A WONDERful first cruise experience (ALASKA - Sept. 1-7) Photo links fixed!

[becca1976]

I always said that when my cruise was over I was going to do a trip report. The months prior to our trip, I read every Alaska trip report out there and still couldn't get enough info! So - here I am. I hope you will join me as I relive this amazing Disney, Alaskan adventure!

Cast of Characters:

My husband, Ben and myself, Rebecca.

We are mom and dad to 4 kids (ds 13, dd 11, dd 10, dd 8)and we are such bad parents we didn't even bring them with us!! We celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary on this cruise. I convinced my husband when the 2014 dates opened up for this cruise, that I could get my Disney fix, and he could finally visit the one state he has always wanted to visit...Alaska. Somehow I managed to get his consent, and I booked!

The hardest part about this trip....was the waiting! We are missionaries, so I spent most of the months prior to the cruise in hot West Africa (Cameroon) and dreaming of the cold Alaska weather to come. We come home to the states every 2 1/2 years for a furlough and planned our cruise around our visit. We arrived in the states on June 17 and that is when the reality of the cruise began to hit me!

We have friends and a church that helps support us on the mission field, located in Bellingham, WA. We started our trip driving through the night from Chattanooga, TN (where we live) to Chicago. We dropped our kids off at Grandma and Grandpa's house for the week and we headed to the O'hare airport. We flew to Seattle where our college friend, Randy, picked us up for the weekend. We enjoyed attending church with Randy and his family and congregation on Sunday in Bellingham, WA area. When we originally contacted Randy he offered to drive us to Vancouver the morning of our cruise. That was a big help and we enjoyed the visit with him and his family on our drive up there. We weren't sure about the border crossing, since departure day was on Labor day, but thankfully the border line wasn't too long and we were through in a jiffy. The port check in was another story, but I'll get to that in a bit!

We made our way to port and had fun walking around getting pictures of all of us in front of the grand Disney Wonder! We checked our luggage and finally said goodbye to our friends and made our way to board!


Customs was a evidently a nightmare. Being our first cruise we had no expectations and Ben and I were just along for the ride. The chaos didn't bother us, but we could tell that many people were frustrated and antsy. Evidently the holiday left the customs agents short staffed and processing all the cruisers for the two ships in port was taking much longer than normal. The waiting room before customs and boarding was full and the workers were doing their best to keep everyone in the order that they arrived, but it was so stuffed in there they were probably missing the order of people. Several people were complaining and getting angry. People watching is such a great way to pass the time! haha! Our row of chairs was finally called and we made our way through customs, got our key to the world card, and up the gangplank we went!

We got on the ship and because everything was running so behind, we found our rooms already prepared. It was all a bit overwhelming at first. We had no idea where to go! We managed to find our room and then we headed to take a ship tour - a necessity so that we wouldn't feel lost the whole week!

From there we went to the muster drill and then to the sail away party!


Everything was running so behind at that point we didn't even get to watch the boat sail away under the Lions Gate Bridge. We had to rush off to our very first show in the theater. I was actually a bit torn - missing the actual sail away. Being our first time on a Disney Cruise, however, I didn't want to miss any of the shows. So we decided to do the show. We rushed back to our rooms to check on our luggage. It took a long time for our luggage to make it to our room. I was a bit worried actually, but we ran into some big wig in the elevator and he assured us that he'd received the word that all luggage was on board. Sure enough, we headed to our room and there it was. We freshened up real quick and headed to the Theater.

Well, this is taking a bit longer than I thought. I need to take a break and feed my family. I'll continue on later in another post!

 

[brewcrew]

I am looking forward to your trip report! We will be going to Alaska next year with Disney and we are so excited! We will be taking our 4 children with us, lol!

 

[becca1976]

I am looking forward to your trip report! We will be going to Alaska next year with Disney and we are so excited! We will be taking our 4 children with us, lol!

