boohoo... (Can you tell I'm a pessimist? DH the optimist would say, "we still have one whole day on the ship!!!")

This being the last day, we woke up lazily at 8:20 and dawdled in the room until 9. Headed down to Parrot Cay for breakfast. I guess nothing memorable happened because I didn't write down anything in my notes except "took two cereals for tomorrow"--this is in preparation for disembarkation, as we are planning to eat in our room so we can quickly get off the ship.

At 10:15 we went to Animator's to meet Olaf! He's a friendly and silly fellow--but I always wondered whether the face characters are making faces at us from underneath their costumes. After the photos, DH and I sent the kids to the clubs so we can shop some more. We bought postcards, two Mike Wazowski knit hats, and an Anna & Elsa music box (for a future special occasion, either DD's b-day or Christmas). DH wanted a DCL logo cap but the one he was eyeing earlier was sold out. Oh well. You snooze, you lose, I guess. Next time we'll know better than to wait until the last day to buy stuff. :\

DS & DD were thrilled to find they each got one of these later:



And here are some purses available on our cruise:



Shopping done, we picked up DS and DD, then had lunch at Triton's. DD's meals are hit and miss--given her food allergies, we have to be careful and make sure we order the right stuff. Sometimes her food showed up with everyone else's; other times, like this particular lunch, took foooorrrrreverrrrrrrr. *sigh* And you know when little kids are hungry they're never in the best of moods. Wait, what am I talking about? I am a total grouch too when I'm hungry, LOL!

After lunch, we sent DS back to the club at 1:45 as the 8-yr-old boy from our dinner table was going to be there also. Then we took DD back to the cabin for her nap. once again, I left DH back there and went up to the spa to hang out with A, a pal from our FE group and whose daughters were penpals with DD. We just chatted about our kids, DCL (she's a Gold CC cruiser), etc., and pretty soon it was time to move on. We bid our adieus, then I was off to the OBB desk (to do what, I don't recall--maybe it was to ask a question? I know we already booked our OBB the day before). Anyway, it was closed so I had no one to talk to, but the lady at the DVC desk managed to entice me to come check out their meeting at 4:15. Those DVC sales rep really know what they're doing! I hope they get paid a lot.

Anyway, I must've headed back up to the cabin before returning for the DVC presentation at 4:15. I listened until 4:40--would've stayed longer, but I promised DD I would take her swimming, this being our last full day and all. We headed up to the pool, and guess what? It was so gloomy outside that not a single person was in there:



Sorely disappointed, we went back to the stateroom. This is the view outside the ship:



And this one:



No wonder no one wanted to hang out at the pool. (@bcwife76 as i wrote this i thought of your pool picture full of sun from the wonder and was filled with great envy...)

All right, I might as well go run some errands. Left the kids with DH so they could take their pre-dinner shower/bath. First I went to the kids clubs to return the magic bands. I sighed to myself when I saw the long, long line, but thankfully, it was just parents waiting to pick up their kids. The CMs told us we could drop off the bands at a separate counter, so that's what I did. Whew!

Then I went to Guest Services to adjust the tips for our serving team and cabin host. We really loved our head server, Sarah Vine, who went above and beyond to take care of DD's food allergy issues. There were a couple of reactions, yes (more about that in a separate entry another day), but we felt she did her best to address the issues. We gave everyone something extra, but Sarah got the bulk of it for her exceptional level of service.

Lastly, I went back to the store to buy some Wonder- and DCL-themed pins. I'm not into pin collecting, but felt like this is something worth buying as a keepsake for this trip. Not that we didn't buy other mementos already, but you know, just a little something more. I'm keeping the economy going, I told myself as I handed over my KTTW card to the CM.

We came a full circle for dinner tonight at Animators, where we dined on the first night. I had beef wellington; can't remember what anyone else had. We took pictures with our serving team quickly, then headed to the DVC private meeting with the head sales lady at 7:30 p.m. I honestly don't remember what we talked about for forty minutes, but we didn't come out of that room until 8:10. The kids thankfully were occupied by coloring books she gave them. Like I said, the DVC sales team knows what they're doing. We couldn't make up our mind on the spot. It felt like too much calculation to take in in such a short time, but the lady was very persuasive. It sounded like such a great deal--trips to Disney properties all over the world! See Mickey and friends all the time!!! Well, the "Disney Dreams" show was a stronger calling, so we tabled the discussion and headed to the Walt Disney Theater.

