Alaska on the Wonder May 30, 2016 After Thoughts - Done

[cruisehopeful]

It's boarding day for my Alaska cruise! I am not used to posting from my phone so I am not sure how much I will post while traveling. I will add pictures when I get home.
This is a mom and daughter adults only trip. We went on this same cruise in 2012 out of Seattle. Back then, my daughter was in Vibe, so I hardly ever saw her. I am hoping to see her this time.

Departure day: left out of San Diego. We arrived 2 1/2 hours early for our flight and had zero people ahead of us going through security. Our flight was full to Seattle. We transferred in Seattle to a smaller, propeller plane to Vancouver. The floor vibrated like one of those quarter foot massage machines during the flight.

After reading some horror stories about customs, we expected more questions than just, "are you going on a cruise?" and, "have a good time." We basically just walked through. We saw a Disney cruise sign and I felt a little sad that I wasn't going with them, but when we booked this, they only had the airport Fairmont available. I wanted to see the city.

We booked Hampton Inn and suites downtown because I had lots of hotel points. We took Canada line from the airport and only needed to walk a few blocks to the hotel. It was a sunny and beautiful day in Vancouver. We put our bags in the room and took a bus to Capilano suspension bridge park.

 

[saxmangeoff]

Have fun!

 

[TJA]

Thanks for checking in and I'll look forward to hearing more!
Have a great trip!

 

[franandaj]

Signing on!

 

[cruisehopeful]

Have fun!

Thanks for checking in and I'll look forward to hearing more!
Have a great trip!

Signing on!

Thanks for joining in!

I am in Juneau today. Cruise has been great. I will do a better job of the report when I am home, but will at least finish the first day.

Capilano suspension bridge part was easily accessible by public bus. I loved the park. I have a couple pictures I can post later, but the website has much better pictures. It was very busy. The big suspension bridge was full of people and wasn't scary because of that. We waited in line for about 45 minutes for the cliff walk. It wasn't worth the wait. People were taking a ton of pictures in the middle and that was what made the line so long. We were starving and got a cheeseburger and a hot dog. Despite being so hungry, we didn't eat it all. It just wasn't that great.

 

[cruisehopeful]

I bought some snacks / treats for our stateroom hostess. We had a good sleep at Hampton and the breakfast was appreciated. We spent about an hour walking around downtown Vancouver. It is so much cleaner than our downtown in San Diego. I am a fan and hope to visit again someday. Our hotel had a shuttle to the cruise port. It was very convenient. I asked about a port upgrade and was told our cruise was sold out. I am glad now. Ocean view has been fine and several times, I have found that I was very thankful for our low window.

Coming up : disboard meet and greet and day one on board.

Spoilers: I took this cruise 4 years ago. Some things are better this time. Most are not. It has been a great vacation, just not up to level as my previous.

 

[saxmangeoff]

Spoilers: I took this cruise 4 years ago. Some things are better this time. Most are not. It has been a great vacation, just not up to level as my previous.

Hmm... I'm very interested in this part. I went in 2014, and am going back next year.

 

[l4dk]

I bought some snacks / treats for our stateroom hostess. We had a good sleep at Hampton and the breakfast was appreciated. We spent about an hour walking around downtown Vancouver. It is so much cleaner than our downtown in San Diego. I am a fan and hope to visit again someday. Our hotel had a shuttle to the cruise port. It was very convenient. I asked about a port upgrade and was told our cruise was sold out. I am glad now. Ocean view has been fine and several times, I have found that I was very thankful for our low window.

Coming up : disboard meet and greet and day one on board.

Spoilers: I took this cruise 4 years ago. Some things are better this time. Most are not. It has been a great vacation, just not up to level as my previous.

Following your report! Thanks for all the info. We will be boarding on 6/27, it's our first Alaskan cruise and also staying at the Hampton will appreciate so much all your tips. Can't wait!

 

[cruisehopeful]

Hmm... I'm very interested in this part. I went in 2014, and am going back next year.

It was still very fun. We had several "magical" things on the 2012 cruise that became money making opportunities for DCL this time around. Also, overall it seems like the level of service has gone down. It is still good, just not like it was before. A lot of the staff I talked to have only worked there a short time.

Following your report! Thanks for all the info. We will be boarding on 6/27, it's our first Alaskan cruise and also staying at the Hampton will appreciate so much all your tips. Can't wait!