You are better parents than we are!!! haha! I never thought I'd convince my husband to even cruise once, but by the end of of the week he was saying things like, "Next time..." We hope to save over the next three years and take our kids with us next time. It will be the last time we can do something big like this before our oldest goes into college.

 

[Mousesmom]

We were on the same cruise - the chaos at Canada Place was unprecedented! We took the cruise bus from Victoria and got to the terminal about 2:20. We were there for over 2.5 hours before getting our KTTW and boarding - we just made it to first sitting dinner!

That being said, it was a WONDERful cruise and we will definitely go back to Alaska again

 

[becca1976]

We were on the same cruise - the chaos at Canada Place was unprecedented! We took the cruise bus from Victoria and got to the terminal about 2:20. We were there for over 2.5 hours before getting our KTTW and boarding - we just made it to first sitting dinner!

That being said, it was a WONDERful cruise and we will definitely go back to Alaska again

We had no idea that it was abnormal until we finally got in line to go through customs and a couple of guys clued us in. He said, "This is the worst check-in we have ever dealt with. Don't let this deter you from doing other cruises, because it normally isn't this way." I kind of figured after speaking with him that this was unprecedented. Next time I book I'll avoid a holiday!

 

[becca1976]

Ok - family is fed and I can sit and write some more

The first Disney show, Let the Magic Begin, was cute. Not my favorite of the week, but I'm glad we went. From there we prepared for dinner. I was pretty nervous about dinner. After reading all the crazy tablemates posts, I was afraid we would get some crazy tablemates! I am happy to report that we had wonderful tablemates. Gary and Claudia were grandparents from Detroit, MI and while the first night was a bit awkward, they were a very sweet couple that we enjoyed getting to know throughout the week! We were the only four people at our 8-top table that night. It appeared that we would have introductions later in the week since our other tablemates didn't show. With the crazy late check in and sail away, I figured that the rest of the table missed because of a schedule conflict. Our servers, Omar and Sandros, were wonderful and we fell in love with them through the week!

Our meal that night was SO good. I got steak and it was so tender. I rarely eat steak. Our meat in Africa is very tough, so the only way we eat beef there is ground. What a treat to have steak as much as I wanted this week! I have heard reviews of the Disney Cruise food and wasn't sure what to expect. Well, it seems that I am not picky at all, because every single thing I ate was wonderful!

After dinner we enjoyed watching Disney Nature: Bears. I was hoping to see bears this week, but as it turned out I never did. So...it's a good thing we watched this movie. After a very busy, full day we turned in for our first night at sea. The ship was swaying back and forth. I suppose that I thought we wouldn't feel the movement that much, but we did. I actually enjoyed going to sleep to a swaying ship. I felt like a baby being rocked to sleep. I didn't bring anything for sea sickness, and thankfully neither of us struggled with it at all.

DAY 2:

We woke to a swaying ship. My husband struggled sleeping a bit because of the rocking. I enjoyed every bit of it. Getting up and around, however, proved to be a different feeling. It is really weird to feel like you don't have your feet on solid ground. Thankfully it didn't affect my stomach at all.

We enjoyed breakfast at Beach Blanket Buffet and after we ate enjoyed a stroll on deck four watching the water go by. It was quite cold and we were all bundled up. I was hoping to see whales, but we never caught a glimpse of anything.

At 9:30 am we headed to the nature talk by naturalist Doug Jones. He spoke about the history of Alaska and it was a very educational presentation. After he spoke for an hour, we headed out on deck to enjoy the scenery. Only on an Alaskan cruise do you eat ice cream looking like this:

My husband thought I was crazy and opted for the hot chocolate.


We decided to head inside for a while to warm up. I wanted to get my FE gifts delivered so we went on a cabin hunt to hand out our gifts. That was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed our FE experience! My FE was really boring compared to many we saw. I made mine generic so that I could use it in our Mickey themed room in Cameroon. I didn't want to put my name or my husband's name on it, as I will eventually use it for my kids.


