Sailing without Flip Flops!! Our Alaska Cruise - May 28th, 2012 UPDATED 7/5

[scrapbookingpro]

I am going to be so disappointed when your trip report is over--I am LOVING this!

Good to know you get a medal for participating in the Wii tournament. My son loves Wii and would love a medal--but I doubt he would win a tournament!

By the way, do you remember the category you found those awesome pirate DISigns in? I've been looking all over the website you linked and I can't find them anywhere!

Aw, thanks!! I also don't want to finish. It's like ending the trip all over again!

I wish we were on the same cruise so my son could have a Wii Friend. He would LOVE that.

OK, I know exactly where those designs are. When you click the link, go to "recent albums" Then click on "View All Public Albums"
Then choose the album called "Hat and Crown Mickey Heads". The one we used is on page 3 in several different colors. I added the names myself in photoshop.
But also check out the album called "Character Mickey Heads"- the one with five hundred something heads- those heads she makes are SO stinking CUTE!!!! She has all the seven dwarfs and the whole Toy Story gang. Just adorable.

I'm pretty sure I am going to go buy some comfy Jammies and slippers before my cruise beause of you! You guys look so cozy and comfy on the ship!

YES!! You will be so glad you did!

The CM you had for the Wii game we had for a drawing class, she wasn't very good at the either.
.

LOL, bless her heart. Maybe she will improve over the summer

This shot is awesome! Thank you for sharing your adventures and your photos.

kate

Thank you!!! It is for sure my favorite

 

[DisSarahK]

That would have been fun to cruise together--they could have been buddies! We told our children about the cruise last night and I showed my children some of your cruise pictures. My little boy LOVED the picture of your son with the puppies and his tongue sticking out--because that is exactly what he does. LOL!

Thanks for the tip on the Mickey heads. I'm off to look again!

 

[Giant talking head]

Love, love, love this review We're heading to Alaska on July 30th Can't wait to hear more of your trip !!!

 

[Disneygal19]

Love, love, love this review We're heading to Alaska on July 30th Can't wait to hear more of your trip !!!

I will be on that cruise as well!! If you havent yet check out our meet thread!!

 

[damiel]

Yes, iron-on transfers, done not so well, lol. If you saw them up close they were a little less than perfect, but they were fine for this night. The Designer that I borrowed the design from was Milliepie. She does a LOT of awesome designs and she doesn't mind sharing
Her site is here: http://s628.photobucket.com/profile/milliesky

Maybe you can help me here. I have never used Photo Bucket. I created an account but now what? Can I change the names and dates on the designs or do I pay the owner of the photos to do that for me? I am looking to make door magnets pillow cases and t-shirts. I am not at all crafty, so this may all be over my head.
Thanks for your help!

 

[lucky1]

Maybe you can help me here. I have never used Photo Bucket. I created an account but now what? Can I change the names and dates on the designs or do I pay the owner of the photos to do that for me? I am looking to make door magnets pillow cases and t-shirts. I am not at all crafty, so this may all be over my head.
Thanks for your help!

The designer allows you to download for free.. Just give her credit for her work. Click the image and then hover your mouse over the top of the image and you will see some options. one of them is to download the image to your computer. Once you have them on your computer they are like any picture.

 

[scrapbookingpro]

The designer allows you to download for free.. Just give her credit for her work. Click the image and then hover your mouse over the top of the image and you will see some options. one of them is to download the image to your computer. Once you have them on your computer they are like any picture.

Thank you lucky1!

Yes, that is exactly what I did, and then I used photoshop to add names and dates to things.
The designer's name is Milliepie and she is more than willing to personalize designs for people if she has time. (For free) Check this thread-
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2897587&page=90

 

[scrapbookingpro]

Sorry for the short delay everyone!
Life got in my way.

So, here is the rest of day 7, Victoria:

We left off with some last minute shopping.
After shopping, MK and RJ went to try their luck at Final Jackpot Bingo. They hold the big final Bingo game in the Walt Disney Theater. LOTS of people come because the jackpot is usually several thousand dollars. We told MK if he won he could buy us another cruise (Of course he didn't win, but SOMEONE has to win those jackpots!!! Maybe next time....)

My mom ran off to take a nap (aaaahhhhh, traveling without kids...) and DH and I went back to the room. We enjoyed some time on the veranda before we forced ourselves to pack some more. Packing is not fun. Packing is depressing, and takes time away from things you would much rather be doing.
DS was so happy just playing in the room and watching cartoons. We packed as much as we could.

One last look at the door decorations before they go back in the suitcase...

