June 25, 2012 - WONDERful 7 night Alaskan cruise

[Bellecruiser]

Hi Everyone,

We had a great time on the Dream over Thanksgiving. We ran beside the Magic and played dueling horns for awhile. It was so exciting!!! There was pixie dust fling that day, for sure.

While I was on the Dream I saw Clayton who was transitioning as Cruise Director from the Wonder to the Dream. I asked him for his advice given the short port times. He said that the towns in Alaska are charming. He suggests getting off the ship as soon as we dock and just exploring the towns. He also said the time we are traveling is ideal to see wildlife so it would be worth taking an excursion that focused on that.

Can't wait for June!!!!!!!

 

[Mean Queen]

Hi Everyone,

We had a great time on the Dream over Thanksgiving. We ran beside the Magic and played dueling horns for awhile. It was so exciting!!! There was pixie dust fling that day, for sure.

While I was on the Dream I saw Clayton who was transitioning as Cruise Director from the Wonder to the Dream. I asked him for his advice given the short port times. He said that the towns in Alaska are charming. He suggests getting off the ship as soon as we dock and just exploring the towns. He also said the time we are traveling is ideal to see wildlife so it would be worth taking an excursion that focused on that.

Can't wait for June!!!!!!!

You were honking at us! We were at Serenity Bay when the Dream passed by, so we didn't get the full effect of the horn battle.

I am very excited about the excursions in Alaska, more so than on any of the other cruises. It'll be so different than what I'm used to seeing.

 

[Mean Queen]

6 months from today it'll be like Christmas all over again. This cruise will be here before we know it.

 

[betsy918]

Hi Everyone..We just booked this cruise while on the Wonder Christmas Cruise to Mexico. That was our first cruise ever, and I was ready to book another one after one day on the ship! In fact, my daughter (8) and I had such a case of the cruise over blues when we got home last Monday that I actually booked a return trip to Mexico on the Wonder for us in 7 weeks! On that one my husband won't be joining us, but he'll be joining us again as we celebrate our 10th anniversary on the Alaskan cruise. He's not as convinced as I am that a cold weather cruise is going to be just as great as a warm cruise, but I'm sure he'll get more excited about it as the trip approaches. Since we're from California, east coast cruises are just too pricey for us when you add in the airfare. We are sooooo disappointed that Disney is pulling out of Mexico!

Anyway, hope to get to know you all as the cruise approaches.
Betsy
Dion (DH) both of us are 52 and will be celebrating our 10th anniversary on the ship.
DD Mary-Grace (just turned 8 on the Wonder Christmas cruise)

 

[Mean Queen]

Hi Everyone..We just booked this cruise while on the Wonder Christmas Cruise to Mexico. That was our first cruise ever, and I was ready to book another one after one day on the ship! In fact, my daughter (8) and I had such a case of the cruise over blues when we got home last Monday that I actually booked a return trip to Mexico on the Wonder for us in 7 weeks! On that one my husband won't be joining us, but he'll be joining us again as we celebrate our 10th anniversary on the Alaskan cruise. He's not as convinced as I am that a cold weather cruise is going to be just as great as a warm cruise, but I'm sure he'll get more excited about it as the trip approaches. Since we're from California, east coast cruises are just too pricey for us when you add in the airfare. We are sooooo disappointed that Disney is pulling out of Mexico!

Anyway, hope to get to know you all as the cruise approaches.
Betsy
Dion (DH) both of us are 52 and will be celebrating our 10th anniversary on the ship.
DD Mary-Grace (just turned 8 on the Wonder Christmas cruise)

Welcome aboard! It is very easy to get hooked on these cruises. The West coast one is going to be a lot harder (and pricier) for us, but I know Alaska will be worth it.

 

[betsy918]

Just a quick note: We will no longer be cruising on this sailing date. We will now be cruising on the June 11th sailing as it was about $700 less than this date for our category of stateroom. Happy cruising, everyone!

 

[Mean Queen]

Just a quick note: We will no longer be cruising on this sailing date. We will now be cruising on the June 11th sailing as it was about $700 less than this date for our category of stateroom. Happy cruising, everyone!

Have a great trip! We would have done that one too since it goes over our anniversary (the reason for the trip) but DD5 and I have a dance recital on the 16th. Either way, it's coming up quick for all of us!

 

[DCLShel]

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a good holiday season!

Our cruise will be here before we know it! I wanted to let people know that Adventures By Disney is offering add-on packages for most (if not all) of the Alaskan cruises. I checked out the package but did not price it. Our family will probably just book our excursions through Disney or on our own.

