August 2, 2011 - WONDERful Alaskan Adventure

[motherofallfans]

FYI if you're coming in for some pre-cruise travel AND you're renting a car...

SQUAMISH DAYS LOGGER SPORTS SHOWS:
Saturday July 30th - NOVICE & INTERMEDIATE LOGGERS SPORTS - FREE EVENT
Sunday July 31 - WORLD CLASS OPEN LOGGER SPORTS - $10

Squamish is halfway between Vancouver and Whistler and the Civic Day long weekend is Squamish Days.
http://squamishdays.ca/pages/welcome.php

This community event features many activities however the highlight is the Logger Sports Shows.

Just something to consider (maybe even opening up a day on the cruise if you had been planning on that logger show in Ketchikan )

 

[cwdefouw]

Finally got Docs. They came one day last week. They were in the mail when we got back from out of town.

 

[Cruisinfirsttime]

We will also be on the boat -- me, DH, DD - almost 11, my brother and his wife, their DD8 and DD5, and Grandma and Granddad. It is our first cruise.

 

[Mom2PrincessesLinSy]

welcome aboard! You are going to have a great time!!

 

[nanaguide]

Welcome!! You and your family will love cruising I'm sure and with Disney it is the BEST! This Alaska cruise is going to be extra special. We are all excited. Enjoy it all and again welcome to the Disney Family.

 

[SmilingGrump]

Welcome aboard, you're going to have a WONDER-ful time!

 

[ldeglian]

So glad to find this group! Will be taking my niece and her best friend on the 8/2 cruise--both are celebrating high school graduation. This is cruise #7 for niece and I, but #1 for her friend....both girls are beyond excited (as am I!).

Looking forward to taking the girls to Palo....something my niece has been waiting to do forever!

We are also doing the ABD excursion package....is anyone else doing that?

 

[joycsk]

So glad to find this group! Will be taking my niece and her best friend on the 8/2 cruise--both are celebrating high school graduation. This is cruise #7 for niece and I, but #1 for her friend....both girls are beyond excited (as am I!).

Looking forward to taking the girls to Palo....something my niece has been waiting to do forever!

We are also doing the ABD excursion package....is anyone else doing that?

I haven't noticed others talking about ABD, but I could be wrong. We also have a Facebook group which is more active than this board. Looking forward to seeing you!

 

[MN Dis Fans]

I posted this on our FB page as well, but thought I would cover all bases.

Ketchikan Fishing Excursion: Anyone interested in joining my brother and youngest son? Right now, they are booked on the Knudson Cove Fishing excursion through DCL. We read a bad review on the DisBoards, so my brother has been researching some other fishing options, and has found a guide that leaves from the wharfs about 3 minutes from the ship, vs: a 20 minute transfer by bus to where the cove fishing takes place. Plus, this is $50 / person cheaper ($150 each). Right now, it's just those 2x booked, but the guide wants a min of 3x people to go, with a max up to 6. Would anyone be interested in joining them?

 

[JustJanice]

Hi, everyone. I'm very, very late to the party! Glad to find you all. I'm feverishly last minute planning our pre-cruise activities and running all those last minute errands.

My DH and DD8 are so excited. We honeymooned with an Alaska cruise/land tour and have always wanted to return.

This is our sixth DC, all previous have been on the Magic. Every one is better!

 

[CarolAnnC]

Welcome to all the new cruisers! We also have a Facebook page that is very active on this cruise. Getting ready to head out to Seattle on Saturday! Whooo Hoooo! So excited!!

 

[lbgraves]

Did you go to Tracy Arm? We were on the 7/26 cruise and saw Dawes glacier instead. Just curious. Hope that the weather was beautiful for your cruise like it was for ours.

 

[SmilingGrump]

Yes, we went up Tracy Arm and we got very lucky and saw a large calving of the glacier! It rocked the boat fairly well even at the distance we were from it. Got some great shots of it.

Weather in Ketchikan was perfect, no rain, beautiful skies, one of the best days of the trip. Weather for the rest of the trip was ... Alaska, some good days, some rainy/cloudy days. The days in Skagway and Juneau were also pretty good, though not nearly as nice as Ketchikan (go figure that the place notorious for bad weather had the best!)

It was a fantastic cruise with some really great people!

 

[poohj80]

Had the merchandise on board been restocked yet?

 

[Mom2PrincessesLinSy]

Yes, we went up Tracy Arm and we got very lucky and saw a large calving of the glacier! It rocked the boat fairly well even at the distance we were from it. Got some great shots of it.

Weather in Ketchikan was perfect, no rain, beautiful skies, one of the best days of the trip. Weather for the rest of the trip was ... Alaska, some good days, some rainy/cloudy days. The days in Skagway and Juneau were also pretty good, though not nearly as nice as Ketchikan (go figure that the place notorious for bad weather had the best!)

It was a fantastic cruise with some really great people!

It was a great cruise. And fabulous people! Except for the glacier day, which was overcast/rainy/etc. Just for clarification, though, we diverted to what our server said was "Handicap Arm" and saw the Endicott glacier, not the glacier in Tracy Arm. I did not hear that directly from the Captain's announcement, so I cannot say that with 100% accuracy. But from what I heard, because the visibility was so poor, they were told by the Carnival Spirit (which we followed at every port!) we couldn't go into Tracy Arm, and went the other direction. They were 2 hours ahead of us into the Arm, which is why we passed them when we did.

Again, I don't know this first-hand, but from a crew member who filled us in. If anyone from the cruise knows for sure, let me know! I want to make sure to correctly label all my pictures!!


Beautiful glacier and all no matter which it was, though. We caught it calving twice, of course, never on camera! We weren't quick enough, but sure did hear it!