At 5PM we went down for one last trivia. (Sorry, last one I promise.)
It was 90s music trivia. We took DS with us. He sat patiently and played with Yahtzee dice while Frankie asked the questions. They played the intro to a song and you had to guess the song. This did not work for me at all. Sometimes I don't know what a song is until it's half way over, lol. I am AWFUL with "intros". DH did pretty well, but not great. Oh well, maybe we should just stick to our strengths!

It's 5:45PM, time for our last dinner. We were scheduled to dock in Victoria by 6:15. We didn't really have a plan in place but we figured we could eat dinner quickly, say goodbye to our servers and then go into Victoria for as long as possible and just....at least look around, or something.... No plan.

Honestly, I don't think it's possible to have a real plan here unless you commit to missing your last dinner. Some people will be fine with that, but others of you will really not want to miss that final dinner, especially if you bond with your serving team. I think this is a difficult choice to make and we have never had to make it before. The last night is usually special- the final dinner, the farewell show, and hitting all of your favorite things "one more time". But none of us wanted to miss out on Victoria since we had never been, SO....it was hard to figure out what to do.

Like I said, we finally decided to go to dinner and just "hurry" so we could leave the ship for a little while. Dinner tonight was in Parrot Cay. We missed our first night here because we were at Palo, so this was the only dinner we ever had in Parrot Cay. Too bad because we had a nice window table!
The final menu-

This was some kind of potato/cheese thing.....

Out the window watched the ship arrive.

Now, the ship was slightly later than the promised 6:15 arrival time, which I thought would give us more time to eat. It didn't. By the time we inhaled our dessert it was already near seven. We said our goodbyes to our servers and our head server. A lot of people think that the head servers don't do anything, but trust me, they do and if you ever need help with something at dinner, they are the ones to go to.

We took a quick photo before leaving the ship:

Another gorgeous day. Not too cold and very sunny!
We left the ship and walked through the Welcome building.

Again, we had no plan, and sometime between dinner and here my DS had informed us that he desperately wanted to see the final show. DESPERATELY.
*sigh* The kid really doesn't ask for much. Just a few elevator rides here and there. I thought the last show thing was a fair request. But now we would only have about 60 minutes off the ship.

No plan, 60 minutes, what to do.....
We saw a bus that was taking people somewhere, and we saw lots of people offering tours and such. Then we saw a sign that said "Walk way to Victoria, 30 minute walk." DONE. We are all great walkers and I figured we could at least get some air and look around a bit, then get back to the ship for the show. DS was in his stroller, so off we went.

I had no way of knowing this in advance, but turns out- I LOVE VICTORIA. Gosh, I just absolutely loved it and as we walked along the sidewalk I felt so happy! I'm sure it might be different if you stay a long time, or see more than 2 miles of it. But at that moment, I wanted to stay in Victoria forever and never leave. It was so quaint and quiet and pretty. The walk is easy and very nice, if you're considering it. Very nice.

Ice cream? OK!

We came to a totem pole

And the capitol building-

 

[scrapbookingpro]

We walked past this horse and carriage guy standing on the corner. If we had time I would have loved a horse and carriage ride. He chatted us up a bit and learned we were off the Disney ship. Boy did he have a million questions for us about the Wonder, lol. It's obvious that Disney has never been here before. It was fun telling him about the ship, but.....60 minutes, lets GO!

We made it to a lake where musicians were playing. I loved it. DS had just passed out in his stroller. Hmmmmm. Would he wake up soon? Would he be mad if he woke up and found he had missed the final show? Could we maybe just stay out here and not go back?!?
NO??. Ok, fine.

We stopped at the famous Empress Hotel, one of the oldest and most famous hotels in Victoria. It was very lovely. We didn't go inside, but took several photos outside.

It was after 8PM now. The final show starts at 8:30. I didn't want to leave!!! I knew we would have to hurry back if we were going to make the show. Obviously I wouldn't recommend this "hurry up and do everything" plan to anyone. Either stay on the ship and do the Farewell stuff or get off and see Victoria. End of story.

Painfully we said goodbye to the rest of the family (why punish them) and started to walk back to the ship. Just then we saw the free Disney shuttle drive by. We RAN for it and followed it because we didn't know where the drop off spot was. What a comedy of errors we were, running up the street pushing a stroller.

We managed to catch it and get on board and DS did not even move, much less wake up. If we do all this to make that show, he BETTER wake up!!!!
The bus ride back was quick. We went a different was than we had walked so we got to see a little bit more of Victoria. We passed some nice shops and a cute ice cream place.