If you want to use their shuttle, you need to tell the front desk at 7:00am on the day you plan to use it. It is free, but you are supposed to tip the driver. I didn't have any CAD, but the driver was fine with $5 USD (for 2 people).

When I opened the curtains in the morning, this guy was waiting for me. It seems like he was asking me for food, but I didn't have any.

 

[cruisehopeful]

First day on ship:
The Hampton shuttle took us to the cruise terminal. The Norweigan Sun was also there getting ready for an Alaskan sailing. There were many very excited people walking around the terminal. I'd say those traveling on NCL were just as happy/excited as those of us going on the Wonder. We all wished each other a fun cruise. We were boarding group #8 and boarding started a little late. It was the first time since my first cruise that I had to sit and wait for my number to be called. The waiting room was quite boring compared to PC.

As soon as we boarded, we headed to Triton's to make sure we got a dinner table for 2. It wasn't already set up, but the man helping us didn't question us at all or make it seem like an inconvenience. He just started typing away and handed us tickets and said we now had a table for 2. There was another table set up to take reservations for Palo and another table, but I can't remember what that was for. It was fast and easy breezy.

Next we went to Parrot Cay to eat. Since my prior day was a travel day without any substantial or healthy food, I went bonkers for the salad, fruit, steamed veggies and one little chicken salad sandwich. It felt so good to eat some fruit and vegetables. I didn't want my energy to fall away so early in the cruise. I had done a lot of walking, with a lot of stairs that morning and the day prior. I needed my healthy food to keep up my stamina.

We went to the room to unpack and I then I put some gift cards on my account. Between my OBC and my gift cards, I had a healthy $879. on my account and a credit card backup. As it turned out, I had over $300 leftover on one of my gift cards when we left. That was much better than my prior DCL Alaska cruise. I think we spent close to $2,000 on the cruise, but we booked excursions through DCL and I did some spa treatments. This time, I didn't do either of those. We played in the arcade for a while. We always play in the arcade. I will be sad if they take it away in the dry dock.

At 2:30pm it was time for our meet and greet in Diversions. Thanks to @The Grays for setting it up and making us all name tags. There were over 50 people signed up for the event. I am not sure how many were there. I pretty much lazily sat in one spot and talked to whoever was near me. I met 4 very nice families. It was fun to run into them again throughout the cruise. It felt like we had friends/neighbors to say hi to. In hindsight, I wish I moved around the room and met even more people. Sea days can be boring for me (I know, I know, many people LOVE sea days) and seeing people I somewhat knew made it more fun. We stayed at the meet and greet until it was announced that everyone needed to go to Muster Drill.

The Muster Drill was the longest one I've been to. This was my 5th cruise, by the way. I don't think I mentioned that, yet. Fourth time on the Wonder, but 2 of my cruises were 2 nights out of San Diego. So, I am not as cruise experienced as it sounds. First cruise was on Dream. Anyway..... the Muster Drill seemed to take forever. I was trying to just enjoy the beautiful sights of the Vancouver harbor. Eventually, someone came around and said they were looking for stateroom # (whatever it was). Once they found that group, we were able to go do something else. For me, that meant a chocolate martini. I hardly drink at all and I can't handle much caffeine, but after the long Muster Drill, I needed a chocolate martini! We went into Promenade and I ordered one along with the large case of water (yea, I really did pay over $40 for water).
#Chocolatemartini


#Vancouverharbor



I have in my notes chicken strips. This must have been the time I ate chicken strips with my daughter on deck 9. I thought I did that later in the cruise. It was pretty normal for us to have a meal on deck 9 once per day. We'd get our food and then go eat it near the Cove Cafe where it was quieter. She is 19 and was carded at the Cove Cafe on our first day. First, she was asked for her age, when she said 19, the waiter asked for her KTW card to make sure. He said he had to ask because he doesn't want to offend anyone because it is only for ages 18+. Well, since he insinuated we were lying when my daughter said she was 19 by asking to see her card, he already offended 2 people. After the first day, we kept seeing kids in the Cove Cafe. They didn't sit and hang out, but they were in and out of there frequently. As always, they walked through the pool area the whole cruise, more often than not, unsupervised. It normally doesn't bother me, but after being carded, I couldn't help but notice.

