June 17 Wonder to Alaska

[kandie5775]

Hello everyone! I'm new to the DIS boards, but not to DCL. This will be my family's third cruise and I'm really looking forward to meeting up with some other people on board.
Traveling on this trip will be DH, myself, Evelyn (8), and Gavin (3).


Kandie

 

[IrishCowboy]

I have added your thread to the cruise meet list

Have a great cruise!

 

[Linda67]

Hi Kandie

We are going to be on this cruise as well

It's just me and my DH, we are so looking forward to it!

It's our third cruise as well (all Disney)

Good to have someone to count down the days with

 

[Adelynsmom]

Hi eveyone!!!!!! This will also be our third Disney cruise. It will be my dd (9/10 when we cruise) and me. Looking forward to getting to know everyone.
Lisa

 

[Linda67]

Hi eveyone!!!!!! This will also be our third Disney cruise. It will be my dd (9/10 when we cruise) and me. Looking forward to getting to know everyone.
Lisa

Hi Lisa!
Nice to meet you
Seems like ages until our cruise so it's great to have people to count down with
It's our third cruise as well
Roll on June 2013
Linda

 

[kandie5775]

Hi Ladies! I'm so excited to meet some people to count down the days with.
My room steward told me about DIS boards, and I can't believe that I haven't found this place before...it's amazing!

Where have your last cruises been? Our first Disney cruise (and first cruise EVER) was October 2011 to the Mexican Riviera and we just got back a couple weeks ago from our California Coast cruise.

Both of our cruises have been out of the Port of LA, which is only about 30 minutes from my house. It made for a really easy and stress-free vacation, especially with a baby. Our next cruise is going to be the first time I've had to fly into town before we ship off...and I'm a little nervous.

Any tips would be super appreciated!

Blessings,
Kandie

 

[Linda67]

Hi Ladies! I'm so excited to meet some people to count down the days with.
My room steward told me about DIS boards, and I can't believe that I haven't found this place before...it's amazing!

Where have your last cruises been? Our first Disney cruise (and first cruise EVER) was October 2011 to the Mexican Riviera and we just got back a couple weeks ago from our California Coast cruise.

Both of our cruises have been out of the Port of LA, which is only about 30 minutes from my house. It made for a really easy and stress-free vacation, especially with a baby. Our next cruise is going to be the first time I've had to fly into town before we ship off...and I'm a little nervous.

Any tips would be super appreciated!

Blessings,
Kandie

Hi Kandie

We have done a three day on the Dream (Nassau and Castaway Cay) just to see if we liked cruising - we did !!

Whilst on board we re-booked a 7 night Western of the Fantasy - wow what a ship

This will be our third cruise and it's obviously very different to our other two

We've never been to Canada so we are really excited to see Vancouver and as soon as I back from my next trip (San Fran & Disneyland next week ) I am going to start some serious planning

Do you think you will do many excursions? - there are so many that sound great

 

[MommyB]

This will be our first Disney Cruise. There will be Myself, DH and DD who will be 11 at the time of the cruise. We are looking forward to it.

 

[Linda67]

This will be our first Disney Cruise. There will be Myself, DH and DD who will be 11 at the time of the cruise. We are looking forward to it.

Welcome aboard
You are going to love cruising with Disney

 

[MommyB]

We are looking forward to it. DD is excited because she will be able to find kids her own age. We did a Norwegian to Hawaii with family and she did not like the kids club that they had. Although she and my nephew were the only ones in the family to meet the Captain.

 

[zweihund]

Joining as well! I'm Erica, I'll be sailing with a big crew. DH is Lionel, DD Isabelle will be 3 1/2 when we sail. We are going with two other couples with a toddler each (one is Izzy's best pal), plus my parents. Should be a hoot!

I started a PTR here - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2991753 - like many on the DIS I am a crazy type A planner so I need somewhere to "get out the crazy" so my friends and family won't have me committed.

We've done several cruises with Disney, pretty much evey year since 2005. This will be Lionel's 10th, my 9th (once I was too pregnant to sail and a friend of ours was getting married....so my husband LEFT ME AT HOME to go on a cruise. Isn't that awful? lol) and Isabelle's 4th. We live in Central Florida so we usually sail from Port Canaveral, but we did do Alaska from Vancouver with DCL in 2011.