DS woke us just as we arrived at the ship. The first thing he said was "Are we missing the show?" Good thing we came back.
We rushed inside and got to the theater at 8:45. Luckily DS didn't realize we had missed anything. The theater was more than half empty! I guess I wasn't surprised, but it still felt so strange to see the show so empty on the last night. It was kind of sad in a way.

The final show features the Disney performers as well as a specialty act from earlier in the week. Our act was the Ventriloquist Michael Harrison. He did a routine I had seen before (performed by someone else) where he puts a puppet mouth on someone from the audience and makes them talk. It's generally a very funny routine, and this kid that he picked from the audience was SO hilarious, you would have thought they had been on the road together. DS laughed and laughed and laughed. I was grudgingly glad we came.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwuShX4MYe0

Here are some pics from the final show on our last cruise. I don't think they allow pictures in the shows anymore.....??

Around the ship, people were either at dinner or in Victoria. There didn't seem to be a lot going on. I know there was a guest talent show earlier that may have been fun to see. They also do a final thing with the kids called "Friendship Rocks". It's their little farewell with all the club counselors.

Up next for us, the night wasn't over yet! We had been invited to a special meet and greet in Studio C at 9:45PM. We were all excited because we knew that all of the characters would be there. I guess we are the kind of family that is always happy to see those fun and furry characters. They never get old or boring.

 

[scrapbookingpro]

We arrived early for our meet and greet and showed our invite to the cast member at Studio C. She welcomed us in and we sat down to wait. There were a few other families there. After a minute of waiting, the room suddenly filled with performers and characters. It was overwhelming but in a good way. We just started taking pictures with anyone and everyone. They were all VERY nice and very patient.

I will spare you a billion character photos and just post a few.....

The meet and greet lasts for about 15 minutes which was plenty of time to meet everyone. DS had a ball, and the adults had a pretty great time too.
I read once on these boards that someone got one of these invites and didn't go because they didn't know what it was. If you get an invite to something on a Disney cruise ship........GO. Please.

The characters left for 'Till We Meet Again' in the lobby. We came out and saw Christiaan so we took a quick photo.

Now it was after 10PM. We took DS up to put him to bed and then frantically tried to finish packing. The room hosts were hanging out in the hallways waiting to pick up luggage. The PRESSURE!!! Luggage was supposed to be out by 10:30. But it's not easy to figure out what you need to pack and what you will need in the morning and how much room you will have and what you need for the plane and....and..... We basically shoved everything somewhere and hoped for the best.
We got our stuff out, slightly late, but we did it! In the morning we would realize that we did a horrible job, but- oh well, too late.

Up next-
our late night adventures and Pub Night!!!

 

[whanna]

We just returned from the June 18th sailing (spent a few extra days in Seattle). We had read your trip report before we left and it definitely primed us; thank you. Everyone reading this thread who has an upcoming trip should definitively be getting excited, you will not be let down.

One thing that we did that I wanted to mention to the folks who have not gone yet is The Bering Sea Crab Fisherman Tour in Ketchikan. I can not post links yet (do not have 10 posts), but do a google search and read the trip advisor reports on it, it is rated as the number one tour in Ketchikan.
They were relatively few people who went on the excursion(25-30), compared to the capacity of the boat and the trip was awesome. Of course the traps are loaded, and some of the jokes are tacky, but this was the most relaxing, enjoyable, wildlife interactive thing we did. The boat stays in smooth water, has very comfortable stadium seating, overhead heaters (if needed, our day was 70ish clear and beautiful) from a 2 million dollar plus retrofit of a crab boat. And free coffee, cider, hot chocolate etc...

IF YOU WANT TO SEE AND PHOTOGRAPH BALD EAGLES, THIS IS THE TRIP. The captain will get you very close to shore where there is a multitude of Eagles on some type of Indian/Eskimo reservation where the Federal laws on approaching Raptors are not applicable and the photo ops (up close while they are flying and relatively close while perched) seem endless.

I tried to nutshell this, but could really can not say enough good things about that trip, if you take it, you will not be disappointed.

Whanna

 

[jenf22]

How did you snag an invite to the Meet and Greet? I have never heard of this. Sounds like a lot of fun!

Love the Victoria pictures - almost makes me a little sad that our cruise isn't going there (since we end in Vancouver).

 

[Chilly]

Victoria looks lovely. We didn't stop their as we were on the repo cruise. Love the Queens jubilee banners.

Such cute photos of your DS.

 

[cheryllarsen]

Loved looking at the pictures! Thank you for posting.

 

[cheryllarsen]

We are going on an Alaskan cruise in September. The wait is driving me crazy and reading this trip report doesn't help.