At 3 pm we headed to Studio Sea, deck four to meet with our disboards facebook group. That was a lot of fun and we instantly hit it off with another couple from the facebook group, Brenda and Fred, and sat and chatted for about an hour!

From there we went back to our room. It was about 4:30 and since it was formal night we wanted to get dolled up. Ben needed to find an iron to press his shirt. I didn't bring anything fancy by any stretch of the imagination. We pretty much wore our Sunday best.


The show was the Golden Mickey's and it was really cute. I enjoyed it - especially the "red carpet" experience at the beginning. After the show we got our picture taken with Minnie.

Then we headed to dinner!

I was sad that I didn't order the steak again. I ordered a potato gnocchi with a pesto/pine nut sauce. It was good, but I really regretted not ordering steak. All in all the meal was fine, and the highlight was dessert:



One twist on dinner was our new tablemates! It seems that we were originally supposed to share a table with Gary and Claudia alone. However, on this night a Japanese couple, Yuko and Taiji, showed up at our table. Right away we learned that they spoke very limited English and I was kind of surprised they were seated with us. However, we learned that they were originally sitting with a table of Japanese speakers, but because it is their desire to master the English language, they requested to be moved to an English only table. How is that for dedication! It was definitely an effort to converse with them. That first night it was just easier to talk amongst ourselves, but we made a conscientious effort to include them in our conversation. There were lots of hand gestures and they also had some really cool phones (both of them work for different phone companies in Japan) that had great translation apps. The conversation got a bit easier through the week, but was definitely a challenge on this first night.

The highlight of the evening, for sure, was the Magic Dave adult show, followed by the Match Your Mate show. Please somebody help me out with the name, but Dave, the adult club host (from New York) absolutely made this show (the Match your Mate). He is a hilarious guy and we laughed so hard. I definitely recommend going to this if you ever cruise. It was so funny!! We were pretty tired out from all the laughing, so we headed to bed after that was over. A big day was ahead...Tracy Arm Fjord!

 

[becca1976]

DAY 3 - Tracy Arm Fjord

This is one of the days that everybody anticipates on the Alaska cruise. I was not mentally prepared for how COLD it was going to be, but thankfully physically I had prepared by bringing lots of layers.

We started the day at our favorite restaurant - Beach Blanket Buffet and headed to the theater to watch Maleficent. After the movie was over we bundled up, got our camera gear and headed out on deck 10. As soon as we got up there, we ran into our new friend from the facebook meet and greet, Brenda. She told us that she and her husband had talked about it and they wanted to treat us to Palo. They had a reservation that night, but she wanted us to call and see if we could get in sometime that week and they would be happy to pay for it. I suggested that we just join them for dinner, if they didn't mind. They had already been to Palo once that week for brunch, so happily agreed for us to join them for dinner that night. She told us she'd leave a message on our room phone to let us know the details. I was so excited. After reading all the Palo reviews on this board, I really wanted to try it. My husband just couldn't justify the extra expense, since we already had meals provided at no extra cost. How special, that our brand new friends were going to treat us! This added to an already special day and just made it more amazing. We later learned our reservation was for 7:30 that evening and I looked forward to it all day long!

Back to Tracy Arm...
The views were absolutely breathtaking. The dramatic cloud cover (as naturalist Doug Jones referred to it) was so beautiful. I couldn't get over how close we were to the cliffs on both sides of the boat. It was amazing!
From Deck 9, shooting up and across:


The color of the water was so beautiful. You can't tell how cold I am here...but I'm freezing!!


We also saw mountain goats. They were only visible with binoculars or a zoom lense. They just blend right into the mountain!


Of course we saw seals - best views with binoculars or camera's zoom lense. I couldn't get over how blue the ice was!




I also couldn't get over the immense size of the glacier. We could see a boat floating right among the huge chunks of ice and it looked like a little toy boat! The glacier is so big. Pictures of course, never really do it justice. You have to see it in person!


