Cass, Nancy & Chuck - September 2022 Disney Wonder Alaska Cruise - This time without the covid!

[Timon]

Howdy, folks!




Surprise, surprise! Here I am again, writing another trip report.

Okay, so this started out as a post on my July 2022 Alaska Cruise Trip Report, comparing my two cruises and then I thought, well, maybe I can add a few pics to that post. Well, that turned into me looking at my pics and then deciding that I may as well just write up a somewhat-brief trip report and well, here I am.

This will not be like my previous trippies. I mainly took videos on this trip, instead of photos as I was travelling with some friends of mine and they asked if I could make them a video. So, knowing that, I focused mostly on taking video and less on photos. I did take some, which, of course, I will share here but it might be a little choppy in the telling of this report. Unlike my trips with my family, I hardly took any photos of the food as I don't feel super comfortable demanding my travel companions to hand over their plates before eating, so don't expect any food porn.

If you haven't read my previous trip report, you might want to start there because I will be referring to my first Alaskan cruise quite a bit.


July 2022 Alaska Cruise Trip Report

I guess I should start by giving you a little comparison between these two cruises before we get into the telling of the second one. This is what I was about to post on my July report:


July 2022 Cruise
As you all know, this was my first Alaskan cruise and despite the less than stellar food, I'm not sure anything else could compare to this one. There's definitely something to be said about doing something for the first time. The wonder and excitement of seeing glaciers and growlers, snow-capped mountains, whales and dolphins and bears (oh my!) and just about everything else for the very first time is so special and something I will never forget. The fact that I got to share that with Rob and Kira, well, there is just no topping it. We really did have the best cruise ever and I'm not sure any other cruise will top that one.

Although I love the rain and the gloomy skies, I'm very glad we ended up with great weather. It was rather warm the entire cruise, with only our glacier day, being anywhere close to cold for me. Obviously my husband felt a little differently but he runs quite cold and I think most people on that cruise ended up overpacking with tons of rain and winter gear they did not use. The only weather-related impact we had on that sailing was the fog during the first half of the day in Skagway and up to Carcross. Once we hit that area though, the fog had lifted and we were lucky enough to get to enjoy the spectacular mountain vistas on the way back to Skagway and more importantly, as we sailed away from Skagway. That whole afternoon and evening really stood out to me, probably my favourite part of a cruise filled with great moments and experiences, I will never forget that day. We have a digital thermostat in our house and on the display, there is a screensaver on it. When we moved into this house over eight years ago, I added a photo of Cinderella Castle (you might have glimpsed it in previous trippies) with fireworks going off around her and have not changed it until we got back from this trip.

On it now is a photo of the sunset on the evening that we left Skagway, which was taken just after 11pm, at Haines Borough.

On that July cruise, sunsets were slow and late. I would enjoy my evening pool time from 8-10pm and then have a shower and still have time to enjoy the gorgeous scenery from our verandah. Watching those sunsets and spending that time out on the balcony was one of my favourite parts of that cruise.

Seriously, looking back at that cruise, the only thing that could have made it better was if we had made it to Ketchikan.


September 2022 Cruise
While I was in the midst of writing my first trip report, an opportunity came up to rebook this very same cruise, in September, with some good friends of mine. While I was excited to get back, I was more excited about my friends, Nancy & Chuck, getting to do this cruise! Of course I knew I would enjoy being on my ship again, but I was really happy to be able to witness their first Alaskan cruise.

For me, I thought of this as their cruise. This would be a lovely bonus for me, yes, but I wanted this to be about them and their experience. I joked on the first day that I was just there to document their cruise.

For me, I was looking forward to two main things, getting to spend some time with them (sadly they live far away and I don't get to see them nearly enough!) and having 2 hours of pool time every night.

No seriously, if you have read my previous reports, you will already know how much I love my evening pool time. I can't really swim during the day, I have to avoid the sun as much as possible, and swimming on a cruise ship is just the best experience, so apart from Nancy and Chuck's company, swimming in the pool every night was the best part of this cruise for me.

While this was a great cruise, there were parts of it where I had wished it was July and not September. The weather was the biggest difference between my two cruises and after experiencing the second cruise, I was REALLY glad that Rob's first Alaska cruise was in July and not in September. I guarantee you that had this been his first cruise, he wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much as he enjoyed our July cruise. In fact, I don't think he would have been able to be outside for most of this cruise. And those shorts that I wore almost the entire last cruise? Yeah, those stayed in my suitcase mostly.

If I had to sum up this cruise in one word it would be... windy.

The temperature wasn't too bad but the wind was fierce the entire time and it made it feel much colder than it actually was. It didn't help that we spent most of the cruise either on our verandah or on deck 4 and both of those locations sucked for avoiding the wind. More on that later.

The other thing that I kept comparing was the hours of daylight during this cruise. It was dark by the time I got to my pool at 8pm on this cruise and since the late sunsets and extended hours of watching the scenery go by was one of my favourite things about my July cruise, this really impacted how I felt about this cruise.

The last thing I want to talk about, when comparing these two cruises, is the weather. Yes, it was windy but more importantly, we got a lot of rain on this cruise. Now, if you're taking an Alaskan cruise, no matter what time of the year, you have to expect rain. If you're not new to my trip reports, you will already know how much I love the rain. It is my favourite kind of weather and honestly, I would be thrilled if it rained every single day of the year, that's how much I love the rain.