We enjoyed sailing out of the harbor. We didn't attend the sail away party. I never do. It's odd that I have only taken Disney cruises, because I don't care about the characters or the "entertainment." I am going to try some other lines, but I've been pleased with the quality of the Disney cruises and usually I don't like to fix things that aren't broken. We had second dinner seating and normally that is fine, but we didn't like it this time. We had busy days and were often hungry around 5:00pm and would eat. We wouldn't be hungry for dinner. I went to dinner on 4 nights and my daughter only went on 3 nights. Our first night was in Parrot Cay. We got hit hard with the excellent speech by the server and the head server. It was the first time I've seen that. Our servers seemed like nervous wrecks the whole time, stressed about getting excellent marks. It made me mad at DCL that they would put their hard workers into that much of a stressful situation. I told my daughter how I've read about the speech here and that it wasn't as annoying as I read and she said it was very annoying to her. At any rate, we were not hungry, but I got the jerk chicken appetizer, which was EXCELLENT and my daughter had a dessert. We planned to try to be hungry for dinners, but it just didn't work out. I did have one night where I ate a lot (coming up later) and that didn't turn out so well.

 

[pepe3penelope]

Following along!

 

[cruisehopeful]

Following along!

Welcome aboard!

 

[cruisehopeful]

Before I get into day 2, I want to post about how much I liked our captain, the cruise director and the adult activities CM.
Captain Guus was fabulous. He talked on the loud speaker often, telling us what we were passing, what was coming up and when, etc. He even warned us when he was going to blow the loud horn. He seemed to be very knowledgeable about Canada and Alaska. I've never had a captain tell us so much during a cruise like he did. He even told us when the pilots were coming and going on the ship. It was a rare moment when we wondered where we were or what was going on.

Our cruise director was Peter. He was also very informative. He spoke on the loud speaker often about upcoming activities and I saw him around the ship quite a lot.

Jamzie was the adult activities person. He wasn't as informative/knowledgeable as the above 2, but he was very funny. He definitely had the Disney mood going on.

Forget to mention All Aboard Show on first night:
The All Aboard show in the WD Theater was a sampling of what was coming up during the cruise. It was pretty well done, but I wasn't exactly impressed with the visiting entertainment. I saw nothing from Micheal Harrison or Magic Dave that made me motivated to go to their shows. They did seem like they would be very funny for younger kids and I suppose that it par for the course on a Disney cruise. The sample of the dining was very cute, showing us how we'd be served like Belle during dinner.

Day 2:
I woke up at 8:30, which is very late for me! I normally wake between 5:00 and 6:00am. We had an odd night in that during the night, the loud speaker when off with, "Starbright. Starbright. Starbright room (85XX). Starbright, thank you." When I woke to this, I was actually talking back to it telling asking it what it wanted, lol. I waited a few minutes to see if we were going to going on life boats, but it got quiet and I went back to sleep. I asked my daughter about it in the morning and she said she came into the room around 1:30am and it was after that. We speculated throughout the morning about what it meant. Eventually, I asked someone and they told me it meant there was a medical emergency in that stateroom. Okay, that was a bit different than what we thought which was fire, someone climbing a railing, etc. It was sad to hear and I certainly hope that everything turned out okay with that.

I had breakfast at Beach blanket and then went to Wildlife in Alaska lecture in the Walt Disney theater. I don't want to criticize the speaker, he was a very kind man, but the naturalist we had on board in 2012 was fantastic. He was a tough act to follow, but besides that, our speaker this time just seemed to have limited knowledge about the area. It seemed like he studied up about the area, but I actually felt like I knew more about the wildlife in the area than he did. He seemed amazed to see whales and seals. I live in San Diego and take both of those for granted. Other people may have had a different experience. At any rate, he said he was only on the cruise for 1/2 the week and he was on the previous cruise and that was all he was hired to do. He was very appreciative to get this position and would love it if he was lucky enough to be brought back sometime (paraphrased).

We hung out in Cove Cafe for a while and since it wasn't raining, it wasn't as packed as my 2012 cruise. During the 2012 cruise, it was standing room only most of the time, including Outlook, because it was very windy and rainy for several days. We went to the room and watched Cinderella and Brave. I never saw Brave before and enjoyed it very much. I think my daughter ended up napping. Normally, I do lots of napping on the cruise, but on this one, I didn't nap until several days in and only did it one time.