We ate the barbecue lunch out on deck and enjoyed tasting some of the wild game available (ok - my husband did, but I am not as adventurous as he is.) Being a missionary in a 3rd world country, I make bread all the time, so this creative bread caught my eye:


I really wanted a picture of Alaska Mickey or Minnie on Deck. I never even saw them, but I did manage to snag a pic with Minnie inside. I'm like a cat, I always have glowing eyes in pictures. Excuse the crazy eyes:


By 3 I was frozen solid. The ship was completing its 360 degree turn and I decided I was done. Ben wanted to stay outside and take some more photos, but I went inside to thaw out. I headed to the Buena Vista Theater and watched the 100 foot journey. I was SO cold and just could not warm up! I also noticed while in the movie that I was missing one of my gloves. When the movie was over, a lady noticed me looking all around. She suggested I head to guest services. I thought it was a long shot, but wouldn't you know it...they had my other glove! I was so glad - with all of the cold days ahead, I needed that glove!

After the movie we went to our room to get ready for Palo. It was going to be directly after the Magic Dave show that night, so we got ready beforehand. The Magic Dave show was hilarious. We really enjoyed his act, and I would love for my kids to see him sometime. I know they'd get an absolute kick out of him! From there we went straight up to Palo! The meal was delicious. We had a wonderful server, Sasha from Croatia, that did an excellent job. We all ordered the steak that evening and it was melt-in-your-mouth divine!


Remember - I don't eat steak that often, so it all tasted so good to me! This steak was definitely a step or more up from the main dining room steaks though. We all got the chocolate souffle for dessert and Sasha also brought out a sampler plate of other desserts.


It was all so good and we were in there until after 10 enjoying our meal! I was stuffed to the gills when we walked out of there! I was also so tired! All that heavy food made me sleepy, but we decided to watch Captain America: Winter Soldier. I struggled to stay awake, but made it to the end and didn't miss too much. It wasn't my favorite marvel movie. More violent than the original Captain America I think. From there we went straight to bed! The next day we had an early port of call in Skagway! Thankfully this was the only early morning we had all week. We enjoyed sleeping in a lot!

 

[becca1976]

DAY 4: Skagway

This disboards is an amazing resource and after months and months of research I figured out that I could book all of my excursions independently. Many of the excursion companies in Alaska have their own guarantees that they will pay your transport to the next port of call if you happen to miss your boat. I wasn't concerned at all, since all of the companies I had reviewed have never missed a boat in all their time of service. I felt very comfortable with my decision.

Originally I wanted to do the train in Skagway, but it was such a huge expense, I couldn't justify it. I also considered renting a car, but was a bit concerned with that responsibility. I ended up finding a review for Dyea Dave and booked his tour. Dave is a local Alaskan and he has a very laid back business. You book a tour and you don't even have to pay until it is all over. He has small passenger buses, with big windows and he, or one of his drivers, will take you on a drive through the Yukon. He has several different tour options on his website, but we chose the Emerald Lake tour for $79 a person. I think we had Jeannine for our tour guide and she was extremely accomodating. She gave us a lot of Skagway history and information as she drove. I couldn't believe the expense of living there. She drove us by her old rental house (she only comes for the summers). It was a little box, not even as big as a small camper...smaller than my little shed! I wish I'd taken a picture. She paid $500 a month for that little box and this time she had to find a new place to rent because the owner wanted to charge her $750!! Wow! I am sure her salary is decent because you wouldn't make any money if you didn't have a good paying job there!

Anyway, she drove us over the Canadian border and through Carcross and to Emerald Lake and then we turned around and made the return trip. The weather started out rough. There was absolutely no visibility whatsoever. I'm thankful we took the exact route back as we did up, because we were able to get some great pictures on the return trip that the weather prevented us from getting first thing that morning.

Here are several pictures that I think are pretty self explanatory.






















