4 Vancouverites take on Alaska! Aug 28-Sept 4 2017 *COMPLETED*

[bcwife76]

Well we've been back home for 3 weeks now and not a day goes by that I don't think about our amazing Alaskan cruise on the Disney Wonder!

Welcome to my 3rd trip report!

I'm BCWife76, born and raised in the Vancouver BC area. I currently live 40 minutes from downtown in the 'burbs with my DH and our two daughters, who were 9 and 6 at the time of this cruise. I have to say, sailing from your own 'backyard' is pretty awesome!

We took our very first Disney cruise nearly 2 years ago (end of Sept 2015) also on the Wonder, from Vancouver to San Diego. Our second cruise was on the Fantasy this past January 2017 and it's safe to say we are hooked.

Funny story though, while I enjoyed cruising right from the get-go, it took my dh much longer to warm up to it but now I have to say, he's a convert Yes there are other places/ways to travel and we won't abandon those in the future, but I definitely see more cruises in our future as well

So once again welcome aboard as we sail round trip from Vancouver to beautiful Alaska through the inside passage, August 28 to September 4 2017.

 

[bcwife76]

Monday August 28 2017, part 1.

Getting to the cruise terminal from where we live is about a 45 minute drive. However, parking is rather expensive at the cruise port and we had to first drop our dog off at the kennel so we took the LONG way 'round. Not kidding you, we left our house around 10:15am and it was about 12:15 by the time we got to Canada Place (our PAT was 11-11:30, oops haha). Talk about taking the long way there! Home-dog kennel-airport (10 minutes from kennel) to park the car for much cheaper then Aerocar to Canada Place. DH snapped this photo of the girls and I in the back seat on the way to the port (obviously he's not driving, the angle is reversed)

Once we got to Canada Place, everything went quite quickly and rather smoothly. I was happy to discover the girls receive their kids club bands at the check in desk; this was the not the case when we sailed from Vancouver in 2015, we waited in a horrendously long line. The only thing left to do with regards to the kids club was to get the locks put on once they arrived at the clubs for the first time. By the time we were stopping for the embarkation photo (at MY insistence haha) the whole check in process had taken maybe 30 minutes? Tops!

We were announced (tried to think of a funny name but it didn't happen!) and we were ON BOARD!!!! Tritons was already full for lunch so we headed up to Cabanas.

Now I have to say, while I am glad they changed the buffet from Beach Blanket to Cabanas we still felt it was so much more crowded than on the Fantasy (go figure) and finding a seat was always difficult. All the times we ate at Cabana's (except for a quick snack one afternoon) we were seated outside. Today was no exception. In fact, we took our lunch to the pools.

Love the new slide, by the way!!

While we did have the swim suits packed in our carryons, we felt it would be easier to just change in our rooms so we lingered over our lunch til just shortly after 1:30 and then went in search of our room, 7056 Deluxe Oceanview with verandah (port side).

I had pre ordered some goodies, including the Finding Dory package, a cheese platter and a bottle of prosecco. DH declared the cheese and champs a very good idea and says this should be our new cruise tradition

Crazy kids, changed and ready for the pool

Next up: Sail away and our first dinner.

 

[buteraa]

So excited to hear more. We are doing our first Alaska cruise in June of next year. Such cute girls!

 

[TestingH2O]

Love it! Cheese and champagne is AKWAYS a good idea. Glad your husband is so sensible.

 

[ukintheus]

Yay! You got started. I'm so looking forward to hearing all about this. That's a great embarkation photo of you all too.

 

[adSimba]

Hurrah, I've been waiting for this report! Thank you for doing it

 

[Timon]

YES!!! I am so in!!!

Not kidding you, we left our house around 10:15am and it was about 12:15 by the time we got to Canada Place

Hahaha, wow that really is the long way around

It must be nice to be such a short drive away! We will have a 12 hour drive ahead of us but I am thankful we are actually able to drive to a port instead of paying six billion dollars in airfare

I was happy to discover the girls receive their kids club bands at the check in desk

This was a nice surprise on our summer cruise and I don't know why they didn't do this sooner

By the time we were stopping for the embarkation photo (at MY insistence haha)

Hmmm, why is there no date on your embarkation photo?

I've never seen that before, I hope that's not a new thing


Great start Can't wait to hear all about your Alaskan adventure.

 

[JohnGalt]

Great embarkation picture. What a beautiful family!

