8/8/16 Alaska is a WONDERful first cruise! (Completed!)

8/12/16 Juneau--part 3

Tonight we’re in Triton’s with the Captain’s Gala Menu. Sorry I forgot to take pictures until the entrees came out!

Me: Tuxedo, huntsman appetizer, beefsteak tomato and Vidalia onion salad,
Thai red pumpkin and coconut curry,
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Apricot trio,
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Cappuccino—had to get one this trip to see the Mickey on it!
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DH: aged prosciutto,
Pan seared venison medallions,
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banana foster sundae
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DD16: From the light menu: slow roasted chicken breast,
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warm chocolate lava cake
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DD12—sweet temptations, what else!
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Tonight’s show is Toy Story the Musical—we can see why this is the one they’re switching to Frozen after dry dock. DH made the exact comment I’d read about online—too much Sid. After the show, I quickly go back to the room to change out of my high heels, then we went to the Pixar Party at 10:15PM—it was really fun--the Pixar pals were dancing WITH us! (All my pics of them right next to us are blurry, dancing with Dug with his tongue flapping was the funniest thing though...and Sully just took up a LOT of room!)
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On the way back to the room we grab some snacks from the Promenade Lounge—some hot appetizers and some fruit and veggies.

Towel Animal tonight: Gorilla!
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8/13/16: Ketchikan--part 1

Late port day (11:15AM arrival time), and everyone else is sleeping in. I get up, look out the porthole…fog again. I shower, get dressed, tell DH (who is stirring) that I’m going out for first breakfast. I stick the ‘privacy please’ sign on the door, go up to deck 9, grab the free coffee from the beverage station, then go to Cove café for the free pastries and to just sit in an adult only space—I check out the map of where we currently are, then go up the stairs and find a seat right by the window on deck 10. I leave about 45 minutes later, with a plate of pastries for the kids. I bump into DH at the beverage station—holding another plate of pastries for the kids, and the cocoa he just made them. We go back to the room together and leave the sleeping kids food. DD12 stirs enough for me to say, we’re going out, left you breakfast…and then we escape! DH and I get more coffee at the beverage station, I grab a yogurt granola thing from Goofy’s Galley, we head back to Cove Café, and up the stairs to Outlook Café and find a different window seat. More pastries…and finally some quiet time to just chat together (including my introducing the subject of…would you be willing to do this again…tomorrow is the last day we can do an onboard booking—note that I have introduced this subject when we are away from the kids, the tiny room, and the kids fighting in the tiny room—it’s all in the timing…). Ah…so ‘this’ is what it’s supposed to be like, relaxing without the kids. We eventually head back to the kids, who are now awake and happily watching Disney movies on TV and picking at the pastries we left them. We eventually pry them away from the TV and bumped into Edrian, our stateroom host, as we were leaving. He asked how everything was, so we did mention a loose tile on the bathroom floor (the shower room)—mainly so it would be fixed for the next people.

Pulling into port--I see our 'parking spot!'
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We go up to deck 9 to have some ‘lunch’ (and get some of today’s fruit ice cream flavors of pineapple coconut and strawberry) before meeting for our (only) Disney Cruise Line excursion at 11:45AM in the Walt Disney Theater. (Saxman Native Village and Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show at $105/person.) Our excursion eventually sets off out into the rain (we ARE in a temperate rainforest here…) and we get on a tour bus to take us to the Saxman Native Village about 15 minutes out of town. Our tour guide is originally from the Phillipines. His Mom married a man from Ketchikan and now he is married/has kids here. When we get to Saxman Native Village we go into a building to watch a movie about the tribe and a native Tlingit teaches us some phrases in Tlingit (and we’re all terrible students because he tests us multiple times over the next hour and none of us remembers what to say.) After the movie, we walk through the woods to the Clan house to watch a performance by the Cape Fox Dancers (native Tlingit children). The clan house is made of cedar and smells amazing inside.