Having said that, I really did enjoy all of the rain we got. What I didn't enjoy, and not for me, but more for Nancy and Chuck, was all of the cloud cover that came with the rain. Because it rained a lot of the time, it was almost always cloudy. One of the best things about my July cruise was the scenery. Gorgeous, tall mountains everywhere! On this cruise, we missed a lot of that gorgeous scenery. To be honest though, if I hadn't seen what I had seen in July, I still would have been happy with what I did see on this cruise, so it's not that it took anything away from people's first time seeing this, it was still gorgeous, it just wasn't as spectacularly gorgeous as it could have been.

There were two elements of this cruise that were much better than my July cruise. Well, three actually, if you count the food.

The first being wildlife. Wildlife in water, that is. We saw more whales in the first two days of this cruise than Rob and I had seen our entire July cruise. We saw dolphins and seals and SO MANY WHALES!!

This was music to Chuck's ears as he is a HUGE whale enthusiast! He didn't care about anything else, he just wanted to see some whales with his own eyes, and whales he did see! Sadly, he missed the super close whale that both Nancy and I saw right at the front of the ship and they both missed seeing the most gorgeous, perfect sighting of an Orca that literally jumped fully out of the water, right below our verandah. But, we were all thrilled with what we did get to see.

The second element that made this cruise so great was the proximity to Sawyer Glacier. We got MUCH closer on this cruise than my July cruise! In July, I didn't even realize that there were hundreds of seals on the ice below, in front of the glacier, until I saw someone's photos from the boat excursion they took. This cruise, we could see the seals with our own eyes and using the binoculars, you could really see them!

The last thing I will compare is the food. If you remember, the food on our July cruise was not very good. I've also heard from several other people that took earlier cruises in the season, that their food also was less than decent. Well, I will tell you that the food was delicious this time! I can't really think of anything that I didn't like.

So now, with that comparison done, let's begin the telling of this tale. It will be much briefer than the July cruise, I can probably do every day in one chapter each and many details will be left out but it will still give you a decent overview of our September Alaskan cruise.

Let's begin, shall we?

ETA: I have invited Nancy (@cntkg1 ) to add her own views/perspective/photos to this report, if she wants.

 

[Timon]

Chapter Links

September 3rd - Arrival into Vancouver
September 4th - Downtown Vancouver
September 5th - Boarding the Disney Wonder
September 6th- First Day at Sea
September 7th - Tracy Arm & Sawyer Glacier
September 8th - Skagway
September 9th- Juneau
September 10th - Ketchikan
September 11th - Second Day at Sea
September 12th - Disembarkation and flying home

 

[cntkg1]

Howdy, folks!




Surprise, surprise! Here I am again, writing another trip report.

Okay, so this started out as a post on my July 2022 Alaska Cruise Trip Report, comparing my two cruises and then I thought, well, maybe I can add a few pics to that post. Well, that turned into me looking at my pics and then deciding that I may as well just write up a somewhat-brief trip report and well, here I am.

This will not be like my previous trippies. I mainly took videos on this trip, instead of photos as I was travelling with some friends of mine and they asked if I could make them a video. So, knowing that, I focused mostly on taking video and less on photos. I did take some, which, of course, I will share here but it might be a little choppy in the telling of this report. Unlike my trips with my family, I hardly took any photos of the food as I don't feel super comfortable demanding my travel companions to hand over their plates before eating, so don't expect any food porn.

If you haven't read my previous trip report, you might want to start there because I will be referring to my first Alaskan cruise quite a bit.


July 2022 Alaska Cruise Trip Report

I guess I should start by giving you a little comparison between these two cruises before we get into the telling of the second one. This is what I was about to post on my July report:


July 2022 Cruise
As you all know, this was my first Alaskan cruise and despite the less than stellar food, I'm not sure anything else could compare to this one. There's definitely something to be said about doing something for the first time. The wonder and excitement of seeing glaciers and growlers, snow-capped mountains, whales and dolphins and bears (oh my!) and just about everything else for the very first time is so special and something I will never forget. The fact that I got to share that with Rob and Kira, well, there is just no topping it. We really did have the best cruise ever and I'm not sure any other cruise will top that one.

Although I love the rain and the gloomy skies, I'm very glad we ended up with great weather. It was rather warm the entire cruise, with only our glacier day, being anywhere close to cold for me. Obviously my husband felt a little differently but he runs quite cold and I think most people on that cruise ended up overpacking with tons of rain and winter gear they did not use. The only weather-related impact we had on that sailing was the fog during the first half of the day in Skagway and up to Carcross. Once we hit that area though, the fog had lifted and we were lucky enough to get to enjoy the spectacular mountain vistas on the way back to Skagway and more importantly, as we sailed away from Skagway. That whole afternoon and evening really stood out to me, probably my favourite part of a cruise filled with great moments and experiences, I will never forget that day. We have a digital thermostat in our house and on the display, there is a screensaver on it. When we moved into this house over eight years ago, I added a photo of Cinderella Castle (you might have glimpsed it in previous trippies) with fireworks going off around her and have not changed it until we got back from this trip.

On it now is a photo of the sunset on the evening that we left Skagway, which was taken just after 11pm, at Haines Borough.

On that July cruise, sunsets were slow and late. I would enjoy my evening pool time from 8-10pm and then have a shower and still have time to enjoy the gorgeous scenery from our verandah. Watching those sunsets and spending that time out on the balcony was one of my favourite parts of that cruise.

Seriously, looking back at that cruise, the only thing that could have made it better was if we had made it to Ketchikan.