Can't wait!

Feel free to top by the PTR, or ask anything you want since I've done the itenerary before. I can't answer everything, but I will do my best!

 

[Linda67]

Joining as well! I'm Erica, I'll be sailing with a big crew. DH is Lionel, DD Isabelle will be 3 1/2 when we sail. We are going with two other couples with a toddler each (one is Izzy's best pal), plus my parents. Should be a hoot!

I started a PTR here - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2991753 - like many on the DIS I am a crazy type A planner so I need somewhere to "get out the crazy" so my friends and family won't have me committed.

We've done several cruises with Disney, pretty much evey year since 2005. This will be Lionel's 10th, my 9th (once I was too pregnant to sail and a friend of ours was getting married....so my husband LEFT ME AT HOME to go on a cruise. Isn't that awful? lol) and Isabelle's 4th. We live in Central Florida so we usually sail from Port Canaveral, but we did do Alaska from Vancouver with DCL in 2011.

Can't wait!

Feel free to top by the PTR, or ask anything you want since I've done the itenerary before. I can't answer everything, but I will do my best!

Yay, you're here
I am sure I will have a million questions for you seeing as you have done this itinerary before

 

[Spart02]

Hello! We are super excited to explore Alaska via a Disney cruise! This will be our second Disney cruise; our first was in January 2012 via the Dream on a 4 night Bahama cruise. My husband I have 3 kids; 2 boys ages 13 and 10 and 1 girl who is 5. We will also be traveling with my husband's mom and her husband, who we love traveling with! We have three inside cabins booked for our group, which took some convincing for me. However, I would much rather do it this coming year than save another year for a room with a verandah.

We are coming from Iowa and will be flying from Kansas City to Seattle, then probably renting a minivan to take into Vancouver. We don't have hotel arrangements yet for Vancouver or Seattle.

We will not be doing a fish extender exchange this time. The one we did on our last cruise was pretty lame and so we'll skip it this time. I'm not sure if we'll participate in a meet, but we are interested in chatting on here before the trip. There are so many decisions to make before the time! Excursions, hotels before and after, etc. So much planning!!! It's fun, but I must admit, it does kind of stress me out!

So happy to see everyone on here and hope to chat with everyone soon about planning!

-Kelly

 

[Linda67]

Hello! We are super excited to explore Alaska via a Disney cruise! This will be our second Disney cruise; our first was in January 2012 via the Dream on a 4 night Bahama cruise. My husband I have 3 kids; 2 boys ages 13 and 10 and 1 girl who is 5. We will also be traveling with my husband's mom and her husband, who we love traveling with! We have three inside cabins booked for our group, which took some convincing for me. However, I would much rather do it this coming year than save another year for a room with a verandah.

We are coming from Iowa and will be flying from Kansas City to Seattle, then probably renting a minivan to take into Vancouver. We don't have hotel arrangements yet for Vancouver or Seattle.

We will not be doing a fish extender exchange this time. The one we did on our last cruise was pretty lame and so we'll skip it this time. I'm not sure if we'll participate in a meet, but we are interested in chatting on here before the trip. There are so many decisions to make before the time! Excursions, hotels before and after, etc. So much planning!!! It's fun, but I must admit, it does kind of stress me out!

So happy to see everyone on here and hope to chat with everyone soon about planning!

-Kelly

Hi Kelly

Great to have you on-board!

I spent the weekend having a look at some of the excursions that are available - wow, there's a lot!

I think I've narrowed it down to about 20!

How long is this cruise !?!

 

[zweihund]

I spent weeks scouring the excursions....my husband was like, "what are you doing? We've done this before!" For the record, it's still just as overwhelming the second time, if not more so!

I'm working on a "picking the excursions" update for the TR, I'll let you know when it's up. Not that it will help anyone else decide, but at least you'll know you're not alone

 

[Linda67]

I spent weeks scouring the excursions....my husband was like, "what are you doing? We've done this before!" For the record, it's still just as overwhelming the second time, if not more so!