I thought all the other shows were great, but "Disney Dreams" really was quite well done. We saw the stories of Peter Pan, Aladdin, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Lion King, and I can't remember what other characters. DD literally gasped with delight when she saw Belle and the Beast came out in their ballroom outfits--there really was magic in her eyes. It was like a Disney commercial, the wonder of it all. Right there, all the money we spent and the planning we did was worth it.

Going back to the cabin and passing by all the suitcases in the hallway:



After we put the kids to bed, DH and I discussed DVC at length and ultimately decided against it. DH, being the practical engineer that he is, did the math and thought it was not a good deal currently. He left open the possibility of joining if the economy tanks, however, as the dues might drop.

So we packed our stuff, and got ready for bed. Our plan is to do Express Walk-Off, so would need to get up pretty early in the morning.

 

[bcwife76]

Haha, glad to be of influence

Those hats are flippin' adorable!!

I'm sorry your last day was not sunny, but looking at those misty-mountain-water photos from your verandah, honestly I find that quite beautiful!

 

[jtba]

Those hats are flippin' adorable!!

aren't they? they actually went on sale on that last day! they were closer to $30 at the beginning, DH, then he noticed they got marked down to $15 or $10 (can't remember), so we snatched up two.

I'm sorry your last day was not sunny, but looking at those misty-mountain-water photos from your verandah, honestly I find that quite beautiful!

it was beautiful. but because it was on the last full day, it added to the general misery of dealing with the impending end of our vacation, boohoo....

 

[franandaj]

Sounds like a fairly laid back last day. I've just started to look into excursions for my Alaska cruise and hearing about how your days went has been helpful.

It's good that you were able to determine that DVC would not work for you. It has been awesome for us, bit everyone is different not everyone wants to keep going back to Disney over and over again.

We always hit the shops as soon as the ship leaves port because the popular items do sell out quickly. Glad you found the hats for the kids and some pins to remember the trip by.

 

[jtba]

Sounds like a fairly laid back last day. I've just started to look into excursions for my Alaska cruise and hearing about how your days went has been helpful.

feel free to ask if you have any questions! happy to help... paying back all those people who helped me when i was planning this trip.

It's good that you were able to determine that DVC would not work for you. It has been awesome for us, bit everyone is different not everyone wants to keep going back to Disney over and over again.

i think 1) if we had found out about DVC years ago, 2) started doing DCL/DLR type trips early on, and 3) lived closer to DLR, we would've been very interested in it. but now it feels like a lot more money, so we may not be able to get our money's worth. i became intrigued precisely because i heard how wonderful it's been for a fellow cruisemate, and she paid into it years and years ago too. oh well. we'll just have to visit the DVC properties instead.

We always hit the shops as soon as the ship leaves port because the popular items do sell out quickly. Glad you found the hats for the kids and some pins to remember the trip by.

yes, we sure learned our lesson!

 

[jtba]

@franandaj , what is the WDW golden spoon, btw?

 

[jtba]

Day 8, Monday, July 13, Vancouver

Oh oh oh this is the saddest morning EVER!!! I did not want to get out of bed. I had set the alarm for 6:15, but rolled around until 6:30. Hurriedly took my shower, then roused the kids at 6:50. It took a while because they did not not want to get up either. DS actually shed some tears, probably because he did not get nearly enough sleep (I heard him rolling around in his bed at 11 p.m. the night before--this is a kid who generally gets at least 10 hours everyday so I felt sad that I had to wake him). Oh well, it was very painful, but we had to get up and get outta there fast, if we wanted to do Express Walk-Off.

A peek outside at 7:22:



We scarfed down the dry cereal we grabbed from the MDR the morning before, and were still trying to finish packing when they made the announcement at 7:45 that the ship was now ready for those who wanted to participate in Express Walk-Off. OMG we better hurry!!!!