September 2022 Cruise
While I was in the midst of writing my first trip report, an opportunity came up to rebook this very same cruise, in September, with some good friends of mine. While I was excited to get back, I was more excited about my friends, Nancy & Chuck, getting to do this cruise! Of course I knew I would enjoy being on my ship again, but I was really happy to be able to witness their first Alaskan cruise.

For me, I thought of this as their cruise. This would be a lovely bonus for me, yes, but I wanted this to be about them and their experience. I joked on the first day that I was just there to document their cruise.

For me, I was looking forward to two main things, getting to spend some time with them (sadly they live far away and I don't get to see them nearly enough!) and having 2 hours of pool time every night.

No seriously, if you have read my previous reports, you will already know how much I love my evening pool time. I can't really swim during the day, I have to avoid the sun as much as possible, and swimming on a cruise ship is just the best experience, so apart from Nancy and Chuck's company, swimming in the pool every night was the best part of this cruise for me.

While this was a great cruise, there were parts of it where I had wished it was July and not September. The weather was the biggest difference between my two cruises and after experiencing the second cruise, I was REALLY glad that Rob's first Alaska cruise was in July and not in September. I guarantee you that had this been his first cruise, he wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much as he enjoyed our July cruise. In fact, I don't think he would have been able to be outside for most of this cruise. And those shorts that I wore almost the entire last cruise? Yeah, those stayed in my suitcase mostly.

If I had to sum up this cruise in one word it would be... windy.

The temperature wasn't too bad but the wind was fierce the entire time and it made it feel much colder than it actually was. It didn't help that we spent most of the cruise either on our verandah or on deck 4 and both of those locations sucked for avoiding the wind. More on that later.

The other thing that I kept comparing was the hours of daylight during this cruise. It was dark by the time I got to my pool at 8pm on this cruise and since the late sunsets and extended hours of watching the scenery go by was one of my favourite things about my July cruise, this really impacted how I felt about this cruise.

The last thing I want to talk about, when comparing these two cruises, is the weather. Yes, it was windy but more importantly, we got a lot of rain on this cruise. Now, if you're taking an Alaskan cruise, no matter what time of the year, you have to expect rain. If you're not new to my trip reports, you will already know how much I love the rain. It is my favourite kind of weather and honestly, I would be thrilled if it rained every single day of the year, that's how much I love the rain.

Having said that, I really did enjoy all of the rain we got. What I didn't enjoy, and not for me, but more for Nancy and Chuck, was all of the cloud cover that came with the rain. Because it rained a lot of the time, it was almost always cloudy. One of the best things about my July cruise was the scenery. Gorgeous, tall mountains everywhere! On this cruise, we missed a lot of that gorgeous scenery. To be honest though, if I hadn't seen what I had seen in July, I still would have been happy with what I did see on this cruise, so it's not that it took anything away from people's first time seeing this, it was still gorgeous, it just wasn't as spectacularly gorgeous as it could have been.

There were two elements of this cruise that were much better than my July cruise. Well, three actually, if you count the food.

The first being wildlife. Wildlife in water, that is. We saw more whales in the first two days of this cruise than Rob and I had seen our entire July cruise. We saw dolphins and seals and SO MANY WHALES!!

This was music to Chuck's ears as he is a HUGE whale enthusiast! He didn't care about anything else, he just wanted to see some whales with his own eyes, and whales he did see! Sadly, he missed the super close whale that both Nancy and I saw right at the front of the ship and they both missed seeing the most gorgeous, perfect sighting of an Orca that literally jumped fully out of the water, right below our verandah. But, we were all thrilled with what we did get to see.

The second element that made this cruise so great was the proximity to Sawyer Glacier. We got MUCH closer on this cruise than my July cruise! In July, I didn't even realize that there were hundreds of seals on the ice below, in front of the glacier, until I saw someone's photos from the boat excursion they took. This cruise, we could see the seals with our own eyes and using the binoculars, you could really see them!

The last thing I will compare is the food. If you remember, the food on our July cruise was not very good. I've also heard from several other people that took earlier cruises in the season, that their food also was less than decent. Well, I will tell you that the food was delicious this time! I can't really think of anything that I didn't like.

So now, with that comparison done, let's begin the telling of this tale. It will be much briefer than the July cruise, I can probably do every day in one chapter each and many details will be left out but it will still give you a decent overview of our September Alaskan cruise.

Let's begin, shall we?

Count me in!! Oh wait….you already did!

 

[Timon]

September 3rd

Rob took me to the Calgary airport around 7:30am for my 10:30am flight to Vancouver. There had been quite a bit of smoke in Calgary that week from the forest fires in B.C. The sun looks really weird when we get all of that smoke.

I got through bag drop and security in less than 10 minutes with my Nexus card. I got some breakfast at Chili's. It was both nice and weird not taking photos of all my food.

Not having photos is going to be tough though, that is how I remember everything I do on vacation. No notes, just photos. This trippie is going to test my memory.

I spotted the Magic Plane.

Flying over the gorgeous Rocky Mountains for the third time in as many months! It looked a little different this time, with all of the smoke.

I landed around 11am Vancouver time, nice and short flight, love it!

We decided to just stay at the Fairmont Vancouver airport for this evening. Nancy can't walk long distances due to some health issues and while we did rent her a wheelchair for the cruise, it wasn't being dropped off until the next day. I walked over from the domestic side and checked-in to the hotel and our room was ready, yay!

I had just enough time to take some pics, lysol everything and then head down to the USA arrivals area to meet them.

The room was nice but not $636 CAD nice, if you know what I mean.