Clan house:
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Cape Fox dancers:
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After the dances are done, we go back outside into the rain and our tour guide tells us stories about many of the totem poles there.
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Next we go into the carving shed and watch Nathan Jackson, master carver, work on a totem pole, and our Tlingit guide tells us all about carving totem poles. To commission a totem pole by a master carver will cost you at least $5,000 per foot. The smell in here is also amazing—cedar. There is a photographer taking pictures of Nathan Jackson and he picks up a few pieces of shaved cedar and gives them to our kids.
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After our time in the carving shed, we have a few minutes to check out the shop, then get back on the bus. We’re let off by the ship.

Old? Totem Pole in the shop:
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8/13/16: Ketchikan--part 2

We have a couple of hours until the Lumberjack Show starts, so we go walking. We look for a post office to mail our postcards…but the one I saw listed online is now a shop. (We end up giving our postcards to Guest Services on the ship later and they mail them for us…) We keep walking to Creek Street, take pics, see (and smell) the salmon running here, and do some shopping at an Alaskan shop. The kids and I get some glacial silt soap, we get some Birch Syrup, Blueberry Syrup, and birch caramels here.

Creek Street:
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Some type of Salmon:
8-13DSCN1147.JPGA kayak excursion. After reading, "anricat's" trip report, I realized that we had seen them kayaking--and I have a picture of it! (I believe they are in the first kayak!)
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Next, we head to the Disney Exclusive version of the Great Alaskan Lumberjack show. It’s fun in a kitschy way!
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After the show, DH and DD16 go looking for more Alex and Ani bracelets in one of the myriad jewelry stores, while I take DD12 back onto the ship with me. We get cookies and cocoa…and they have free rain ponchos on a table in the lobby. As there’s only 3 more port hours, I grab 1 adult size poncho to bring home—we bought ponchos in 2011 during the Epcot Food and Wine festival, and DD12 had a child size one that she’s now outgrown—so I got 1 to replace hers. When we got back to our room after being out all day, our bathroom tile had been fixed! (We also got a call later, checking to see if it had been fixed.) The tip envelopes were left in our room…but it’s for room 2112, not our room. Later, DH goes to Guest services and they print out the ‘right’ sheets. I’m glad I looked as none of the servers names were correct…and room 2112 only had 2 people staying in it, not 4 like us.
 
8/13/16: Ketchikan--part 3

DH and DD16 made it back on the ship in time for us to meet Captain Jack Sparrow at 5PM! This one is a really good Captain Jack Sparrow! Captain Jack looks at our family and disdainfully says, ‘Matching shirts, cheeky.’ We take pics, then he has us turn around so everyone can see where my hand was… oops…so I had put my hand on his back, encountered his dreads and moved it lower so I wouldn’t be pinning him in place (I’ve had long hair before)…apparently my hand was ‘too’ low. I’m sure I turned all shades of red.
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Dinner is in Animator’s Palate—Prince/ Princess Menu

Me: Golden Slipper
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Me: Warm Cheddar Cheese and Applewood Smoked Bacon Tartlet,
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Me and DH: Coronation of Mixed Leaves,
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DD16: Snow White’s Wild Forest Mushroom Soup
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Me: Grilled New York Steak Fitzherbert
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DH: Baked Filet of Bering Sea Halibut
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DD16: Vegetable Lasagna
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Dessert—sweet temptations all around! ...and apparently it was really good because by the time I remembered to take pictures everyone had already started and I'd finished the middle one...
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8/13/16: Ketchikan--part 4

View of Ketchikan from our porthole...it's a good thing we didn't have a verandah, DH would have been tempted to yell 'hurry up, you're going to miss the boat!' to all the people coming back close to the all aboard time of 7:45PM
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Pulling out of port:
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For fans of the Deadliest Catch TV show--here is the Time Bandit: (We had just watched an episode of the show before the cruise.)
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Tonights's Show: The Magic and Illusion of Shawn Farquhar, which we enjoyed. Then we went to ‘A Pirate’s Life for Me’ in Studio Sea, which was fun (especially for the kids), but not something I’d go to a second time.

The kids head back to the room, and DH and I get snacks from Diversions for the family—they have some desserts there, including a yummy chocolate truffle!

As we are heading back into Canada overnight, we put the clocks forward 1 hr.

Towel Animal of the night: Turtle!
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A kayak excursion. After reading, "anricat's" trip report, I realized that we had seen them kayaking--and I have a picture of it! (I believe they are in the first kayak!)