I decided to stroll over to secret deck 7. Nobody was out there. It had a really nice wind block and I thought this would be a great place to see the glacier tomorrow when the ship turns around to leave the arm. Shhh.... don't tell anyone. I was randomly walking around the ship and happened upon a sales presentation at the Buena Vista theater. I wasn't doing anything, so I decided to join in. It was very obvious that the guy doing it was getting paid commission by the stores he was promoting. He kept pushing diamonds and then saying that he had a different talk about those at another time. Yet, he mentioned it over and over and more than half of this talk about diamonds and jewelry. I used to sell jewelry and you can't BS me. I'm not sure if he was able to BS anyone else. I found the overall experience very beneath what I expect from Disney. I was very disappointed. Disney should be promoting Alaska made items or even their own Disney stuff, not have some fast talker from Brooklyn try to convince people on a cruise that they need to go buy diamonds when in ports.

For lunch, I got some cheese pizza and a cheese pretzel. I've never had those on the Wonder before. I also got some watermelon and some tea. I ate a lot of watermelon on this cruise. It was perfect, or should I say EXCELLENT?

Next, I went to the Art of the Theme Tour. I counted 48 people on the tour, not counting myself or the guide. We met in Palo. I had Tony. He told everyone that there would be several more of these tours and they usually aren't this crowded and said people could leave if they wanted to. I don't think anyone left. In fact, there were a few stops where people walking by joined us. It was interesting and I don't want to give anything away. We walked through Palo and then some parts of deck 5. I can't even remember where else we went. Tony said several CMs run the tours and if we chose to take it again with someone else, we would probably hear some different things.

I went to the Yoga class. It was my first time in the fitness center and I normally don't do Yoga. I didn't want to become completely lazy on the cruise and thought this was a good way to do something sort of active. More people showed up for it than there was room for. Because of that, we couldn't do all of the moves exactly as they are meant to do. It's too bad they didn't limit the # of people for the class or move it to somewhere we didn't have to double our mats. Aside from that, it was a good class. The fitness center looks out over the front of the ship. We were in the inside passage. We had pure unspoiled beautiful nature to look at, when we were allowed to have our eyes open. I practically ran back to the room to get a shower in before the Golden Mickeys.

The Golden Mickeys has been revamped and it is EXCELLENT. I don't know what all to say about it, not wanting to spoil it, but I will say that I will watch this show again. I rarely will watch one of their shows again that I've already seen on a cruise. I've grown up near Disneyland and been to so many of their shows so many times to count and it is rare that Disney surprises me or wows me now. This show had the wow factor going on.

I had Triton's for dinner, but I didn't write down what I ate and I have no memory. When I was walking around afterward, I heard a beautiful voice singing and followed it to Promenade where the Firelights were performing. I sat and watched the rest of their performance. They did play again throughout the cruise, but I never went to sit and watch them again, although they were good enough for me to do that.

The adult show in Wavebands that night was Magic Dave. I went to it, thinking it would be better than the sample on the first night since it was an adults performance. He took a $100 bill from someone in the audience and spent pretty much the rest of the show trying to make jokes about it. Eventually, the $100 came back, I won't say how as that is a spoiler, but overall, I was not impressed. I see better stuff on America's Got Talent. There were some other tricks in there, but I remember much better entertainment in 2012.

I tried to find out if we were going to Tracy Arm tomorrow or if we were stuck with Endicott Arm like the previous cruise was. I asked at customer service, the young lady there said of course we were going to Tracy Arm. I had a feeling she was completely clueless and tried to ask at Port Adventures, but they were already closed. I wanted to book the excursion if we were going to Tracy Arm, but not if we were going to Endicott arm.

We went back to the room and had an egg crate on our fold down couch bed. Earlier in the day, I told our stateroom hostess that my daughter had shoulder pain from sleeping the night prior. She said she would see if there was anything she could do. I slept on the egg crate that night and it was one of the most comfortable things I've ever slept on. We had been giving her a treat every day. Other than that, we didn't see her much. She always did say hi and ask how we were doing when we saw her, but it seems like we had a lot more interaction with our stateroom hosts on past cruises. That may be because of how things are run, though. It seemed like we used to constantly have gifts or notices left in our rooms. We didn't have a lot of that this time. I've always had a note telling me about my OBC, but didn't have that this time. I actually went to customer service to make sure it was applied. It was.