The beds were pretty comfortable, nothing spectacular though. It was roomy and we saw tons of planes take off and land from the one runway.

The bathroom was quite nice except for one little issue. There were shuttered doors that closed the one side of the bathroom off from the rest of the room. I really don't get why people design hotel rooms like this? You could easily see through the crack if you wanted to because they didn't close all the way. Thankfully, we all respected each other's privacy and didn't do this, although we definitely joked about doing it.


I ran down to the USA arrivals area after checking their flight status, they were over 30 minutes early!!

I thought I had missed them because quite a long time had passed since their landing time and they ended up arriving 30 minutes early and they still needed to go through Canada Customs! I ended up waiting and patiently watching for them on the screen and then at the doors that everyone was coming out of. In that 30 minute time period, SO many people had come through! Travel was definitely back to normal!

Then, I finally spotted them! Tears filled both mine and Nancy's eyes. It had been almost exactly 4 years since I last saw her.

After long, happy embraces, we dried our tears and everything was right in the world.

We headed up to the hotel, it's really quite close to the USA part of YVR. They got settled in and then we started thinking about food. We thought of just eating at the hotel but we didn't want to pay $30 for a burger to we made our way down to the little food court between USA and International arrivals. Chuck and I got some Wendy's and Nancy enjoyed a delicious fish burger from Pajo's.

We spent the rest of the day talking and laughing. They were so excited for this cruise and because we only booked it five weeks before the sailing, they were feeling like it was all unreal and it hadn't really sunk in for them just yet.

Nancy had been nervous about the whole covid testing thing and flying American Airlines as she was used to Southwest and also nervous about going through customs and doing the whole ArriveCan app. But now, that was all behind her, they were Clear to Sail before they even boarded their flight in Chicago and now they were officially in Canada. I helped them through the second ArriveCan app entry, for the ship. It was around that time that I got my Clear to Sail email. Yay! This is really happening!

They are normally one hour ahead of my time in Calgary, and now we were in Vancouver so they were now two hours behind their time and they had a long day and they were exhausted so they went to sleep.

I didn't want to bother them so I went to bed too. It wasn't even 8:30pm yet.

Rob was asking if he could FaceTime me when I texted him goodnight but I told them that Nancy and Chuck were already asleep. He was laughing, wondering how this week was going to workout because Nancy & Chuck are early risers and I am a night owl.

That, my love, was a good question. But it all worked out and we developed a great schedule/system that worked for everyone.

 

[bcwife76]

Woohoo, so glad you decided to do a trippie The comparisons already between your two sailings are quite interesting.

We've stayed at the Fairmont YVR several times but have never paid that much I think the most we've paid is about $250- $300 (and that's the most I'm willing to pay). Gotta love that inflation

 

[jedijill]

Marking my place to come back and read!

Jill in CO

 

[christophles]

From glacier day on this cruise!

 

[juniorbugman]

Reading along for this journey. I have to laugh about the first photo of your bathroom because my first thought was wow do they have bob sled for a bathtub as it looks quite stretched out. The second bathroom picture the bathtub looks normal size.

 

[Timon]

Count me in!! Oh wait….you already did!

You're going to be here for the entire journey, whether or not you want to be.

Woohoo, so glad you decided to do a trippie The comparisons already between your two sailings are quite interesting.

We've stayed at the Fairmont YVR several times but have never paid that much I think the most we've paid is about $250- $300 (and that's the most I'm willing to pay). Gotta love that inflation

It will be a lot shorter but hey, a trippie is a trippie, right?

Yeah, almost had a heart attack with those prices but we got a great deal for the next night so it kind of balanced out.

Marking my place to come back and read!

Jill in CO

Woo hooo! Glad you're here!

From glacier day on this cruise!View attachment 708172

What a great shot!

Reading along for this journey. I have to laugh about the first photo of your bathroom because my first thought was wow do they have bob sled for a bathtub as it looks quite stretched out. The second bathroom picture the bathtub looks normal size.

Hahaha, right? Using the wide-angle lens is great for getting everything in the shot but it sure makes things look weird sometimes.

 

[NAB]

Oh another one I’m in too.

 

[greensombrero]

I always enjoy your trip reports so thanks for writing another.

Glad to hear the food was better this go around! Gives me hope it was just a one off thing and not a new normal for DCL. Maybe they had a bunch of new crew to get up to speed.

Interesting too to hear how the different part of the Alaska season makes such a difference.

 

[cntkg1]

8:30? Really!?! What a couple of drips!

 

[Kanga2Roo]

I'm here! I can't wait to read all about it!

 

[cntkg1]

Nancy here…. part of the Cass, Chuck and Nancy trio on this trip. If I compared that $30 burger in Canada to our purchases at the Hilton in Chicago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

The night before our flight to Vancouver we stayed at the Hilton Airport in Chicago. We had no idea that lunch and dinner would be next to impossible since all the restaurants are AFTER tsa. We didn’t have valid boarding passes yet.

We ended up at the snack bar at the hotel and spent $23 not once but TWICE on two bags of chips, a soda and an iced tea!
Yup, $46 on four chip snacks and four beverages! Yikes!!! Lesson learned though.

May I also mention a little sticker shock at the purchases at Wendy’s and the fish sandwich place too! $20 for a fish Sammie???? I was going through my pretty Canadian money quickly. Lol!!!!

 

[Timon]

September 4th

The early rising lark, also known as Nancy, was up before 6am but was quiet until then when I got up to pee. Then we started chatting and well I was up now! Good thing I went to sleep by 10pm last night!