Emerald lake is pretty easy to spot in the pictures above. The color is absolutely amazing! The legend is that if you can't find the Northern Lights it is because they are sleeping in Emerald Lake! Also, you will notice in the Yukon sign that part of the "N" is missing. Jeannine told us that each year bears will eat parts of the sign because people constantly touch it during tour season. They will fix it again when tour season is over. I thought that was funny. What an amazing day we had. It was thoroughly enjoyable and I highly recommend the Dyea Dave tour. For the price it can't be beat!

After we returned to town, we made use of the cell service and called our family and also did a little bit of souvenir shopping! We headed back to the ship to get something to eat and prepare for the evening ahead. The evening entertainment for that night was Guardians of the Galaxy in 3D. Because it was a longer movie, it started earlier than normal. That was the first 3D movie I'd ever seen and it was a lot of fun. For dinner that night we were in Animator's Palate. Communicating with our Japanese table mates was getting easier and easier. We enjoyed the meal and the show. I took some video so the kids could see as well. Here is our main server, Omar, in his Animator's uniform:

He was such a fun server throughout the week. Each night he would do a magic trick for us and I must admit, he was really good! We had so much fun with him! Sandros was from Italy and was very new to the Disney Cruise Line. He was quiet and reserved, but very sweet. He made some mistakes through the week, but you could tell he was really trying.

After dinner Ben and I went to diversions to play a game of scrabble. We were both exhausted so we finally called it quits and headed to bed. Big day ahead tomorrow...whale watching in Juneau!

 

[becca1976]

Day 5: Juneau

Every day we were hearing stories of whale sightings. Other than the mountain goats and seals on Tracy Arm day, we hadn't spotted one bit of wildlife, but I wasn't too worried. I booked a whale watching tour for that very reason. I was very excited for this day in Juneau. Harv and Marv's whale watching tour was the first excursion that I booked and of all the excursions it was the one I was anticipating the most. My husband was a bit apprehensive. He had visions of goliath whales overturning our boat. The day turned out to be better than both of us could have ever anticipated.

We started out our morning as usual - at Beach Blanket Buffet. Our meeting time with Harv and Marv tours was at 9:30. Our driver took us to Mendenhall Glacier for a quick 20 minute stop. Just enough time to get a few pictures, basically.


We reboarded the bus and drove about 25 minutes to Auke Bay. Juneau was quite a bit different than Skagway - more urban. We drove in rain and I was really hoping that it would quit before we got to the boat. Thankfully it did. We were met by Captain Scott and led to his boat, the Riptide, for our whale watching tour.


As you can see the boat was very small, and we had about 10 people in our group which made for a wonderful whale watching experience. We all had access to wonderful picture taking opportunities throughout the day. We boarded and headed out into the bay. We drove for quite a while until someone spotted a blow. We pulled closer and this turned out to be a lone whale, and there really wasn't much action going on. We did see an adorable sea lion jumping around, but the whale wasn't very active. Captain Scott was on the radio with other boats in the bay and heard of some activity in another area, so he told us to take our seats and we were going to head there. I was a bit worried at this point that we really wouldn't see that much. Thankfully it got much better!

We finally came to a spot where several boats were congregating. There was some definite activity in the area. Left and right we were seeing blows, hearing the whales "talk" and of course we saw lots of tales and backs. It was really fun and we were definitely closer to them than the first whale we saw.





My husband had the digital camera, and I had my iphone taking video. All of the sudden we saw a whale breach. It was so sudden we were all so unprepared. From that moment on I tried to keep taking short video clips. I figured I could just delete some later. While I was trying to mess with my camera, I totally missed videoing this:



Thankfully my husband was ready this time and got a cool progression of the whole thing with his camera in sports mode:



If you want to view the above image closer, click on it. It will take you to photobucket and there you will find a zoom option (magnifying glass). If you click the zoom it will make the images large for a close-up view.