Here's a few pictures from this day. The first few are from the Art of the Theme Tour





#ITSASECRETDONTTELLANYONE


#YOGAVIEW


#FORGOTTOPOSTMYCASTWAYCLUBSILVERGIFT


#TYPICALVIEWFROMDECK2STATEROOM

 

[franandaj]

He just started typing away and handed us tickets and said we now had a table for 2. There was another table set up to take reservations for Palo and another table, but I can't remember what that was for. It was fast and easy breezy.

This is good to know. My parents couldn't get a Palo Brunch reservation and I couldn't add them to mine when 1st time cruisers reservations opened up, so this will be our first stop to add them to our first day reservation and get us a second one on the last day.

Well, since he insinuated we were lying when my daughter said she was 19 by asking to see her card, he already offended 2 people. After the first day, we kept seeing kids in the Cove Cafe. They didn't sit and hang out, but they were in and out of there frequently. As always, they walked through the pool area the whole cruise, more often than not, unsupervised. It normally doesn't bother me, but after being carded, I couldn't help but notice.

I don't like this either. If they're going to be that picky and not believe you, they should have someone guarding the doors so that kids don't get through. It really irks me to see kids in the adult pool area. Especially when their parents walk them through.

We enjoyed sailing out of the harbor. We didn't attend the sail away party. I never do.

I never do either. I always have my own sail away party on the verandah.

We got hit hard with the excellent speech by the server and the head server. It was the first time I've seen that.

I've never heard that before.

The All Aboard show in the WD Theater was a sampling of what was coming up during the cruise.

Good to know. I won't attend that one, but I don't normally attend the shows anyways.

Eventually, I asked someone and they told me it meant there was a medical emergency in that stateroom.

I googled it and Bright star is the code for medical emergency. Rising star is the code for a death.

At any rate, he said he was only on the cruise for 1/2 the week and he was on the previous cruise and that was all he was hired to do.

So I guess the naturalist changes for each cruise?

Disney should be promoting Alaska made items or even their own Disney stuff, not have some fast talker from Brooklyn try to convince people on a cruise that they need to go buy diamonds when in ports.

Yeah those stupid diamond and tanzanite talks are a total racket.

I counted 48 people on the tour, not counting myself or the guide.

I had maybe a dozen on the one I did!

 

[wl1117]

I don't like this either. If they're going to be that picky and not believe you, they should have someone guarding the doors so that kids don't get through. It really irks me to see kids in the adult pool area. Especially when their parents walk them through.

I have a different opinion on this. We often stay Concierge on the larger ships and our room is on Deck 11 or 12. The only way there is the forward elevator or stairs...or to walk through the adult pool area. If I'm on deck already, I'm not going in to find the elevator to take my kids to the room. I make sure they are quiet and proceed directly through the area. The only time to get upset is if there are kids disturbing the peace or lingering. I do find it a bit rude how they questioned the OP's child, but I'd imagine they've had many people try to slip through and maybe the CM had been reprimanded in the past. No telling.

 

[cruisehopeful]

I never do either. I always have my own sail away party on the verandah.

You should be fine to do that in Vancouver. It's actually sunny and warm up there. Once you get to Alaska seas, it gets pretty cold, but that will happen on a different day, not sail away day.

So I guess the naturalist changes for each cruise?

That isn't the norm. I think they had the same naturalist for a few years, that I had in 2012, based on stuff I've read here. Maybe they were scrambling to cover his position and ended up hiring short timers. I would expect the on board naturalist to be more settled by the time your cruise rolls around. It really makes a difference on the Alaskan cruises.

I had maybe a dozen on the one I did!

That is what I was expecting. I will probably take it again on my next cruise and hope for a smaller group.

I saw in another trip report that you are planning on going to Capliano. Are you going to the suspension bridge park? It didn't seem very good for those with mobility issues. There are some things to do and see there without crossing the big bridge or doing all the stairs to get to cliff walk, but I am not sure if it would be worth the time and money. Be sure to research it some more if you are planning on going there. When I was there, I kept thinking, "there's no way my husband could do any of this if he were here." If you do decide to go there, they offer a AAA discount. I didn't look ahead of time for other discounts/coupons, but it seemed like most people don't pay the full price when they get there.

 

[ukintheus]

Following along with your travels. Always good to hear others opinions. We sailed on the Wonder at the end of 2015 and in Jan this year. She needs a dry dock desperately, but we found the service to still be good.