After showering and getting ready for the day, Chuck and I walked way over to the domestic side to grab some Tim Horton's for him and Nancy. I may or may not have gotten them addicted to Timmy's a decade ago.

They have never actually had it in Canada though!

Chuck got a coffee for himself and he got Nancy a Pumpkin Spice Latte. He also ordered her a blueberry muffin but when she started eating it, she discovered it was not a blueberry muffin. It was actually a Carrot Cake with Walnuts muffin and she ended up loving it!

Not the best view but we did get to see lots of planes take off and land. I even got Chuck & Nancy to download a flight tracker app so they could tell what planes they were and where they were going.

We stuck around in the room, chatting away, until check-out time since we had to check in at another hotel downtown later and we weren't sure if our room would be ready early. As Chuck and I were coming back with Timmy's, I had noticed that someone was in a wheelchair that said Fairmont on it, so as we passed through the lobby, I asked someone if it was possible to have someone meet us with a wheelchair for Nanc, to make the journey to the front of the hotel a little easier on her.

She had debated about even using a wheelchair this trip, she really didn't want to be in one, she was worried about having to be pushed and being a bother to anyone or holding us up. I wanted to reach through my phone and smack her silly! She is the most amazing, generous, loving person I know, (apart from my Rob and Kira) and it hurt my heart that she would rather not bother anyone than be in pain the whole time! We both love her so much, she could never be a bother anyway! I told her Chuck would happily push her around all day and that she wasn't holding anyone up! I am so glad she ended up renting one because it definitely made it easier on her. She definitely tried to get out of it as much as possible, once we were on the ship. A couple of days into the trip, she went to deck 4 without the wheelchair and she was hurting because of it and when we returned to the room, she pointed to the wheelchair and told us not to let her leave again without it! Stubborn woman! Well, I am more stubborn than her and I really didn't let her leave again without it. Ha!

So at around 11am, I called down and asked them to bring a cart for our luggage and a wheelchair for Nancy. Well, they showed up with just the cart. He told us that he would call down and get the wheelchair but Nancy didn't want to wait so we all went down the elevator together and then she got the wheelchair in the lobby, It wasn't a far walk thankfully, we were the first room around the bend from the elevators.

When we were planning this trip, we were talking about getting to and from each place in Vancouver and she told me that neither of them had never taken a Taxi in their whole lives!

What!!! How is that even possible???

They also hadn't ever taken an Uber either! I was planning to change both of those things for them this trip but we never ended up Ubering anywhere. We did, however, take a couple of taxis.

I just had to document their first taxi ride!

Our taxi driver was...interesting. He claimed to have been one of the longest taxi drivers in Vancouver. That doesn't sound right. He's been driving a taxi a very long time, let's just say. He was very chatty! He had a thick accent and I'm deaf in my left ear (and in the backseat with the window open so as to not overheat) so I didn't quite hear everything but Nancy sure got an earful!

He asked us where we were all from but was particularly interested in where I lived for some reason. Once I told him Alberta, he asked where in Alberta. Once I told him Calgary, he asked where in Calgary. He wanted specifics but I didn't want to give that information out. I told him the deep south and then he started talking about stores and where I shopped! Then once I told him which particular Superstore I shopped at, he proceeded to tell me that it was not located where I said it was. Ummm, okay, dude. You know best.

Then he wanted to know what I did for a living, so I told him. He said he owned a said business with his brother-in-law. He then wanted to know what the name of my company was so that he could refer clients to me. I didn't give him the name, I told him that if he had people to refer, shouldn't he be referring them to his own company that he owns with his BIL?

It was weird.

I assured Nancy and Chuck that this was not a usual taxi experience.

It took about 30 looooong minutes before we arrived at The Metropolitan Hotel downtown on Howe Street.

We checked in and our room was ready, wooo hoo!!

Our room was nice but it was small! While we had plenty of room for the three of us at the Fairmont, we felt very squished in this room. It would have been just fine for two people but it was definitely a tad squeezie (as my Kira would say ) for the three of us!

And what the heck! Is this the original thermostat from 1984 when it was built???

I might have turned it all the way up, instead of all the way down. That'll teach me for not putting my reading glasses on!

We settled in (remind me to tell you a funny story later about that ) and then Nancy's wheelchair rental arrived, right to our room!

I rented her a wheelchair from Special Needs At Sea. It was not cheap but we did add the extra day and the hotel drop-off, which added a few bucks. It worked out great I think. Normally they deliver it to your room on the ship but we wanted to head down to Canada Place today so Nanc paid for the extra day and then you just return it on the ship, at midship on deck 6. DCL also has wheelchairs available for boarding and disembarking the ship, but you can't keep them for the whole cruise.

So once she got settled in with that, we started talking about food. I don't normally eat breakfast and they had only had a little snack at Timmy's so we were pretty hungry by now! I suggested DeDutch, which is over near the port, not too far from where the ships leave and they agreed.

Just as we were leaving the airport, it had started to rain a little and it was forecasted to rain up until about 5pm. Good thing they were prepared.

This was the first time Chuck was pushing a wheelchair and let me tell ya, he rocked it!

He rocked it so well, that I had a hard time keeping up with him! And I wasn't even pushing someone else! I joked to them, when Nanc wasn't using it, that he might need to push me around.

It had started to pour just after we left the hotel but we made it to DeDutch relatively dry.

It was quite delicious! And I did take a pic just because I had never eaten here before.

We all really enjoyed it! The service was great and I could see the ships just to the left out the window. We also had fun people-watching as there's an often used path that runs right in front of it.