At 7:49, we said good-bye to our lovely room--*sniff*--then headed downstairs. The elevators weren't as crowded as we thought they might be, so we took one down to Deck 3.

A look at the saddest bunch of people ever, at 7:52:



I was originally afraid these were the Express Walk-Off folks, but turns out they were not. Whew! There was only one family ahead of us for the Express lane, so we walked right off.

One last look at the Wonder after we disembarked, at 7:55:



Those were the folks already lined up to get in, probably CMs and what not.

Here are the piles of luggage waiting for their owners inside the cruise terminal, 7:56:



It looks pretty orderly, right? More about that later.

At 7:58 we handed over our customs forms to the Canadian officers, who didn't even check our passports. I guess we have very honest, non-terrorist-like faces. At 8:03, we said hello to the streets of Vancouver right outside the terminal:



I didn't know what to expect of the whole disembarkation process as this was our first DCL cruise, but it was so easy! No stress whatsoever. Big relief, that's for sure.

DH had to run some errands, so he deposited us at the McDonald's in the underground food court two blocks away from Canada Place, at the corner of Howe and Cordova. We had our second breakfast first, then the kids entertained themselves with the DVC coloring books while I began composing some initial trip reports.

At 9:45 DH returned. After he rested a bit, we started trudging towards the Skytrain station, just a few blocks away.

Right outside Waterfront Station, 10:03:



We waited for the elevator to come up as we had two large rolling suitcases, one carry-on with wheels, two adult backpacks, and two kid-size backpacks. The elevator was very, very sloooooow in appearing. Eventually it did come up, however, and down we went. But first we had to validate the tickets we purchased and also add one additional zone (see post #51 on p. 2 for a link to the different zones). But by 10:13 we were seated on the train.

It took only 25 minutes to get to the Vancouver Airport; our flight wasn't until 2:15 p.m. anyway. In retrospect, we could've hung out in the city longer before heading over, but we were anxious to get home and didn't want some unplanned-for-delay to happen, so we figured we'd just wait it out at the airport.

The first thing we need to do was to check ourselves in using those automatic machines in the airport lobby. Now, DH and I are pretty techie people, but for whatever reason it didn't work the first time. Then we tried again. Still didn't work. OK, we can deal, because we have LOTS of time! It was only 10:50 and we have a whole three hours and twenty-five minutes to kill.

We went to the Air Canada counter and waited our turn. We waited and waited and waited. The line was very slow even though there were only a few people ahead of us. But our turn finally came, yay! We were to use the little metal measuring thingymajig to see if our carry-on would fit the overhead cabin. Whaaaa??? What do you mean it doesn't fit and it's too heavy anyway??? It worked on the way here!?! Ugh. I guess the FE gifts really pushed it over the limit, haha! We ended up having to shift some stuff around to the backpacks, then checked in the rolling carry-on (which was no longer a carry-on, grrrrrrrr). At 11:08 we finally walked away from the counter.

We got through the long long line at U.S. Customs. While there, we ran into some other folks who also just got off the Wonder. (I knew they were our cruisemates because they still had DCL tags on their suitcases and some of them still had their KTWW cards hanging off their CC lanyards.) They did not do Express Walk-Off, however, and said it was a huge mess once they did get off the ship. One family said it took them an hour to find their suitcases because they were sorted to the wrong pile; another said they found all but one because of a similar error. Oh well.

I hear Port Canaveral is pretty well run. Please chime in here if you've done Express Walk-Off there. Was your experience the same? What was different? Would love to hear as we're planning our next adventure...

Back at the airport, after Customs, we made our way over to the food court area, where we had sandwiches and wraps we bought from one of the shops. Some of our cruisemates had other excursions planned around Vancouver for the day, and were starting to post photos on our FB group. I didn't know these people very long, but already felt like we were very good friends. I suppose it's because we had already been "talking" to each other for months online before the cruise began. There was definitely a cameraderie there. A fun group of people they are!

After a long lunch, we slowly made our way over to our gate. Walked past these two gates:



I had read about these two special displays at gates 81 & 82 at YVR on the DIS but totally forgot about them. Was happy to run into them surreptitiously.