Please feel free to share any Seattle and/or Alaska information you find helpful. I also posted a Seattle info thread in Post #36.

We had planned to fly into Seattle on Friday, June 22nd; however, I just found out that there's a surprise 50th bday party for my DBF on the 23rd. Guess we'll be flying in on the 24th. I would love to stay in Seattle after the cruise to explore the city but my older DD (Erica) is expecting her third child on July 11th. I'll be nervous the whole cruise about the baby coming while we're gone!

If anyone is interested, HTMLKID (Glenn) has volunteered to organize the Fish Extenders for this group. Please send Glenn a PM with your information if you want to join. We're a pretty small group - so far - so please join! It adds a little something special to the cruise~

Hopefully our group will continue to grow and become more active as our cruise gets closer!!

 

[Deb in IA]

Sorry I have been MIA for a while - between Thanksgiving and New Year, I am sooooo crazy busy!!!

Anyway, I am back now and I have really got the planning bug! I am so excited about this vacation, and am ready to get going!

Hey everyone... just back from a 4 night cruise on the Dream... Amazing ship with lots of new stuff....but I have to admit I still like the Magic and Wonder. Still excited about Alaska... can't wait to meet everyone.

My daughter is 12 and is looking for pen pals her age that are going on the cruise. If you have a girl her age, send me a PM and lets get them hooked up.

We did this on the Med cruise last summer and she was chatting with 5 girls 6 months prior to the cruise. They all met the first day of the cruise and they were connected at the hip all cruise long.

Also since I'm fully commited to this cruise now I'm willing to take charge of the fish extender list... so send me your name if your interested.

Lastly we did tee shirts for the Med cruise... I created a cruise logo and then emailed it to everyone. They then printed the logo on iron on and made tees which we all wore the first day and met on the ship as a group. Let me know if your all interested in that also.

Glenn

THANKS so much, Glenn!
We were on the 5-night Dream August 2 to 7 last summer and LOVED the ship!
That was the first time we have done the fish extenders, and really enjoyed it! I think it is a great way to get to know some fellow cruisers. We definitely want to join in again this time!
We are Deb, DH Eric, DD Jennifer 21 and DS Mark 17. We are in Stateroom 6004.

You were honking at us! We were at Serenity Bay when the Dream passed by, so we didn't get the full effect of the horn battle.

I am very excited about the excursions in Alaska, more so than on any of the other cruises. It'll be so different than what I'm used to seeing.

Me too!! Have you booked anything yet?
It took some convincing to get the family onboard with this though. They wanted Castaway Cay, tropical weather, etc and couldn't get their heads around glaciers and dog sleds for a while, but I kept working on them until they relented!

I think it will be fun and "new", if you know what I mean. I love the Carribean and Bahamas cruises, but we've already done them several times, so I, at least, am up for something different!

Hi Everyone..We just booked this cruise while on the Wonder Christmas Cruise to Mexico. That was our first cruise ever, and I was ready to book another one after one day on the ship! In fact, my daughter (8) and I had such a case of the cruise over blues when we got home last Monday that I actually booked a return trip to Mexico on the Wonder for us in 7 weeks! On that one my husband won't be joining us, but he'll be joining us again as we celebrate our 10th anniversary on the Alaskan cruise. He's not as convinced as I am that a cold weather cruise is going to be just as great as a warm cruise, but I'm sure he'll get more excited about it as the trip approaches. Since we're from California, east coast cruises are just too pricey for us when you add in the airfare. We are sooooo disappointed that Disney is pulling out of Mexico!

Anyway, hope to get to know you all as the cruise approaches.
Betsy
Dion (DH) both of us are 52 and will be celebrating our 10th anniversary on the ship.
DD Mary-Grace (just turned 8 on the Wonder Christmas cruise)

I know! I was in "cruise-withdrawal" mode after our cruise on the Dream in August when I booked this one!

Just a quick note: We will no longer be cruising on this sailing date. We will now be cruising on the June 11th sailing as it was about $700 less than this date for our category of stateroom. Happy cruising, everyone!

Oh, sorry we will miss you.
We were almost on that one as well, but DS has a church youth trip to NYC June 4 to 14.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a good holiday season!

Our cruise will be here before we know it! I wanted to let people know that Adventures By Disney is offering add-on packages for most (if not all) of the Alaskan cruises. I checked out the package but did not price it. Our family will probably just book our excursions through Disney or on our own.