We found the elevator to go one floor up as we had gone the long way around, using the ramp on the other side to get there.

Looking back at DeDutch from the elevator area....

We walked past the Olympic Cauldron and grabbed a pic. Sad that two twits vandalized this a couple days ago!

We walked back to the hotel and chilled for a few hours. It had stopped raining now and we had wanted to catch the ships leaving. We got a tad distracted chatting and we actually heard one of the ship's horns while we were relaxing in our beds!

We boogied as fast as we could down to Canada Place! Thankfully it's all downhill!

We got there just in time to see the Celebrity Eclipse sail away. The Noordam and the Serenade of the Seas were still tied up so we walked all the way down to the end.

If you remember from my last trip report, the Serenade of the Seas is the ship that I saw pass by us while I was in the hot tub on that last evening of our cruise and the Eclipse is the one I went up to deck 10 to watch pass by.

I didn't realize it at the time but we only got to see those ships because we had skipped Ketchikan and headed back towards Vancouver early! The captain mentioned on this cruise that if we wanted to see those ships pass by (three of them this time) that we should be up on deck by around 1 am! Umm, no thanks!

We watched all three ships head out, they were quick, one after the other! We stuck around and enjoyed watching all of the seaplanes. We found the perfect spot to park Nanc.

We stopped to check out all of the city and province names along the ground.

My birthplace....

I told Nancy and Chuck to stop and pose at Calgary, as it's probably as close to Calgary as they will ever get.

Back uphill to the hotel! We were getting hungry but we didn't feel like going out so I suggested that I use Skip the Dishes and order us some poutine from La Belle Patate. They weren't leaving Canada without getting poutine! They've tried versions of it in the USA but I told them that wasn't real poutine.

I knew from the last cruise that they close early at 7pm on Sundays so I ordered as soon as we got back. I also ordered them some May Wests to try, giving them the whole Quebecois experience

They loved it all! Even delivered, it was still delicious! I had asked them to put the gravy on the side, which they did, so that it wasn't all soggy by the time we got it.

Chuck and I then headed out to Shoppers and Rexall to grab some water, diet coke and some Canadian treats for the cruise.

Bunch of lightweights were out by 9pm. I was texting Rob and Kira and checking email until about 10pm before I hit the hay.

Cruise day tomorrow!

 

[Magical_Suitcase]

I am so glad you decided to write this report. We have cruised Alaska in May and June. I am curious to read your impressions of Sept, so far, wet, windy and cloudy.

 

[bcwife76]

I love DeDutch! Haven't been in a while (we have one maybe 10 minutes away)....think I may need to rectify that. Is DeDutch not in AB?

A rainy day in Vancouver...we have NOT had many of those lately. I'm trying to remember rain......

 

[Kanga2Roo]

Hmmmm. Maybe I will get a wheelchair on my next cruise. LOL.

It looks like a wonderful day. I am still not sure I would be brave enough to try the poutine. What I have tried was so gross. It was in Canada, but from KFC. LOL

 

[bcwife76]

Hmmmm. Maybe I will get a wheelchair on my next cruise. LOL.

It looks like a wonderful day. I am still not sure I would be brave enough to try the poutine. What I have tried was so gross. It was in Canada, but from KFC. LOL

OMG please don't judge all poutine by KFC standards Eventhough we are far from Quebec, there are lots of great places to get poutine in Vancouver.

 

[Timon]

September 5th

Nancy was too excited to sleep, so while Chuck and I were still asleep in the early morning hours, she went on the DCL app and filled out the health questionnaire. She was excited and ready to go!

We took showers and got ready for the day. It was pretty easy and quick for me to get all packed up and ready as it was just me and I was mostly packed up already, I just needed to move a few things around so I could cram the water and diet coke into my rolling carry-on.

Nancy and Chuck were a different story. And a funny one at that.

At this point, I have now had the opportunity to watch them both unpack, repack, unpack and repack again and let me tell you, it was one of the funniest and most entertaining memories of this trip.

They had one large suitcase each, one small carry-on suitcase each and then Nancy had her purse and then another carry-on tote bag. I have to start by saying that they totally remind me of Rob and I, they get along so well, they never fight, are always so polite with each other, and kind to one another, they just take such good care of each other.

That being said, unlike Rob and I, where I am the packer and organizer and I know where everything is at all times, they are both packers and neither of them know where anything is.

I didn't say anything to them until the night before when we were laying in our beds chatting and laughing but once I did, it became a running joke. Because they couldn't remember what bag they put stuff in, they were constantly in and out of all the bags and all I could hear were zippers, zipper, zippers! Oh my dog, it was soooo funny! "Where did I put my....? It's in that bag, honey! No? Okay, it's definitely in this bag! Hmm, maybe check the other bag? I'm sure we put it in this one last night, no? Let me check this one more time, it's got to be here somewhere. Did we forget to bring it? No, we had it just last night. Check that bag one more time, it has to be in there!"

They were both always so calm and sweet to each other, Chuck was flipping suitcases, grabbing this one, moving that one. Nancy would find stuff in a jacket pocket that she had been looking for two days and the entire time...zippers!

To be fair, this was their third hotel in as many nights, and then we had one more unpack and repack experience to go still.

It was just the funniest and most heart-warming thing I have ever witnessed.

But from that point on, they were now known as the Zipper Brigade.

Just as I was putting on my DCL luggage tags, my cell phone rang. It was an unknown caller and I don't normally answer those but I did and it was Disney Cruise Line. They were calling me to confirm that someone in our party was, indeed, pregnant.