Super awesome! Thank you for posting this! :)
 
DH and DD16 made it back on the ship in time for us to meet Captain Jack Sparrow at 5PM! This one is a really good Captain Jack Sparrow! Captain Jack looks at our family and disdainfully says, ‘Matching shirts, cheeky.’ We take pics, then he has us turn around so everyone can see where my hand was… oops…so I had put my hand on his back, encountered his dreads and moved it lower so I wouldn’t be pinning him in place (I’ve had long hair before)…apparently my hand was ‘too’ low. I’m sure I turned all shades of red.

Haha! You guys were right behind us. I remember him commenting on the shirts. :)
 


8/14/16: Day at Sea--Part 1

Yeah…um, so we overslept today. DH asked me what time it was and it was 8:50AM…we have tickets for the Princess Gathering at 9AM…not happening. (Note to self--do not book ANYTHING early if you have to move the clocks forward the night before!) I do ask DD12, and she just wants to sleep and is upset I’ve woken her up, plus they already saw Belle and Ariel, so they're happy. I put the ‘privacy please’ sign on our door before our stateroom host gets to the room.

This is what I see when I look out the porthole...ghost ship...okay, not really, but this other cruise ship is close to us and we're in the middle of nowhere...
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We do manage to get everyone up and out of the room early enough to get some breakfast at 10:15AM at Beach Blanket Buffet…because apparently everyone else has overslept too and Parrot Cay has a line out the door again. We somehow manage to finish breakfast and get to the Walt Disney Theater to see the 11AM showing of Pete’s Dragon. We sit closer to the stage this time, so we won’t be as bothered by the bright neon Exit signs. We liked the movie. I thought it was sad, but well done. Even though this isn’t the 3D version of the movie…the ship has started rolling a bit and I feel like I’m flying too in the flying scenes.

After the movie, we decide to go to Triton’s for lunch…where we discover they’re having the ‘tracy arm day’ BBQ up on deck 9. So we go there instead. None of us are that hungry, and DH goes off somewhere as he’s still full of breakfast. I get grilled salmon, venison sausage, some pico de gallo on my salmon, tomato salad, and bread. DD16 gets grilled salmon, chicken, and bread. DD12 gets grilled chicken and bread. No seats anywhere, so we end up finding a table by Pluto’s Dog House. Like I said, we’re not too hungry, so we only go back to get desserts from the regular buffet line. I see that they had Alaskan king crab legs at the regular buffet today…tons of shells on all the trays at the other tables!

Today's scenery--British Columbia Inside Passage--THE SUN HAS COME OUT! (Of course it has...we're in Canada now...)
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At 2PM DH and I do the Art of the Theme Show Tour (it is for ages 18+), and the kids go to a family show—‘The physical comedy of Michael Holly.’ DH and I enjoyed the tour. There were around 12 of us on the tour. We learned a lot about the theming of the ship, the paint colors, carpets, etc. It's really interesting. We learn that the ceilings on the 5th floor have been lowered...because the kids' clubs are on the 5th floor. They did this to make the kids feel big and powerful.

View of the atrium from the 5th floor:
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The ship is rocking quite a bit at this point, even our tour guide notices it—she said if you ask a cast member if they felt movement and they say ‘yes’ then the ship is really rocking! Towards the end of our tour, we spot the kids, and wave at them. DD16 wants us to come to them, but we’re still on the tour. I text with her via the app. The ship’s rocking has made her feel sick and she wants more seasickness medicine. (As a note, I had suggested she take it earlier that day as the ship’s course would be taking us to open ocean later …but she felt fine then and said ‘no’. Mother knows best…) Anyway, she’s 16, knows where the medicine is, and how much to take, so I sent the kids back to the room to do that. They rest in the room, and watch more Disney movies on TV. After the tour, DH and I joined them and started packing and packing and packing. I need to pack a couple bags for our all day excursion tomorrow, bags with activities for the planes, and just bags of luggage—and try to make sure our toiletry bag (with lots of liquids/pastes/gels) ends up in a ‘checked’ bag vs. carry on. DH offered to take DD12 to the pool. They go up and come back…Goofy pool is closed due to the use of the fog horn.
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The skies do eventually clear, the pool reopens, and they go to it. I take a couple of breaks from packing to get some fresh air on deck 4 and at one point I go up to deck 9 and get myself a drink of the day (Seabreeze) from Pluto’s Dog House bar, and bring it back to the room while I continue packing. At some point today, we’re all up on deck 4 looking at the scenery and we (well…not DD12 as she’s looking in the wrong direction) see the back of a humpback whale, then water spouting, and then we see the tail! Earlier in our trip, DH had seen a whale, and DD16 and I had seen porpoises.
 