Please feel free to share any Seattle and/or Alaska information you find helpful. I also posted a Seattle info thread in Post #36.

We had planned to fly into Seattle on Friday, June 22nd; however, I just found out that there's a surprise 50th bday party for my DBF on the 23rd. Guess we'll be flying in on the 24th. I would love to stay in Seattle after the cruise to explore the city but my older DD (Erica) is expecting her third child on July 11th. I'll be nervous the whole cruise about the baby coming while we're gone!

If anyone is interested, HTMLKID (Glenn) has volunteered to organize the Fish Extenders for this group. Please send Glenn a PM with your information if you want to join. We're a pretty small group - so far - so please join! It adds a little something special to the cruise~

Hopefully our group will continue to grow and become more active as our cruise gets closer!!

Now that the holidays are over and it is finally 2012, I'm really getting into big time planning mode! Can't wait for this cruise!

Time to start looking at air fares and hotels!
If anyone has any good tips for these, please let me know!

 

[Mean Queen]

We've been on the hunt for good airfares. Once we find that, we'll book our hotel room. We plan to go out a few days ahead to adjust to the time change. I'd hate for the kids to miss out on things on the cruise because they are too tired.

I have not picked an excursion yet. I know my youngest would love the dog one, but my oldest is a little afraid of dogs. I'm not up for anything that involves scary heights, like taking a helicopter somewhere. I'm leaning toward the train because it'll cover the most ground. But I still need to look into it all more. We have some time before we have to book.

 

[CousinVinny]

Hi all, we'll be joining you in Seattle on June 25!

We are:
Frank (me)
Sarah (who has a birthday on July 1)
Zane (5)

We're part of a pretty large party - my folks have 4 kids and 9 grandkids and their Christmas present was the cruise for all of us - 19 in all including the grandparents!!! Altogether in our party (kid-wise) oldest to youngest we'll have a girl (11), boy (7 1/2), boy (6 1/2), triplets (6 - two boys and a girl), Zane (5), and twins (4 1/2 - boy and girl). So watch for our roving gang. We're coming from Chicago and the others are coming from the southeast US. My sister is on the DIS boards too but I'll let her decide if she wants to out herself. She's a big Disney fan and is sort of acting as our cruise planner.

Most of us have been on the Wonder before - we did a 3-day Bahamas cruise back in December 2009 and had a ball, although I, my son, and the oldest girl were the only ones who braved the somewhat cool waters on Castaway Cay.

We had considered taking Amtrak either to or from Seattle but the flooding problems in North Dakota this spring/summer spooked me a bit so we're flying instead. I suspect we'll only be in Seattle a day or so before the cruise. I was there in late 2007 and stayed at the Crowne Plaza downtown. It was a nice enough hotel and easy walking to Pike Place Market and other restaurants. I seem to remember it wasn't too far a walk to the Vietnamese/Chinese "International District" either. Not sure where we'll stay this time though.

One of our planned stops (for our family anyway - can't speak for the others in our party) before we embark is to hit the Archie McPhee store up in the Wallingford neighborhood. I can't post links yet but you can google it easy enough to see what I'm talking about.

I'll have to read up on this fishing extenders thing.
(edit: my wife is a quilter, so I can definitely see this happening. Plus it would justify the Archie McPhee trip!)

TTFN!
Vinny

 

[htmlkid]

This is the updated fish extender list. Please advie me of your stateroom number as it becomes available. Anyone else who wants to join our group pleae PM me so I don't miss you. I will update the list accordingly.

DCLShel - DW Shelly, DH Lance, DD 12 Kiley Stateroom 5022
HTMLKID - DW Barbara, DH Glenn, DD 12 Christina Stateroom 2614
MeanQueen - DEW Shay, DH Doug, DD 12 Haley, DD 6 Paige
Deb in IA - DW Deb, DH Eric, DD 21 Jennifer, DS 17 Mark, Statroom 6004

If you've never done a fish extender before, you can purchase them on ebay, just do a search of fish extenders and a few will come up that you can customize to your family.

There is currently a good thread on the main disney cruise section of this board called alaska excursions. It had a lot of good information and worth taking a look at.

 

[Mean Queen]

Glenn - just in case anyone is doing personalized names, I wanted to let you know Haley doesn't have an i in her name. We will let you know the room number later. We will probably upgrade to a balcony so our current room number will hopefully change.

We are probably going to do the summer dog sled camp. Both girls think it looks fun. DD12 said no way to the lumberjack shows but we'll see. I'm also interested in the gold mining one.