 

[jenf22]

We are going on an Alaskan cruise in September. The wait is driving me crazy and reading this trip report doesn't help.

Have you seen our meet thread? We're also on the September Alaskan cruise.

 

[runskyhy]

Loving your trip report! Whole-family vacations are the best kind of vacations and you all looked like you were having the best time!

Tracy's arm in Tracy Arm, haha

I just about fell off my chair laughing at this!

 

[MJDisFamCruisers]

I really enjoyed reading your trip report! My family and I are going on the July 30th Alaskan cruise and I am trying to read up as much as possible on everything about this cruise and your trip report definitely helped! Thanks!

 

[barbbarnes]

Thanks for a great TR! I loves your pics of Victoria, I'm so glad you wrote about Victoria because I haven't seen much about it. Some of the adults in our party are doing the pub tour, but I don't think I can miss the last dinner. Sometimes when we have been on past cruises they have done an extra performance of a show in the afternoon. Do you know if they did this on the Victoria day? Thanks again!

 

[scrapbookingpro]

We just returned from the June 18th sailing (spent a few extra days in Seattle). We had read your trip report before we left and it definitely primed us; thank you. Everyone reading this thread who has an upcoming trip should definitively be getting excited, you will not be let down.

One thing that we did that I wanted to mention to the folks who have not gone yet is The Bering Sea Crab Fisherman Tour in Ketchikan. I can not post links yet (do not have 10 posts), but do a google search and read the trip advisor reports on it, it is rated as the number one tour in Ketchikan.
They were relatively few people who went on the excursion(25-30), compared to the capacity of the boat and the trip was awesome. Of course the traps are loaded, and some of the jokes are tacky, but this was the most relaxing, enjoyable, wildlife interactive thing we did. The boat stays in smooth water, has very comfortable stadium seating, overhead heaters (if needed, our day was 70ish clear and beautiful) from a 2 million dollar plus retrofit of a crab boat. And free coffee, cider, hot chocolate etc...

IF YOU WANT TO SEE AND PHOTOGRAPH BALD EAGLES, THIS IS THE TRIP. The captain will get you very close to shore where there is a multitude of Eagles on some type of Indian/Eskimo reservation where the Federal laws on approaching Raptors are not applicable and the photo ops (up close while they are flying and relatively close while perched) seem endless.

I tried to nutshell this, but could really can not say enough good things about that trip, if you take it, you will not be disappointed.

Whanna

Awesome!! Thanks for sharing your experience! I really hope we get to go back someday so we can try these other great excursions

I'm so glad you had a good trip. And you guys had 70 degree weather?!?! Amazing

How did you snag an invite to the Meet and Greet? I have never heard of this. Sounds like a lot of fun!

Love the Victoria pictures - almost makes me a little sad that our cruise isn't going there (since we end in Vancouver).

Victoria was beautiful- I just wish we had more time!

I honestly do NOT know how we got invited to the meet n greet. They don't tell you, they just put the invite in your room......
We do suspect that someone from the entertainment department knew or had worked with RJ somewhere, since he has done shows all over the place. That is our best guess. I think people usually get invited when they make a big impression on the characters or the greeters.

Victoria looks lovely. We didn't stop their as we were on the repo cruise. Love the Queens jubilee banners.

Such cute photos of your DS.

YES, I loved the banners too. It was so pretty

Loved looking at the pictures! Thank you for posting.

Thank you!!!!

We are going on an Alaskan cruise in September. The wait is driving me crazy and reading this trip report doesn't help.

I hope you have an amazing trip!!!!!

Loving your trip report! Whole-family vacations are the best kind of vacations and you all looked like you were having the best time!

You are so right about whole family vacations. I wish they would happen more often! Thank for the compliment too!!!

I really enjoyed reading your trip report! My family and I are going on the July 30th Alaskan cruise and I am trying to read up as much as possible on everything about this cruise and your trip report definitely helped! Thanks!

ACK, you are leaving so soon!!!! I am super jealous!! Have fun

Thanks for a great TR! I loves your pics of Victoria, I'm so glad you wrote about Victoria because I haven't seen much about it. Some of the adults in our party are doing the pub tour, but I don't think I can miss the last dinner. Sometimes when we have been on past cruises they have done an extra performance of a show in the afternoon. Do you know if they did this on the Victoria day? Thanks again!

It is such a tough choice, isn't it?! So unfair. They did not do an extra performance for us, but I have heard that they may have added one on the cruises after ours. Maybe people were complaining...? I really hope they do, but then you still have to miss dinner, so - bummer!!! If you have nice weather, you may want to just go out for a tiny visit. It's just so lovely.