It was absolutely breathtaking and I was SO mad I didn't get it on video. I was even more vigilant about keeping the video running as often as possible. A short time later these same two whales started playing around closer to our boat. One whale was "spy hopping." At the time we had no idea what he was doing. We were calling it chin slapping. Steve, our captain, was in awe of what these guys were doing around us.











And last but not least...a rainbow to top off our day:


Captain Scott said that they only way it could have been better was if a whale was breaching under that rainbow...or if a mermaid were riding the back of a breaching whale under that rainbow. We were all a bit giddy and silly by this time. The entire day was an incredible display of God's amazing creation!

Our captain and on board naturalist:


We saw some eagles on the way back into harbor:

(this photo was taken by fellow whale watcher, Wes Cooper)

Again, pictures don't do justice to this amazing day. If you ever have a chance to take an Alaskan cruise, I highly recommend fitting in a whale watching tour. Harv and Marv were amazing!

After our tour, we got back to the ship at around 2:30 and got a late lunch on deck 9. We spent a lot of time looking through our photos on the computer. Ben headed off to workout in the gym and I headed to the lobby to watch the Pixar party. I wore a Jessie t-shirt and was very happy when she noticed!


I also tried to squeeze my way through the crowd to get some other pixar characters on camera.













We really enjoyed the Toy Story production that night. They did an amazing job on several of the scenes from the movie. My favorite part was The Claw! In between the show and dinner we joined in on family karaoke. I really wished my kids were there as they love to sing and would have really enjoyed playing along. My husband convinced me to sing a song, so I chose a song from Tangled and he videod me. When we got home and I finally showed the kids the video of me singing they thought I was famous or something. It was cute.

The 3d Toy Story Menu was fun!



Once again, Omar did another magic trick for us making each meal a memorable one. From dinner we headed into Wavebands to watch the Taylor Mason Adult show. He was pretty funny and I actually enjoyed his adult show more than I did his family show. One thing I appreciate about Disney is even the adult shows are clean, proving that things don't need to be raunchy to be humorous. His show ended by 11 and we were exhausted from the very full day! Tomorrow we could really sleep in because our excursion wasn't until 1 in the afternoon!

 

[Nutty4Disney]

Great trip report. We were on that cruise also. We were lucky enough to get to the port early (we stayed at the Pan Pacific right next door) and got through customs quickly. We didn't even know about all the customs delays until our tablemates told us how long it took them. Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip. It certainly was an amazing journey.

 

[becca1976]

Great trip report. We were on that cruise also. We were lucky enough to get to the port early (we stayed at the Pan Pacific right next door) and got through customs quickly. We didn't even know about all the customs delays until our tablemates told us how long it took them. Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip. It certainly was an amazing journey.

Terri, glad you missed all the chaos! Again, we really didn't mind. My only regret was missing the sailing under the Lions Gate Bridge. Hopefully we will have a next time (we really want to do this cruise again!) and we will get a second chance.

 

[jenf22]

Awesome, awesome whale pictures! Thank you so much for posting them!

 

[becca1976]

Day 6: Ketchikan

It was so nice to sleep in on Ketchikan day! First thing on the schedule was our character breakfast. That was a lot of fun and I'm glad that we didn't have an excursion that conflicted with that. I would have been so sad if we had to miss it.
Excuse the crazy eyes here...




My favorite...


Captain Ben and Minnie Becca:


After breakfast we went on deck to watch the ship pull into port and dock. It was fun watching them tie it off and set up the gangplank. Ketchikan is such a beautiful little town!


Our excursion, on the Aleutian Ballad, was at 1:20, so we had plenty of time to kill watching the town from deck 4. We decided around 12:30 that we better eat lunch before we got off the ship. We went to BBB and then back to our rooms to bundle up for the day.

We headed to shore and made our way to where the Ballad was docked.



This excursion was a lot of fun and very educational. It is a perfect excursion for kids. They would enjoy handling all the sea life, and learning lots of facts about them. The fishermen's hairy tales are also fun to listen to!