 

[htmlkid]

Glenn - just in case anyone is doing personalized names, I wanted to let you know Haley doesn't have an i in her name. We will let you know the room number later. We will probably upgrade to a balcony so our current room number will hopefully change.

We are probably going to do the summer dog sled camp. Both girls think it looks fun. DD12 said no way to the lumberjack shows but we'll see. I'm also interested in the gold mining one.

NP, I adjusted Haley's spelling (so sorry). Keep me advised of the excursions, maybe we can do the dogs and gold mining together.

 

[Mean Queen]

I'm wondering if the lack of activity in this group is any indicator about how many people will be on the cruise. Do the Alaskan cruises sell out like the ones out of Florida?

Anyone book flights yet? We are still waiting on good prices.

 

[MN Dis Fans]

I booked several months ago, and have been lurking in the background since. I finally decided to pay off our cruise using DVC points, so it definitely looks like we'll be joining you.

In our group will be me: DH , DW , and DS x 2 (17) (14) + the FIL & MIL We took my parents / brother to Alaska last year. The views were so stunning, the DW & I decided we had to return with her parents this summer.

I've been busily planning away for the last week or so, and most of our travel arrangements are completed. Still plenty to do, but our cruise date will be here before we know it!

 

[Deb in IA]

I booked several months ago, and have been lurking in the background since. I finally decided to pay off our cruise using DVC points, so it definitely looks like we'll be joining you.

In our group will be me: DH , DW , and DS x 2 (17) (14) + the FIL & MIL We took my parents / brother to Alaska last year. The views were so stunning, the DW & I decided we had to return with her parents this summer.

I've been busily planning away for the last week or so, and most of our travel arrangements are completed. Still plenty to do, but our cruise date will be here before we know it!

from another Upper Midwesterner!

After our first blast of snow this week, planning for a summer cruise is a lot of fun!

I see you also have a 17 year old DS - as do we. What kinds of things does he like? It might be nice if they got to know each other before the cruise.

 

[htmlkid]

I'm wondering if the lack of activity in this group is any indicator about how many people will be on the cruise. Do the Alaskan cruises sell out like the ones out of Florida?

Anyone book flights yet? We are still waiting on good prices.

Yes I'm shocked at how few the amount of people here on this board. We also booked New Years on DCL and I went on that thresd and its packed... go figure. I was actually wondering if the Alaskan Cruises are an older group that don't use the boards????

We booked our airfare. I had 40K in miles with Delta and applied for the Delta Gold Amex which gave me an additional 30,000 miles. I used 60K for 1 ticket from Miami to Seattle, Seattle to Hawaii then Hawaii to Miami. The other two we booked for $945 each. The Delta Amex card also gave us our first checked in bag free... Checked in bags can add to the overall cost these days.

 

[Mean Queen]

Yes I'm shocked at how few the amount of people here on this board. We also booked New Years on DCL and I went on that thresd and its packed... go figure. I was actually wondering if the Alaskan Cruises are an older group that don't use the boards????

We booked our airfare. I had 40K in miles with Delta and applied for the Delta Gold Amex which gave me an additional 30,000 miles. I used 60K for 1 ticket from Miami to Seattle, Seattle to Hawaii then Hawaii to Miami. The other two we booked for $945 each. The Delta Amex card also gave us our first checked in bag free... Checked in bags can add to the overall cost these days.

We are booked on the Fantasy for New Years next year and that board is also more active. Granted, the Dream and Fantasy are both much bigger than the Wonder which may be part of the reason for the difference in activity.

You are definitely taking a long way to Seattle. Are you staying DVC in Hawaii before Alaska? We had considered going to Disneyland after the cruise, but I just can't get that much time off.

 

[htmlkid]

We are booked on the Fantasy for New Years next year and that board is also more active. Granted, the Dream and Fantasy are both much bigger than the Wonder which may be part of the reason for the difference in activity.

You are definitely taking a long way to Seattle. Are you staying DVC in Hawaii before Alaska? We had considered going to Disneyland after the cruise, but I just can't get that much time off.

We booked the Dream for New Years...but we may move that to and Eastern Med 2013 if it gets announced on Wednesday since that reservation was from an on board booking with the 10% discount. There is lots of talk about the Wednesday announcment including the Wonder leaving out of the Port of Miami.

Yes we are going to Aulani after the cruise. It didn't add much to the airfare and I had extra DVC points available so we said, why not!!!!