What the...???

Ummm, Nancy is in her 60's, I am in my 50's, so unless Chuck has been keeping some wild secret, that's a big NOPE from us!

That's what Nancy gets for doing the health questionnaire without her glasses!

The lady said no worries, it happens more often than you think.

Okay, it's time to head down. Somehow we managed to get 6 suitcases, 2 carry-ons and a pregnant lady in a wheelchair down to the lobby all by ourselves!

The doorman called us a taxi and somehow, we crammed all of us and our crap into a Toyota Prius. Do you remember my last trip report, when we took the Prius to the port and I said that sucker was like the Mary Poppins bag??? Case in point people!


We dropped our bags off by 9am and then headed up to see our ship.

Hello, old friend! It's so good to see you again. Do you remember back in July, when I said I would probably never get to sail on you again? Well, I was wrong, oh so wrong. And guess what? I brought some new friends with me, you've never met them before, but trust me, you'll love them!

There's our room! We are in a HA room, so the verandah so quite large!

I posted this pic on my FB. Two Alaska cruises in one season! Lucky me! Or maybe I am just channeling my teenage daughter, either way, I was a happy camper.

We walked across the street to get Nancy and Chuck some more Timmies! Sadly, someone was having a little fun with some bubbles in the fountain.

Snacks and coffee procured, we camped out and watched the hustle and bustle of disembarkation/embarkation day at Canada Place.

Once they were done eating, we walked back over and found a nice lady to take a photo for us.

The cruise before ours was the DVC Member cruise and they still had the flag flying. Sadly, they didn't get to have their Glacier Day as the tugboat strikes the week before had delayed their departure.

We went inside and got in line just before they opened the doors up. The check-in was in the same hall as July but on the opposite side of the room this time. We had some issues checking in, apparently someone in our party got pregnant overnight and it caused a few hiccups.

As we were in line, someone grabbed my attention and said he had read and loved my previous trip report. If you're reading this dude, let me properly thank you and say hi now as my introverted brain and mouth failed to respond to you in person, other than to flash a quick smile.

We got through security and Customs super fast and then waited in the boarding area for our number to be called. It was weird, we were all shoved into the first area for about 20 minutes and then we noticed everyone was moving, so we got up and followed the herd. They moved us into another room, right next to the area we board.

We were able to open the app and get our account all set up before they called our number.

Nancy and Chuck usually give a fake name for their welcome aboard announcement, just for laughs and this time was no different.

Since I am fairly certain that we got Covid from Cabanas on our last cruise, I decided to avoid the buffet as much as possible this time. I only ended up in Cabanas twice the entire week and both times, it was almost empty when we visited.

So, off to Tiana's we went!

Nancy and Chuck enjoyed their lunch but mine was not so good. I guess I lied, I did eat something I didn't like! The empanada, which I normally love, was dry and my sirloin was still mooing.

No worries, it's not like I'm not going to eat again in a few hours.

By now, our rooms were ready, so we headed down to 7636, the second-to-last room on starboard side of deck 7 Aft.

We walked in and saw that the room was all decorated and we had the cheese plate, sitting on the table. I immediately looked at Nancy and saw in her face that she didn't do it. She looked at me as to ask if I had done it. Nope!

We both then looked at each other and said it at the same time..."Rob".

As I looked over the little giftie notes, I began to tear up. I was really missing them! Rob had wanted to make Nancy and Chuck's cruise special with some decorations and he had remembered how much Nancy and I loved the Cheese Plate that our friend Brenda had gifted us on our previous cruise together back in 2018. What a sweetie!

The only thing is, it was lacking any crackers. Nancy and Chuck ended up at Guest Services later and they said they would send up some crackers but they didn't have any gluten-free ones for Nanc.

Our massive verandah.

Honestly, those chairs were just there for decoration, we didn't use them. Once you sat down in them, all you could see was the white wall and the railing. And during the entire cruise, the verandah was wet. I had brought my slipper socks that I got on the last cruise, to wear on the verandah again but we couldn't ever go out there without shoes on.

This room worked out well for us. It was a little bigger than most rooms due to the wheelchair accessibility and that really helped having two households worth of crap. The only thing I didn't like was that it didn't have a privacy curtain. I had googled it prior and was prepared though! I brought a flat microfiber sheet with me and used my super strong magnets to hang it from the ceiling. During the day, we would keep it to the side and then at night, we would extend it to give all of us a little bit of privacy.

I also loved the little shelf behind the sofa. I put all my crap there and it was nice and handy! Because of the the design, they couldn't have a drop down bed from the ceiling but they added one on the side. I did ask our room host to turn down both beds for me that night, just to see what it looked like.

The zipper brigade played their tune once more and this time I joined in while we got all of our stuff stored for the week. Nancy and Chuck took the dresser near the door as well as the closet and I took the area near the desk/TV. It worked out quite well actually.

Both Nancy and I made some door decorations so we made sure to put those on before we left to explore the ship.

Our door was literally right next to the last room on that side. We had great neighbours all around, we ran into them all many times.

We were thinking of going to watch the Sail-a-wave party, since Nancy and Chuck had never seen it before but it was PACKED!! Umm no thanks! I walked over to grab one quick photo and then we headed down to the lovely and quiet and wonderfully shaded deck 4. We would spend a lot of time here these next 7 days.

I really thought this sailing would be less busy but it really wasn't. It felt way more crowded than my July cruise.

As you can probably see from their faces, they were stoked! They were so excited, they were doing their little happy dances the entire sail away from Vancouver. It was really nice to see them so happy!