We all boarded and the crowd was on the smaller side which made it nice for viewing everything. We headed out to open water. The captain spotted a whale pretty quickly so he stopped the boat and we waited about 10 minutes for it to surface again. That was really nice for those that hadn't seen a whale yet this trip.

We went past an island where Eagles nest. The captain stopped there and the crew threw fish into the water. The beautiful bald eagles came soaring down to pick them up out of the water, which made for some great picture taking!







Next we went out into open water and the crew went from trap to trap where they hauled in all sorts of fun stuff: Box Crabs, Sea Stars, Octopus, Prawns, Alaskan King Crabs. Some we were able to hold and others we could get our picture taken while the crew held them.



Slimy goo dripping down my arm! Yuck!








Having a little too much fun...





When we got back to shore, we decided to do some walking through the town. As far as Alaskan towns go, this was my favorite of the three port of calls.



We went to creek street, but I couldn't hang out there very long. The smell of dead salmon was overwhelming. So, we walked around for a little bit. Did a bit of souvenir shopping.


We then headed back to the ship. I saw Sully in the lobby and quickly hopped in line to get my picture taken with him:


We kind of lost track of time and had no idea that it was already 6 pm. We rushed to our room to freshen up and then headed to the theater for the Taylor Mason show. From there we went to the "So You Think You Know Your Family" Show in Wavebands, hosted by our favorite Adult club host...David ? from New York. (If anyone remembers his last name - please let me know. It is bugging me that I can't remember ). This was adorable and David is the one who made it hilarious! We went to another one a bit later, and it wasn't nearly as funny. The host is really what makes or breaks the show.

After dinner that night we went back to Wavebands for the adult entertainment for the evening, Matt Baker. He was hilarious and we really enjoyed his show! The busy week was catching up to us, however, and from there we went to bed! Tomorrow was our last sea day before our magical vacation was over. I can't believe how fast the week went...and yet how long it seems I've been apart from my kids! Funny how that works

 

[becca1976]

Awesome, awesome whale pictures! Thank you so much for posting them!

Thank you!! I was really happy with the shots my husband was able to get! It was an unforgettable experience for sure!

 

[becca1976]

Day 7: At Sea

Our last day on board

While by now I missed my kids like crazy, I was really sad that we were at the end of this amazing experience. This was the first time we'd cruised and having the Disney magic just made it all the more spectacular. My husband started saying things like, "Next time..." and "Wouldn't the kids love it?" We really want to come back. Of course it will be a few years since we are headed back to Cameroon. Time to start saving because it is going to take all of that plus some to save enough to bring the whole family. It really would be a last hurrah as a family until our oldest goes into college and then getting our schedules to coincide will be a big challenge. Listen to me trying to convince myself!! haha!!

Anyway - Peter, the cruise director said that this day would be jammed packed with activities. There was nothing on the navigator that interested me. We'd pretty much seen all the movies. I wanted to see Million Dollar Arm, but it wasn't showing the last day. Bingo was out of the question and that was the big thing that day. So, instead of rushing from one activity to the next, we spent our day relaxing and enjoying the views from deck 10. We did start our day with breakfast of course at none other than BBB. We also watched Mr. Doug Jones speak again. This time his topic was on whales and we were very interested in that after having such an amazing experience in Juneau. I really enjoyed his presentation and we even spoke to him afterward and shared what we had seen. He was especially interested in the spy hopping (He was the one that shared with us the technical term for the whales behaviour.) He gave us his card and asked if we would be willing to share video and photos of our experience.

From there we went to deck 10. We really wanted to see orcas. It was pretty chilly up there so we went into the Outlook Cafe to warm up. A lady in there yelled "dolphins!" We all rushed outside to see. My husband managed to get some photos.