At the waiting area, there are more DCL people off the Wonder! I chatted with some of them, and everyone said they had the best time ever.

Unfortunately our flight got delayed from 2:15 to 3:15 then to almost 4. Aaargh... I don't know how we passed all that time at the gate. DS and especially DD are not very patient at all, but somehow we got through it. Got on the plane eventually. Hey, lookee, this is how much legroom DH has, it's entirely ridiculous:



DH is not even particularly long-legged. Thank you, Air Canada Rouge.

On the flight home, both DS and DD fell asleep, which was just as well. I could use some peace and quiet myself.

We got back to our home airport around dinner time, picked up our car from long-term parking, then headed to home sweet home.

I will write up my final thoughts soon to wrap up the trip...

 

[jtba]

@bcwife76 , aren't you proud of me? I wrote up not one but two days, lol!!!

 

[bcwife76]

Woohoooooo you did it!!!

Glad Express walk off was so effortless. Sorry to hear other people had some problems with their luggage. My mom has done two Alaska cruises solo (both with Holland America) and when she got home from her 2nd cruise she had a nightmare at Canada Place with her luggage including someone who walked off with her suitcase and was actually chased down by a porter to retrieve it.

Sorry your flight was delayed, never fails when you just want to GET HOME. Thanks for posting that photo of Air Canada rouge seats, we are flying with them (first time) to Maui and now I'm wondering if I should pony up the money for preferred seats for the 5 1/2 hr flight. Looking forward to reading your final thoughts

 

[jtba]

My mom has done two Alaska cruises solo (both with Holland America) and when she got home from her 2nd cruise she had a nightmare at Canada Place with her luggage including someone who walked off with her suitcase and was actually chased down by a porter to retrieve it.

see, that just sounds horrible and i am absolutely resolved to do Express Walk-Off for our next cruise too.

Thanks for posting that photo of Air Canada rouge seats, we are flying with them (first time) to Maui and now I'm wondering if I should pony up the money for preferred seats for the 5 1/2 hr flight. Looking forward to reading your final thoughts

hmm, tough call. some people can take it well (i.e. DH) and others cannot (me). my legs usually start to complain right around the 7-hr mark on those long overseas flights. depends on how much rouge wants for the upgrade, i guess. in my younger days i probably would tough it out once to see what it's like, then i would know to adjust in the future. but i have grown soft in my middle age, haha...

 

[franandaj]

@franandaj , what is the WDW golden spoon, btw?

I may come back and ask you some more questions, but first I thought I would answer this one. It's something a guy on the DVC boards came up with, but he also introduced it on the regular WDW boards as well. It's a thing for people who have the goal of dining at every restaurant at WDW. Here is a link to the DVC thread.

http://www.disboards.com/threads/are-you-a-dvc-disney-foodie-go-for-the-golden-spoon.3106043/

I've figured out that if I really step up my game, that I will make 50% after my trip to F&W in October, but not with my F&G trip in April/May.

 

[jtba]

I may come back and ask you some more questions, but first I thought I would answer this one. It's something a guy on the DVC boards came up with, but he also introduced it on the regular WDW boards as well. It's a thing for people who have the goal of dining at every restaurant at WDW. Here is a link to the DVC thread.

http://www.disboards.com/threads/are-you-a-dvc-disney-foodie-go-for-the-golden-spoon.3106043/

I've figured out that if I really step up my game, that I will make 50% after my trip to F&W in October, but not with my F&G trip in April/May.

ah, gotcha. very cool endeavor! i clicked on the spoon earlier, hoping it would lead me to an answer, but it took me to the photobucket page.

 

[MomoMama]

$10 for Mike hat?? I want one! But pretty sure it won't fit my big head

So you had enough time before your flight, but chose Express walk-off to avoid the lines? I wouldn't want to leave Disney ship and want to stay as long as I could, but sounds like it's a good idea at Canada Place.

I have never been on Air Canada...that space is so tight!! And I bet it makes it too easy for kids to kick the seats!

Well your trip is over...but at least you get to plan on your next Disney trip!