We headed up to deck 10 to watch us sail under Lion's Gate bridge.

The trip out of Vancouver is absolutely gorgeous!!! We lingered until it was time for our dinner.

Actually, I headed down to dinner while Nancy and Chuck headed to the stores. They were about to open up and they were hoping to get some Alaska merch.

So, having such an amazing experience with Zaldy and Luis on my last Alaska cruise, I ended up calling DCL and requesting them for this cruise. We did end up with Zaldy, from the Philippines, just not my Zaldy. And while we didn't get Luis, I actually spotted him a couple of sections away. Apparently, my Zaldy was not on the ship anymore, he was on a break, so I guess they gave me the other Zaldy.

The weird thing is that we didn't know until day three that our Zaldy was the assistant server, while Made, was our server. It was really weird. Normally you know the first night who is who but they kept doing each other's jobs, we honestly didn't figure it out until after our third dinner!

They were both good. No complaints at all! But they were no Zaldy and Luis from July.

Nancy and Chuck arrived with scary tales from their shopping experience. They said there were people who were literally grabbing huge armfuls of the Alaska merchandise and buying it all up! They said they've never seen anything like it! They didn't see the grey/white shirt that I was currently wearing, Nancy had wanted that and there were only a few of the Alaska hoodies left, none in Chuck's size.

Dinner was good, I order the same thing all the time, so if you want some food porn, you can visit my last trippie. I enjoyed it so much more this time! I made sure to pop over to Luis's section, once all of his tables had left, to say hi. He was asking about Rob and Kira. I was bummed we didn't get seated in his section but I did see him around the ship several times and he was always waving or if he had time, he stopped by our table to give us a laugh at breakfast.

After dinner, we headed down to the shops. The section where the Alaska stuff was on my previous cruise was now filled with DVC stuff and what they had left of the Alaska merch was right next to it.

There wasn't much left, which is sad since there is still one more Alaska sailing after this cruise and almost all of it was gone! I did manage to find one grey/white shirt left for Nanc, although she would have preferred one size up and we did manage to find one last hoodie in Chuck's size, so they bought those, along with the Alaska blanket. We also procured our free charm for the day. Oddly enough, they did not have the same charms on this sailing, instead of the Alaska themed charms, we ended up getting mostly Caribbean cruise type charms like sea shells, sand buckets, flowers, etc. The only Alaska charm we got ended being the bear, which is one of the two I had missed and had really wanted the last cruise. Kira was thrilled that I added the bear to her bracelet when I got back.

Back to the room, where we found our nightly towel animal and both beds set up, along with our requested extra pillows.

I took a photo and then folded up the upper bunk. The sofa bed was not the comfiest to be honest but I did quite enjoy that the sides of the couch were a soft material and not wooden, like all of the others. I had a hard time sleeping on the regular couch with wooden sides back in 2018 when Nancy and I last cruised together. I sleep on my side, with one arm straight up over my head, so this was much more pleasant.

The sun was already mostly set before I even headed up to my glorious pool.

Every night from 8-10p, you could find me in the adult pool and hot tubs. This is my little piece of Heaven on Earth and once again, I enjoyed every single second of it! While the wind was crazy the entire week and made it much colder out on the deck, the pool temperature was still decent. I only ever saw one lady in the pool the entire week, she showed up most nights to do some exercise for 20-30 minutes, during which time I made sure to go into the hot tub to give her some space. The hot tubs oddly were way busier on this cruise than the July cruise!

I ended up seeing my pool guy, Suka, once again! He was asking where Rob was. I had to break it to him that I didn't bring him along on this one. He was showing off his new name tag, it had his full name, Sukastama, on it and he was very excited as this was his last sailing and was heading home to see his family the same day I was.

He was just as awesome this cruise as he was on the last one. He thanked me for mentioning him on the guest survey, he did get the recognition for the mention but he said it takes a few mentions to get any kind of accolades. So guess who mentioned him again on the next survey?


He always watched over my stuff for me, the winds often played havoc with anything left on deck, even when hidden in a small corner. Actually, that's how he recognized me. I saw him walk by, he checked on my stuff and then immediately came over to the pool to look for me. He said he had recognized my pinky/purple shoes and came over to find me.

He also asked me every night how the pool temperature was. Temps were good all nights except for one, the last sea day, I think it was? It was sooooo cold! The lady who did her exercises had to cut her usual 30 minutes down to 10 because she couldn't handle the cold. I was able to still enjoy the pool that night but I definitely made more trips into the hot tub. He had asked me that night about the temps and I told him it was really cold and the next day, I arrived to the warmest pool temperature of any cruise I've ever taken.

I also met a new pool guy this trip named Bernie. He also went out of his way every night that I saw him, he would wave at me as soon as he saw me, would come chat with me while I was in the hot tub and check to make sure I was okay. He also made it onto the guest survey.

I didn't know this until day three but Sukastama and Bernie weren't the only ones checking in on me every night while I was at the pool. Apparently, every night, while getting his evening ice cream treat, Chuck would make the rounds and check in on me too. He was super sneaky because I only spotted him the one night. That's the night Nancy told me that he checked on me every night.

And then every night, when I got back from my swim, he had pulled the privacy curtain out for me and left a light on for me. They were usually watching a movie when I got back, I would shower and then Nanc would be asleep by the time I got out and then Chuck would finish his movie while I blow dried my hair and got ready for bed. It was a good system. I really miss that little evening schedule/tradition.

Next up is our first day at sea,