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8/14/16: Day at Sea--Part 2

Dinner is at Parrot Cay—Til We Meet Again menu

Me: Motion,
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DH and DD12: Kisses
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Me: Green and White Asparagus Spears and Cranberry Salad,
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DH: Sesame Crusted Tuna Sashimi, Cranberry Salad,
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DD16: Grilled Potato and Goat Cheese Napoleon,
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Hernan cut up DD12's salad again:
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Me and DD16: Roasted Filet of Beef Wellington,
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DH: Garlic Marinated Shrimp:
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Before dessert, the staff has a parade of nations--carrying flags of their countries. The chefs are brought out for recognition as well. It was nice to see how many countries are represented by the servers in our dining room!

Dessert:
DH and DD16: Sweet Temptations
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Me, DH, and DD12: Baked Alaska (because you just have to get this if you're on an Alaska cruise...)
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8/14/16: Day at Sea--Part 3

After dinner, the kids go to officer pin trading and trade 4 pins while DH and I FINISH packing (why do we have so much stuff!) and stick the Purple Minnie tags on those 5 bags.

DH and I take pics on deck 4 on our way to meet the kids:
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DH and I make it upstairs in time for the show—Dreams. It was a fantastic show. We all LOVED it! Right after the show, DH ran to the room, and put the 5 pieces of luggage outside the room for them to take off the ship for us. I hurry over to the ‘future cruise’ desk to book a placeholder cruise with the $250 deposit so that we’ll get the 10% discount (and $200 onboard credit for a cruise of 7 or more days) within the next 2 years. The thought is we ‘might’ do a family cruise in 2018 as a graduation gift to DD16 if the itinerary is interesting and the price is right… They ask if I still want my Travel Agent listed, yes, I do…I want more onboard credit from the travel agency…even if it’s ½ the amount due to their reduced commission…it’s still ‘free’ money! DH and I meet back up in Mickey’s Mates where the kids have been window shopping and waiting for us. (While the kids 'have' charging privileges, they're not supposed to buy stuff in the stores themselves as we get a 10% discount (off $50+) by showing our Disney Vacation Club membership card--and DH has the card.)
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We do our final shopping—we get more Alaska cruise pins (kids each get one, DH and I share one), and everyone picks a DCL pin. DD16 picks out a towel folding book, and a ‘how to draw’ book. We make our way up to deck 5 and watch the10:15PM ‘Til We Meet Again’ show down in the atrium.
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We order room service at 11ish—2 Mickey bars, and an All Hands on deck cheese plate (I had to after all I’d heard about it on the DISboards). It came very quickly!
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We set an alarm on our phones for the morning as breakfast is at 7:30AM, and we need to vacate the room then… (We never had service on our phones…so they stayed on Eastern daylight time…DH goes to set the alarm so we’d wake up at 6:30AM and says ‘so, I should set it for 3:30AM.’—NO, NO, wrong direction! 9:30AM! Set it for 9:30!)

Towel Animal for tonight: Peacock! (Lol, so DH and I looked at it and said Turkey…but both kids recognized it as a peacock, and we decided that made more sense than turkey…I guess we’ve seen too many wild turkeys crossing the roads at home…)
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Absolutely loving your report!! We will be cruising to Alaska next June!!! I am taking lots of notes! What is the Anna's Chocolate Chase?
 
This has been such a pleasure to read -thanks so much for posting! Sounds like a fabulous time!
 