 

[cruisehopeful]

Tracy Arm/Endicott Arm Day:
I went to breakfast at Beach Blanket right after it opened. While going through the line, several of the staff told me there was an omelet bar at the end of the line. I thought a fresh omelet sounded good since the scrambled eggs on board are such a weird texture. I have no idea how they make their scrambled eggs, but they don't even seem like eggs to me. When I got to the omelet station, they told me they had a fresh cheese and ham omelet. I asked if they had any vegetable options. I was thinking spinach, broccoli... made the big mistake of not specifying vegetables. I was told they would make one for me and bring it to my table. They gave me a number and I sat down and ate whatever I already had on my plate which was probably some fruit and a croissant. When my omelet arrived, it was nothing like any vegetable omelet I've ever had. It was an epic fail. It was finely chopped tomatoes, mushrooms and onions mixed the eggs and served in the shape of an omelet. There was no cheese. I'm not supposed to eat tomatoes and I don't like mushrooms, so I did the best I could to eat the eggs around those items, but they were finely chopped and mixed into the scrambled eggs mixture. Lesson learned - be extremely specific about what I want when ordering a vegetable omelet.

I went to the walk a mile group walk. I know I can walk deck 4 anytime, but it's boring to do that alone since you have to go around 3 times to make a mile and I thought walking with a group would be more fun. It was more fun than going alone because I had a couple people to talk to. The activities CM told me she had my daughter for one of the 1820 society events. The 1820 society was led by a different activities CM each time. They made/sampled drinks in the Cove Cafe and often met for games in Diversions. I think some of them stayed together afterward for the adult shows in Wavebands. Overall, it was a really good thing. It may have been better if they met more often, but it seemed the group did do some things on their own that weren't on the schedule at different times. At the end of my one mile walk, I saw my daughter looking out over deck 4. We went to port adventures to see if we were going to Tracy Arm.

Port Adventures hung their heads and said that we were going to Endicott Arm. I asked my daughter if she wanted to do the boat excursion and she said no. We played some trivia in Diversions and at one point, she ran into some people who were in the 1820 society who asked her if she was going with them to something and she said yes and left me in the dust. I didn't mind because when she was younger and in Vibe, she spent all her time there. I think hanging out with people her own age made the cruise a lot more fun. I played some more trivia until it was time for the narration for Endicott Arm.

When we were cruising into the arm, I realized that I wanted some binoculars. They had them for sale in Shutters and I tried out a couple pairs and bought one for $89. They worked very well. There are a lot of waterfalls in the arm. Much less ice than Tracy Arm and a lot less wildlife in Endicott Arm. When I saw the boat for the excursion, I felt like I was being left out of all the fun. I felt jealous of everyone as they drove away from the Wonder. I mentioned that to several people and they said back to me, "$200 per person." That kept putting it back into perspective for me. It's a very high priced excursion and this wasn't my first or last visit to Alaska. I didn't need to do the excursion. They did get a lot closer to the glacier than the Wonder did. You can see how much closer in this picture.

The glacier was very active. I saw it calve several times and I didn't even spend that much time looking at it. It would not be safe for a small boat to get too close to it. Sometimes, there would be a loud noise when it would calve. Once, it sounded like a low flying plane. Another time, it popped like a gunshot. The front of deck 10 was full of people taking pictures. They didn't seem to want to move and let others take pictures. All my pictures from that area look like pictures of people with the glacier in the background, so they aren't worth posting.

It rained a bit and there were free rain ponchos being given out in the front of deck 10. They were also selling alcohol and hot chocolate in souvenir mugs there. In 2012, they served free hot chocolate, coffee and warm chocolate chip cookies in this area. It was magical to get stuff for free in 2012, not so magical to see the stuff for sale in 2016, but not a surprise.

One of the lifeboats was in the water and got very close to a waterfall. They got a lot closer than what I have a picture of. Just my guess, but I think some of the staff who were off at the time took the boat out for their own excursion.


Here is a better pic of the glacier.

This was taken from the secret afk deck. You can see another small boat in the distance.


Endicott Arm Pros:
Lots of waterfalls.
Glacier is amazing.
Lots of trees.
Weather not horrible.

Tracy Arm Pros:
Tons of ice floats and seals on ice floats.
More ice/snow everywhere.