 

[Mom2PrincessesLinSy]

Had the merchandise on board been restocked yet?

We were told that all the Pins for all the ports are completely sold out. I asked for clarification several times, and was told it wasn't just for our cruise, but for all remaining cruises as there was only a "limited number" available. I am quite upset about that, I may add.

Also, my Dad was in line to get pins the day before Tracy Arm, and saw a woman scoop up a bunch of Tracy Arm pins, at which point those were then "sold out." Very disappointing.

They didn't have any of the Alaska Disney scrapbooks at the store from day one. I went within the hour it first opened (I wanted to make sure to get a totem pole) and never saw one. I also had hoped for the Disney Alaksa sweatshirt (brown, with the ports listed) but they only had those in the kids sizes. I ended up with the long sleeve tee in the same design.

We didn't get much Dis Alaska merchandise, because they didn't have what I had really wanted!

 

[poohj80]

We were told that all the Pins for all the ports are completely sold out. I asked for clarification several times, and was told it wasn't just for our cruise, but for all remaining cruises as there was only a "limited number" available. I am quite upset about that, I may add.

Also, my Dad was in line to get pins the day before Tracy Arm, and saw a woman scoop up a bunch of Tracy Arm pins, at which point those were then "sold out." Very disappointing.

They didn't have any of the Alaska Disney scrapbooks at the store from day one. I went within the hour it first opened (I wanted to make sure to get a totem pole) and never saw one. I also had hoped for the Disney Alaksa sweatshirt (brown, with the ports listed) but they only had those in the kids sizes. I ended up with the long sleeve tee in the same design.

We didn't get much Dis Alaska merchandise, because they didn't have what I had really wanted!

Thanks for the update. That's what I was afraid of. I'm not really into pins, but so want at least a shirt or sweatshirt and am afraid they'll be completely out of everything by the time we cruise in 2 weeks.

 

[nanaguide]

Mom To Princess - we were told we were at the Dawes Glacier - someone else said we were at the Endicott Glacier. I just know we weren't at the Tracy Arm Glacier. Just glad we got to see it calving. I thought that was the only day we really had lousy weather. I thought the rest of the weather was just great - especially since I've come home to 98 degree, muggy Florida weather. It was an absolutely fantastic cruise with great shows and fun people on board. I bought totem pole vinylmations - if that is what one of the posters was looking for. There were a lot of them on the shelf. I loved the towns of Skagway and Ketchikan - not impressed with Juneau but our helicopter/dogsled excursion there was the highlight of my trip. The scenery was unreal - it just took your breath away but it was really expensive. Thank heavens DH enjoyed the vacation so much that he isn't complaining about how much we spent. Now to just figure out how to go to New York and Canada next year on the Disney Magic!!

 

[joycsk]

Mom To Princess - we were told we were at the Dawes Glacier - someone else said we were at the Endicott Glacier. I just know we weren't at the Tracy Arm Glacier. Just glad we got to see it calving. I thought that was the only day we really had lousy weather. I thought the rest of the weather was just great - especially since I've come home to 98 degree, muggy Florida weather. It was an absolutely fantastic cruise with great shows and fun people on board. I bought totem pole vinylmations - if that is what one of the posters was looking for. There were a lot of them on the shelf. I loved the towns of Skagway and Ketchikan - not impressed with Juneau but our helicopter/dogsled excursion there was the highlight of my trip. The scenery was unreal - it just took your breath away but it was really expensive. Thank heavens DH enjoyed the vacation so much that he isn't complaining about how much we spent. Now to just figure out how to go to New York and Canada next year on the Disney Magic!!

I thought I heard the Captain say that we had sailed into Endicott Arm, as opposed to Tracy Arm. Didn't catch the name of the glacier there, but I'm nearly positive about the fjord being Endicott. I also thought that the wearther was great for the entire trip except Endicott Arm.

I felt that there wasn't much AK merch available, but I'd already heard that. There were some LE AK pins, but I didn't see any that were port related. I'd hoped to purchase a scrapbook paper kit, but they sold out before I got to them - my bad. I wasn't looking for much, so it wasn't a big deal. I _did_ break down and get a D&B bag, which I'm loving, but still can't quite believe that I bought. The sales girls told me they sold out of the larger DCL totes on the prior cruise, so I did get that one early.

Nanaguide, I'm so pleased that you were able to fly on Juneau day. Many had that excursion canceled since it was overcast. We whale watched and loved it.

P.S. We are hoping to sail out of NY on either 8/5 or 8/12. Currently have 8/5 booked, but Colin's BFF (one of the Chapin girls) is booked on 8/5, so we're trying to see if we can be with them!

Glad you made it home safely and loved the trip.

 

[Mom2PrincessesLinSy]

Just trying to put 2 and 2 together here...

The crew member that told us we were in "Handicap Arm" didn't speak the best English. I wonder if she meant we were in Endicott Arm, and that the glacier was then Dawes Glacier? That makes more sense to me completely! Lets go with that one!

Ah, we are such great detectives!

The shows were awesome. I always cry at Dreams. I was going to skip it to pack, but glad I didn't. Of course, I was getting my bags out at 10:45pm, thank god for our dude Neil coming through for me so late!

I was disappointed about how long (or short) we were in Ketchikan. We got off the ship at 2:30 (supposed to be 1;45pm) so we all got to our tour "late" That got us back to port late, and in order to make it to dinner on time ( couldn't miss the lobster!) we weren't able to walk around town or shop. That was very disappointing, as there were some things I wanted to get in Ketchikan (including a picture of the Yeti walking around town!)

Sorry I didn't get to meet more of you all. My head was spinning trying to keep up with everything on the cruise!

I just got my pictures loaded on the computer tonight, I am going to try to get them posted, or at least some of them! The scenery was beautiful!