Absolutely loving your report!! We will be cruising to Alaska next June!!! I am taking lots of notes! What is the Anna's Chocolate Chase?
Anna's Chocolate Chase: For us, on Days 2, 3, and 4; there was basically a scavenger hunt--the Personal navigators for those days each had 3 clues--you figure out the answer, go to that spot on the ship and there is a picture from Frozen there. You have a sheet of paper to write down what the picture is of. On the morning of day 5, we left the completed sheet on our bed and when we came back in the afternoon we had chocolates! (For us, day 4 was 'Frozen night'.) The scavenger hunt ran from 9AM-11PM on those dates. It only takes 10-15 minutes to do the hunt each day...if you figured out the answers, lol.

Thanks! I read tons of reports of last year's trips (and the ones from this year), and I picked up a lot of tips from them--so I wanted to pay it forward for other people! Have a great cruise next June!
 
8/15/16: Vancouver: Debarkation Day and Sea to Sky Tour--Part 1

Yeah, we didn’t need the alarm, woke up way before it, just because we set an alarm. I look out the porthole and manage to see us go under the Lion’s Gate Bridge, and snap some porthole pics as we start to back into our spot in port.
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Our final breakfast is in Parrot Cay. So we walk up the 1 flight of stairs and see tons of people just standing there, we ask the person in front of us and he thinks they’re waiting for the express walkoff announcement…no one is waiting by the door for Parrot Cay, so we walk by everyone. The moment the door actually opens, everyone goes behind us. Oops. We feel bad for cutting…but no one was waiting by the restaurant door. I have the Denver Omelet, hash browns, bacon, and chocolate croissant, DH has ‘Route 66’, and the kids have pancakes. We give our servers their tip envelopes as they were all too busy last night to catch them in a calmer moment. (We had given our stateroom host his envelope yesterday.)

After breakfast, we go wait in Promenade lounge for ‘Purple Minnie’ tags to be called. We’re the 4th ones called off the ship. Our bags are not together…we find 4 of the 5. It’s after 9AM now and we have to meet for our full day excursion at 9:30AM (booked in advance through Landsea Tours, 7 hrs, ‘Sea to Sky tour’, they can pick us up at the port, drop us off at the airport, luggage handling included, cost for the 4 of us is $395CAD.) We end up placing a claim for the lost bag (it’s one of the smaller ‘carry-on’ size luggage.) They say as we have a late flight, it may end up on it. (No, it didn’t… DH emails DCL lost and found on 8/19—our bag was still on the Wonder, it’s getting mailed from Juneau…but it might be going through Orlando first if it was already boxed up with the rest of the lost and found. It finally arrives on 8/24—my birthday—what a nice present, to get my lost luggage! This bag had all our ‘clean’ clothes in it, a new red/black plaid jacket for DD16 that she got in Carcross, Yukon, some batteries, the Westin toiletries, and a few other ‘minor’ things. )

It was very easy to get through customs at port—just hand them the customs form, no need for passports, and we were up and on the street within 15 minutes. We find a Landsea Tours representative, so she knows where we are. Our tour driver doesn’t arrive until 10AM, and we have 1 more pickup at a hotel before we get going. (There are 19 people on our tour today, Tanya is our tour guide and was born in the area. She was very good!) Our tour starts by going over Lion’s Gate Bridge and into North Vancouver. We stop for a 20 minute ‘coffee break’ at Horseshoe Bay, and to look at the scenery. As breakfast was 3 hrs ago, we do pick up pastries and more coffee so that we can make it until lunchtime, and just soak up the scenery from the outdoor dining area.
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It is sunny today, and warmer than I thought it would be…the kids and I are quickly wishing we’d worn shorts instead of jeans. We stop at a couple of places along the Sea to Sky highway to take pics of the scenery (Howe Sound).
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8/15/16: Vancouver: Debarkation Day and Sea to Sky Tour--Part 2

Next we head to the Britannia Mine Museum. We immediately go to wait for our mine tour, which starts a little late. The mine tour starts off with a ride on a train into the mine, we all wear hard hats.
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The museum’s tour guide is fantastic and we learn a lot about the history of the mine.
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After the underground part is done, we go into the big mine building where that tour concludes.
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As our mine tour started late…it ended late, which means we only have a few minutes to explore the rest of the museum—which includes ‘free’ gold panning—so we go straight to that. DD16 and I find gold flakes that we take home. DD12 brings home a little rock, lol. I really wish we’d had 15 more minutes at the gold panning…or maybe an extra hour total at the museum to explore more, but the tour has to be at the gondola at a certain time.