I'm working on a "picking the excursions" update for the TR, I'll let you know when it's up. Not that it will help anyone else decide, but at least you'll know you're not alone

Would love to hear your thoughts on excursions

At the moment the front runners for us are:

Skagway - White Pass Railway & Trail Camp
Juneau - Dog Sledding on the Mendenhall Glacier
Ketchikan - Misty Fjords by floatplane

We change our mind every 5 minutes through

 

[kayaker35]

Trying to decide when to cruise to Alaska has been harder than I thought it would be. I've been all over the place....literally going from May 27 to September 2 sailing dates. I'm booked on the August 12 trip, but am pretty sure I'm going to switch to a June or July date instead. The appeal of the June 17 date is that we'll be on board during the Summer Solstice.

I was on the recent 5-day Bahama trip on the Dream, November 4-8. We had such a great time that I couldn't wait to book another Disney cruise. After booking the August 12 date, I began to think twice about having to get to Vancouver for embarkation, rather than the more convenient port of Seattle. That set me to seeking out other cruise lines. I actually booked Holland America and Celebrity cruises before getting cold feet and canceling them to return to Disney. I cannot imagine enjoying a cruise more than we did the Bahama one, and it didn't seem worth taking a chance to book elsewhere when my only concern was the originating port of the cruise.

That said, I'm still not sure of the date. I really fear that I shouldn't be put in charge of planning this, lol. Whatever I do, I'll be second-guessing myself. I plan on booking the June 17 cruise Monday morning. At that point I'll get busy and get my plane reservations set, as well as a night in Vancouver for the night before and the night after the cruise. We live on the east coast, so we don't plan on flying home right after the cruise, and not getting home until the wee hours of the morning.

Once all that is taken care of, research on the shore excursions will begin. That will be a whole new area of confusion! Has anyone else gone through this turmoil planning what is supposed to be fun, and not an ordeal?

Karen

 

[Linda67]

Hi Karen
Welcome to our little group
It seems to me that the reason you are feeling a little stressed is because your final date still feels up in the air until you have called Disney and switched
I'm sure once you have done that you will feel a whole lot better
You will have an amazing cruise whatever excursions you decide on and at least you can pop onto this thread and ask for help and opinions
Welcome aboard!

 

[zweihund]

Trying to decide when to cruise to Alaska has been harder than I thought it would be. I've been all over the place....literally going from May 27 to September 2 sailing dates. I'm booked on the August 12 trip, but am pretty sure I'm going to switch to a June or July date instead. The appeal of the June 17 date is that we'll be on board during the Summer Solstice.

I was on the recent 5-day Bahama trip on the Dream, November 4-8. We had such a great time that I couldn't wait to book another Disney cruise. After booking the August 12 date, I began to think twice about having to get to Vancouver for embarkation, rather than the more convenient port of Seattle. That set me to seeking out other cruise lines. I actually booked Holland America and Celebrity cruises before getting cold feet and canceling them to return to Disney. I cannot imagine enjoying a cruise more than we did the Bahama one, and it didn't seem worth taking a chance to book elsewhere when my only concern was the originating port of the cruise.

That said, I'm still not sure of the date. I really fear that I shouldn't be put in charge of planning this, lol. Whatever I do, I'll be second-guessing myself. I plan on booking the June 17 cruise Monday morning. At that point I'll get busy and get my plane reservations set, as well as a night in Vancouver for the night before and the night after the cruise. We live on the east coast, so we don't plan on flying home right after the cruise, and not getting home until the wee hours of the morning.

Once all that is taken care of, research on the shore excursions will begin. That will be a whole new area of confusion! Has anyone else gone through this turmoil planning what is supposed to be fun, and not an ordeal?

Karen

Hi Karen!

No worries....we still haven't booked airfare or a hotel. In fact, we still have yet to decide if we're going to fly in through Seattle and take the train up, or go straight to Vancouver. A few days in Seattle? The entire pre-cruise stay in Vancouver? We don't know!

I had fun going through the excursions. A tip: the Disney site can be overwhelming, but if you consider that many of the excursions are just slight variations of one another, it makes narrowing things down much easier. Plus, no matter what you book you'll have an amazing adventure.

 

[Linda67]

Hi everyone

Just popping in to say that I hope you are all enjoying the Holiday season

Won't be long before we can say "we are cruising to Alaska this year"

Have a magical day!