First of all, deck 10 is a lot higher up that you think and so getting decent shots of fast moving wildlife isn't as easy as you might think. These guys were playing all around the ship going underneath from one side to the next. At first my husband thought they were killer whales because they had black and white bodies. I thought they were too small and had read something a few months ago about Dall Porpoises. Here is the best photo of all the we took:


Ben went and showed Doug Jones the photo and he did confirm they were in fact dall porpoises. The last day and we finally saw some wildlife in the ocean! It was pretty neat. We camped out on deck for a long time hoping to get a glimpse of some Orcas, but we never did. We did see an amazing sunset though!


From there we went and enjoyed our final everything...final show, final dinner. We were in animators for our final dinner that night. I must say, we got really lucky as far as dinner rotations go. We got Tritons on formal night and only had to eat in Parrot Cay twice (Personally I think they should reimagine Parrot Cay...it's kinda ugly IMHO ). We enjoyed the parade of nations and managed to get a shot of our tablemates and servers. It was a great last meal.


I asked for a couple of mickey bars to go (why? I was already so full...but I couldn't resist!). Ben and I went out on deck 9 and sat under the funnel vision and watched Enchanted, bundled up in blankets, coats, hats, scarves...eating ice cream. We were living the dream. Getting every last ounce of Disney Magic before we had to say goodbye in the morning.

It was an amazing experience and one that I would love to do again...this time with my kids!

Thanks for your patience reading through this whole report. I'd love to hear your thoughts or answer your questions, if you have any, about the Alaska cruise! For those of you that have it booked...You will not regret it!

 

[brewcrew]

It looks like you had a joy-filled trip! Beautiful scenery and fun excursions surely made for a memorable trip! God bless you and your family as you head back to Cameroon. Start saving for that next cruise with the kiddos; they will love it just as much as you and your husband!

 

[motheroftheyear]

Love your whale photos! We were on the Aug 25th sailing this year - truly an amazing experience!

 

[becca1976]

It looks like you had a joy-filled trip! Beautiful scenery and fun excursions surely made for a memorable trip! God bless you and your family as you head back to Cameroon. Start saving for that next cruise with the kiddos; they will love it just as much as you and your husband!

Thank you very much! I know you are right about the kids - when we told them of the possibility of all of us going next time they were pleading with us! haha!

Love your whale photos! We were on the Aug 25th sailing this year - truly an amazing experience!

It really is amazing! Pictures don't even do it justice!!

 

[Irinas Mom]

Wonderful travelogue, and now I can put this story together with a face, together with a fellow FE member--we talked a bit on the formal night in line for photos.
We also were clueless about the customs wait, so didn't get as upset as some. But we started at 11:30 and it took 2 hours before we boarded. As you say, if you don't know, you think that's the way it always is! The mood became more festive once we were out of the chairs!

I was lucky that my daughter was so keen to get to Oceaneers Club with her new friend from New Zealand, that I signed her up, dropped her off for 30 min. before our dinner, ran back to the lift and got off on Deck 10 just as the bow began to pass under the Lion's gate bridge, so I got the photos. We were 15 min. late to the first seating of dinner, but it was worth it.

Beautiful photos, and commentary. It truly was a magical trip. I was especially excited because Alaska was the 50th state I've visited--I had 48 states done for about 15 years, and in August and September I got #49 (Louisiana) and #50 done! I was unprepared for how stunning the vistas were, even on the many cloudy days we had. We too absolutely loved our dinner companions (3 couples + me and my 10 year old daughter--she loved all the attention, being the only kid) and the food and our hosts. Wow. So ready to go again--anywhere on Disney. All the best, and all safety and joy when you return to Cameroon.

 

[*Flower*]

What an amazing trip report!
We were sharing the Harv & Marv boat with you and really appreciated the video that was posted- I was able to have a moment of our whale watch with live action!

Sorry to hear about the Customs snafu.... we were there early and luckily missed the mess.

I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed your first Disney cruise so much- we'd been wanting to do if for a while, and now my husband is talking about doing it again! Of course he's been saying this since day 3

Safe travels, and bless you all!!