Our next stop is Shannon Falls.
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8/15/16: Vancouver: Debarkation Day and Sea to Sky Tour--Part 3

Our final stop is the Sea to Sky Gondola in Squamish! Each gondola holds 6-8 people. The ride takes 10 minutes to get to the top. DD16 is not fond of heights, but she survived the ride both directions! (I had her ride ‘forward’ both ways so that she could see where we were going, know when we’d hit the ‘bumps’ of the supports, etc.)
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It’s now 3PM and we’re all starving for lunch, so that’s the first thing we do—get in line to buy lunch at the café at the top. It takes a while to actually GET lunch, but we finally do, eat it, use restrooms, and NOW we’re ready to explore. DH, DD12, and I go over the suspension bridge. DD16 said ‘No, I’m not going over that, I already did a suspension bridge this trip.’ So she waited for us to come back… I would say that this suspension bridge moved MUCH less than the Lynn Canyon one we had done (of course it is also 100 years younger…)
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After we rejoin DD16, we do the Panorama Trail (suggested by our guide.)
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We get back 15 minutes before our meeting time. Once our group has reassembled, we all go down the gondolas, and back to the bus to return to Vancouver.
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On the ride back, we see the Disney Wonder heading out on the last Alaskan cruise of the season...we wish we were still on it... Back in Vancouver, our guide drops off most of the passengers at their hotels, and brings us and another family to the airport. She drops us off over by the US flights…but we’re flying through Toronto, so we have to walk our stuff over to the Canada flight area. We do some luggage shuffling—kids change out of their boots and into sneakers. I move all the carry on liquids/pastes/gels into a Ziploc bag. Let’s face it…we look like newbies to traveling—we’re just a mess, lol. We finally get our act together, check in for the airline/pay for baggage…we decide to check 4 this time…and as we are still missing 1 that means we’re just carrying on our 4 backpacks and 1 carryon bag. We print out boarding passes, send our baggage on its’ way, go through security…and we still have 4 hours before our 10:30PM flight. We get dinner, hang out for a bit, DH buys the kids their last Kinder eggs…to eat/dismantle before we go through US customs in Toronto (so that we’re not smuggling them in illegally.)
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Our Air Canada flight is overbooked, so they ask for people to volunteer to fly out tomorrow (you’d get hotel, etc.) DH, speaks his fears aloud, what if we board and there are other people in our seats, they could bump us since we’re in the last boarding group. Great…the kids hear that and get all anxious. We PAID for our seat selection. Anyway, we decide to join the giant line waiting to board—it is the biggest plane we’ve been on—3-4-3, and I chose seats in the middle so we’d be together for a change. We DO make it on the plane and into OUR seats. The plane takes off for the 4 ½ flight to Toronto.
 
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8/16/16 and after: Toronto/Boston/HOME:

We hit some turbulence for the last hour. DD12 apparently doesn’t do well with the mix of red eye flight and turbulence and feels ill, she doesn’t have anything in her stomach to actually ‘get’ sick, just spit. None of us slept much on the flight, they really didn’t lower the lights enough and it’s just not comfortable to sleep in these seats. We land at 5:50AM local time…which feels like 2:50AM to us…I can’t imagine why DD12 is all messed up… (Yes, red-eye flights are horrible, but there is no good alternative to go to the east coast…we could have stayed in a hotel last night, and get up at 2:30AM to catch a 6:30AM flight…but DH and I know we wouldn’t have slept very well—better to just stay up and fly overnight in that case.)