I like Tracy Arm much better. Endicott would have been a total let down for me after going to Tracy Arm, except for the waterfalls. The waterfalls were plentiful and much prettier (with binoculars) than what I normally see in California and Hawaii.

I wasn't hungry during the BBQ, but decided to get some food anyway because it was so magical last time. It wasn't magical this time. It was set up behind Beach Blanket like before, but everyone was there and the food was cold. Plus, I wasn't hungry. In 2012, we just found the BBQ by accident. We walked out the back of Beach Blanket looking for a place to sit and there it was. It was Tracy Arm and it was freezing cold and wet outside. The meats went directly from the grill to plate. Sure, they got cold by the time we sat down, but fresh off the grill is so much better than in the serving dishes. The scenery was better (Tracy Arm just more fantastic with snow and ice) and it was freezing cold outside and we practically had the whole place to ourselves.

I played a group game of the Feud and our team won, which meant I got one of the winner medallions that I wanted so badly. Once I got it, I was like..okay I got it.... then, it stayed in my stateroom and I left it there intentionally when the cruise was over. I wanted one so badly, but when I got it, I realized I had no use for it.

I watched The Jungle Book in the Buena Vista Theater. It was pretty good. Magic Dave was the show in the WD theater, so I didn't go to it. There was a Q and A with the naturalist in Outlook which I went to. He wasn't able to answer many of the questions. He gets a gold star for trying, though.

Next was my tragic dinner in Animator's Palette. I would describe this as an overdose of bread. Earlier in the day, I ate 2 croissants in the cove due to the omelet fail. At the BBQ, I had some pasta salad, a cookie and a roll. I think I had a chocolate croissant. I don't know if or what I ate after that, but at dinner, I had 3 pieces of bread before my meal. The irony here is that I don't like to share a table because the other families eat all the bread and I've had a piece of the bread when I've shared a table. This time, I was alone and was able to eat the bread! Yay me! However, you can have too much of a good thing. So, after my 3 pieces of bread, I had the pursettes appetizer (which is really good and I should have stopped there), the squash soup (which has always been my favorite thing at dinner on the ship) and some chicken and mashed potato thing. It was all so good that I at even after I was full. My server really wanted me to stay for the show. He asked me to stay, even if I was done because he wanted me to see the show. He had been trying to connect with us a lot and I decided to stay so he wouldn't stress out that I left and maybe wouldn't give an excellent mark. I ordered a blueberry tart with frozen yogurt for dessert. I took one taste of it - it was spectacular. And then, I could feel food coming back up into my throat. I wasn't sick to my stomach, I was overfilled. I'm not sure that has ever happened to me before, where I ate so much, it couldn't go down anymore. I didn't eat my super yummy dessert and just waited for the show. All I could think of was how next time, I am going to sit with other people so that they will eat all the bread! I kept thinking about my husband and how he can eat for hours on end and how can he do that... then I thought, maybe it's because he doesn't eat bread? When the show started, my server was smiling and waving to me. He was so happy that I stayed for it. He and his assistant tried so hard to make things nice for us throughout the cruise (when we actually showed up for dinner). As soon as it was over, I went back to my room. My daughter was asking me to go to the adult show and I didn't want to go. I told her I needed to lay down. She didn't seem to understand as she kept asking me to go and suggesting things we could do. I finally said that I had a yucky tummy, which she seemed to understand and she went off on her own. I took a Bonine, put on my jammies and crawled into bed. There was a movie with Tom hanks and something about East Germany on. I thought I was going to watch, but I fell asleep instead. I vowed to not eat any bread tomorrow.

 

[cruisehopeful]

Following along with your travels. Always good to hear others opinions. We sailed on the Wonder at the end of 2015 and in Jan this year. She needs a dry dock desperately, but we found the service to still be good.

Hello!
She is ready for her dry dock for sure. When it was raining, water was coming in through the floor in Outlook and there were several areas where they were drying the carpet every day near the aft elevators. The ship on the whole is still much cleaner and in better shape than my house, though!

 

[ukintheus]

Hello! Glad to see you squeezing another cruise in. Agreed that she is still in decent shape and they have already replaced carpet and some furniture. We just found she wasn't in "great" shape considering the premium for DCL.

ETA: Sorry to hear about the carb overload. Sounds like you may need to steal some bread from the basket to eat later. Pacing is much better than going without. LOL