I'm very excited to see all your Alaska pictures. DW and I haven't done that one yet. Maybe 2018.

Thanks for doing this -

JG

 

[bcwife76]

So excited to hear more. We are doing our first Alaska cruise in June of next year. Such cute girls!

Thank you! This was our fave cruise so far, you will love it I'm sure!

Love it! Cheese and champagne is AKWAYS a good idea. Glad your husband is so sensible.

Every now and then he has some GOOD ideas, so I guess I'll keep him ;-)

Yay! You got started. I'm so looking forward to hearing all about this. That's a great embarkation photo of you all too.

Thank you! Dh wanted to bypass the embark photo but I was hoping for a good one (my girls don't always smile together haha) so I'm glad we did it.

Hurrah, I've been waiting for this report! Thank you for doing it

Thanks for joining in! I hope to not take *too* long to complete it!

Great embarkation picture. What a beautiful family!

I'm very excited to see all your Alaska pictures. DW and I haven't done that one yet. Maybe 2018.

Thanks for doing this -

JG

Thanks for joining in! I'm sure you and beautiful wife would have an amazing time on this cruise!

 

[bcwife76]

YES!!! I am so in!!!

Yay, thanks for joining!




Hahaha, wow that really is the long way around

It must be nice to be such a short drive away! We will have a 12 hour drive ahead of us but I am thankful we are actually able to drive to a port instead of paying six billion dollars in airfare

If it wasn't for the dog we would have just parked at the port but since the kennel cost us over $300 for the week we needed to try and save some money on the parking! But it was nice to not have to spend $$ on flights for sure.







Hmmm, why is there no date on your embarkation photo?

You know, I didn't notice that until I posted the photo here in my report. I hope it's not a new thing either, in 20 years I'm not going to remember the dates haha it would be nice to have a reference!




Great start Can't wait to hear all about your Alaskan adventure.

Just so, so amazing. I can't really describe it any other way!

 

[Shanti]

Following. We'll do this cruise in the first week of June.

 

[ironz]

Oh, so glad you had fun!!

 

[Lesley Wake]

I had pre ordered some goodies, including the Finding Dory package, a cheese platter and a bottle of prosecco. DH declared the cheese and champs a very good idea and says this should be our new cruise tradition

That seems like a great idea and I love the Finding Dory package!

Still trying to convince my family to do an Alaska cruise next year!

 

[bcwife76]

Following. We'll do this cruise in the first week of June.

Oh, so glad you had fun!!

Amazing....just amazing!!!

 

[bcwife76]

That seems like a great idea and I love the Finding Dory package!

Still trying to convince my family to do an Alaska cruise next year!

The one downside to the package is that my girls now 'fight' over who gets the blanket. Right now they take turns, one gets it and the next night the other gets it. Might have to buy the package again on our next cruise.

 

[bcwife76]

Once the girls and dh had changed for swimming (I didn't go into the pool as my um.......lady time had arrived 2 days before the cruise and I wasn't feeling it haha) it was pool time, but not before going down to deck 5 to check out the new improved Club and Lab and get the locks put on the girls' bands.

As I'm scrolling through our photos, I think this is the only one we took of the new spaces! oops. Sorry!

After a thorough look around, we all went up to deck 9. First the kids pool but the girls didn't want to stay too long, so then we went to the other pool. I got a seat in the shade and ate ice cream because....well, why not? It was a really warm day and that hit the spot! Somewhere around 3:30 I decided it was time to get the gang outta the pool and back to our cabin to change in order to make it to the muster drill in time. When we got back to the cabin at least one or two of our suitcases had already arrived While the rest of my peeps changed, I unpacked one suit case.

Headed down to deck 4 outside (port side and in the shade!) for the muster drill. Once it started, the rather large group near us kept talking. Honestly can't you shut your yap for 6 minutes? The mom standing next to me in line was clearly getting annoyed as she kept shooting them mean glares I commented to her afterwards that it only takes a few minutes to pay attention to something that could very well save your life! I think she wanted to high five me

With the muster drill out of the way it was almost time for the Sail Away party. Except we aren't big fans of it. We never seem to get a good view, it's always super crowded, you can see characters all over the ship the entire time....meh. Yes, we suck. The kids of course wanted to go but dh and I were rather keen to open our prosecco and once the yummy cheese/cracker/nut plate was open (along with the box of chocolates that came with the bubbly) the girls oddly enough forgot about the sail away party

Panorama shot of the (new) Vancouver convention centre from our balcony

Dh had me take a video of him opening the bubbly which was pretty hilarious because the cork ended up flying into the water to be scooped up by a bird about 4 seconds later. But upon watching it I realized, for whatever reason, my husband is in his underwear For the life of me I can't think why, he certainly wore pants or shorts to the muster drill! As studly as I think my husband is, esp in his skivvies, pretty certain he wouldn't want me posting it for all and sundry to view. Sorry guys. Take my word for it. It was pretty hilarious.