We hit the restrooms, then head to customs and US security. As we’re heading through these DD12 still feels sick and wants to find a trash can to get sick in. (Oh the joys of being a parent…) I ask her to try and hold it until we’re through all of this—we are now in the no man’s land where there are NO bathrooms. We make it to US security…and I get chosen for the ‘extra’ screening of the scan machine. I have all the passports, so I’m trying to give those to DD16. I am NOT alert in any way, shape, or form…so I forgot to take my wallet out of my pocket and my watch is still on my wrist. So…I have to get scanned twice as I need to take the wallet out. I rejoin the family where security has to search one of the backpacks…and finds the rest of DD12’s apple juice from dinner. I go, ‘Really?!!’ The security guy thinks I’m talking about him—I quickly say, ‘The ‘really’ is for US, I can’t believe that it’s in our bag, I’m so careful about my liquids/pastes/gels.’ Lol, so instead of throwing out the bottle, he sticks it back in our bag and sends us on our way…where we quickly throw out the disgusting 12 hour old warm apple juice! DD12 still feels ill, but just using the restroom helps. We find our gate, DD12 goes to sleep on the seat for an hour until we need to board our 8AM flight to Boston. We’re back on a small plane, 2-2 for each row. It’s a 1 ½ hr flight to Boston. Towards the end of the flight, DD12 ends up putting more spit into an air sickness bag, then feels better. We eventually get into Boston, get our luggage (minus the known missing one…), call my Dad to tell him we’ve landed and to come pick us up. I manage to mess him up and tell him to pick us up by departures…and he goes to arrivals. Apparently I don’t do well with no sleep either, lol. Anyway…we finally meet up, pack up the car, and he drives us home. We ALL take long naps at home, then start to try and get used to being home again. For the next week…DH and I had ‘land sickness’…I’d read about it, but wow, it is really weird to feel the stable ground moving.
 
Final Thoughts:

This was a fantastic trip. Alaska is amazing. All of our excursions were the right ones for us, no regrets! The cruise was so much better than we thought it would be, and it went by so quickly. I don’t know ‘how’ anyone can do a 3-4 day cruise…7 days felt too short. We didn’t do a number of things I thought we’d do on the ship, we just didn’t have the time—no shuffleboard, ping-pong, a bunch of the activities like the art of entertaining series or any of the trivia contests. DH was really skeptical on the cruise portion of the trip, and came out having really enjoyed it. We loved the location of our room, being on deck 2 aft, right by the elevators/stairs, loved the large porthole. I’d book that room again! We both really liked unpacking for a week, and having our floating hotel bring us from place to place, as well as knowing that at 5:45PM we’re going to have a really nice dinner, and at 8:30PM go to a great show! All the crew were so friendly, and the ship is beautiful with its’ classic lines. Seeing characters all over the place, having random encounters with them was just so special. We’re a Disney family—so everything Disney makes us happy. DH and I agreed that for us, the itinerary matters—we want to go somewhere ‘interesting’ (not the Caribbean), and we both liked the size of the Wonder and have no desire to be on a larger ship. We’ll see what the summer 2018 itineraries look like when they come out in Spring 2017. As we all have passports, it’d be nice to actually use them! So we’re looking at maybe Europe on the Magic?
:tinker:For now we’ll have our dreams:earsboy:
 
Sorry your flights sounded not super awesome. As you know, we did the alternative which was a 6:45 AM flight. I have zero regrets about this. We got into Austin at a reasonable hour and since we got up early, we actually had an easier time readjusting to central time. I know it's different than one further time zone like you had, but we found it to be so much easier than I thought. Getting up at 4 AM was stinky at the time, but in the end, I think the trade off was worth it.

We're also looking at Europe for 2018. Who knows, maybe we'll see you again. ;)
 
Sorry your flights sounded not super awesome. As you know, we did the alternative which was a 6:45 AM flight. I have zero regrets about this. We got into Austin at a reasonable hour and since we got up early, we actually had an easier time readjusting to central time. I know it's different than one further time zone like you had, but we found it to be so much easier than I thought. Getting up at 4 AM was stinky at the time, but in the end, I think the trade off was worth it.

We're also looking at Europe for 2018. Who knows, maybe we'll see you again. ;)
Glad that worked for you! It was just DD12 that really couldn't take the red-eye flight. The rest of us were able to deal with it okay. (Which is good to know, as it's likely DD16 will have one when going to Germany/Austria with her school group next Spring.) Now we know that if DD12 is with us, we should avoid red-eyes if at all possible!

That would be funny if we ended up on the same cruise again!
 

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