The bottle opening. Not dh in his underwear

Eventually we did head up to the top decks before pulling away from Canada Place and did get some shots of the sail away party.

Jo, the club host, was fantastic the entire cruise! Here she is rallying the crowd.

Bye Vancouver! Bye NCL, try not to be jealous

DD9 took the camera and took some shots. Back end of myself, side ways of dh

Going under the Lions Gate bridge

There were Shutters photographers roaming up top (don't remember that from previous sail aways) so we did get this one of the girls:

I was hoping to complete day 1 right not but time has not been my friend today and it's nearly school pick up time so I'll be back in a while to finish off day one!

 

[kid-at-heart]

I can't imagine why you would not want to post a video of your husband in his skivvies popping a bottle of bubbly.

Looking forward to your report. The cheese platter looks awesome!

 

[bcwife76]

I can't imagine why you would not want to post a video of your husband in his skivvies popping a bottle of bubbly.

Looking forward to your report. The cheese platter looks awesome!

I thought it was highly appropriate Men, no telling WHAT will set them off

 

[ukintheus]

Too funny about the video. Sounds like he was good and comfy anyway. Loved Jo when we had her on one of our cruises, she's my favorite club host I think. Another good photo from the Shutters crew.

 

[bcwife76]

Just realized I haven't posted photos of our navigator yet and the reason why is because I haven't ADDED them to our photo files! oops. So I've found them all and have been adding them via my cell phone so sorry, they are not the greatest. Here they are for day 1:

After having some great time up on deck we went back to our cabin and the rest of the luggage had arrived so we unpacked most of it. We had second dining (as per usual, which we like) so we went to the early show of Be Our Guest. It was fun but dragged on a little bit I think, esp for the girls who were bored with the music and ventriloquist haha!

After that we took our first stroll around the shops outside the theatre; never a great idea right after a show, is it? So crowded!But DD9 and I were itching to see what they had and what was new! Right off the bat we found Hei Hei from Moana (pretty much impossible to find him in any Disney store now or online!) so we grabbed him right away (which turned out to be a good thing because I think by day 3 they were sold out??). DD6 then claimed him for herself! I also grabbed both Minnie and Mickey in their Alaska gear

After that we went back to our room to chill for a bit before dinner. DH took some sunset photos from our balcony:

And then it was time for our first dinner! Our dining rotation this time around was AP-TP-TR-AP-TP-TR-AP. We had Palo scheduled for dinner on our 4th night and that turned out to be excellent planning; we would miss our second night in Animators but that was the restaurant we ended up having 3 times in our rotation so we wouldn't miss the animation show anyway

We met our wonderful serving team, Mike and Julie. Mike was rather quiet but he was very friendly and super efficient. Julie was a bundle of energy and quite the talker, DD9 and her ended up forming quite a special bond over the course of the cruise.

Now, those of you who have read my previous reports will know that I'm not big on food photos. This trip was no different But every now and then you will get some food porn

Tonight it was dessert only for photos! I gobbled my truffle pursettes just as fast as they put them down in front of me Don't remember what I had for mains. Don't ask me what dh had either (though I know he had the same appetizer). DD9 had decided on this trip to start ordering from the main menu instead of the kids menu. Sometimes this worked out and she loved what she chose, other times it ended in tears and they brought her a second meal from the kids menu Can't win 'em all! DD6 stuck mostly to her mac 'n cheese

The dessert menu didn't wow me that night so DD6 and I both got mickey bars

After dinner we let the girls loose on the club/lab for a bit while we explored the ship at night, taking a wonderful walk all the way around deck 4. Picked the girls up around 10:15/10:30 and we all went to retire to bed, it had been a great and busy first day!

Next up: our first sea day! Palo brunch! Relaxing The Golden Mickeys! Formal Night! Ouch, my poor feet