DVC Doc
Disney world traveller
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2011
- Messages
- 376
After an amazing cruise, I'm sitting here on American Airlines typing up this brief summary. I had heard so many good things about Alaska and my first ever sailing there definitely lived up to the hype!
Vancouver: Our flight arrived late (1am) into YVR so we had just booked a room at the Fairmont Vancouver Airport. Customs was a breeze this late but we did have to wait a while for our luggage to come out to the carousel. The hotel is easily accessible from the US departures area and we were surprised with how nice it was. When we checked in, the gentleman at the front desk upgraded us to club level! Score! After a good night’s rest we were treated to a hot breakfast in the club lounge with a view of planes coming and going. Around 9am, we made our way to the Skytrain to get to downtown Vancouver. I can’t say enough good things about the Skytrain; it’s a clean, fast, and inexpensive way to get around. In fact, I don’t think there’s another city that has such a direct connection from the airport to the cruise port. When arriving at Waterfront Station, head to the Cordova St. exit, turn right and then another right once you get to Howe St. Straight ahead is Canada Place as well as the Pan Pacific, our hotel for this pre-cruise night. I had read a lot of rave reviews about the Pan Pacific but ended up being underwhelmed. It does have a beautiful expansive lobby, great location and views, but it seemed 5-star circa 1989 to me with pretty average rooms. But maybe we had just been spoiled by the fantastic airport Fairmont the night before. Anyway, our room wasn’t ready yet so we checked our luggage and booked tickets to Grouse Mountain with the hotel concierge. There is a free shuttle that leaves from Canada Place every 20 minutes, and as it was quite busy that day we ended up waiting in a long line for about 30 minutes to board. The bus ride is nice and takes you through Stanley Park and across the Lion’s Gate bridge to the base of Grouse Mountain. When we first arrived it was still quite cloudy but by the time we arrived at the top via the tram the sun was started to shine. The views front the top are spectacular and we enjoyed the bird shows and bear exhibit, as well as a few local beers. We then took the shuttle back to Canada Place and met up with the rest of my family who had just flown it and checked into our rooms. We then walked around downtown Vancouver and had dinner at the fabulous Steamworks Brewpub. Jet lagged, we all went to bed early as we wanted to be up to watch the Wonder come into port!
Disney Wonder: I have been cruising with Disney since 1999 but believe it or not this was my first time on the Wonder! Unfortunately our room didn’t have a view of the side the Wonder was docking on, but did get to see her from breakfast in the Pan Pacific lobby. About 10 o’clock we called bell services who took all of our tagged bags to the ship for us and we headed down to check-in. This was a very smooth and quick process and before I knew it we were sitting waiting for boarding to begin. Around noon boarding began, and then we were welcomed into the atrium of the beautiful Disney Wonder! And I do mean beautiful. She really looks like a brand new ship after her re-imagining. We headed up to Cabanas for embarkation day buffet, set up chat on our apps, and perused the Navigator for the upcoming 9 days. We were so excited to see that Susan Egan would be on this sailing!
Ketchikan: Ketchikan was our first port of call on this voyage. We had originally booked a floatplane trip to Misty Fjords but we were dismayed when we arrived and it was a foggy, cloudy, and rainy morning. All of the trips to Misty Fjord had been cancelled. We walked around the city for a bit and were thinking of taking a ride on the funicular. We happened to ask a person at the visitors center about any flight options today and as luck would have it, he had a floatplane trip to Neets Bay for bear-watching available! The tour was about to leave and he quickly put us in a cab to Taquan Air. There were boarded our floatplane and had about a 30 minute flight over water to Neets Bay. This is the site of a salmon hatchery along a creek, which attracts a lot of bears. As luck would have it, the salmon had just started running last week and we were their fifth day of tours. And wow, this trip surpassed all of my expectations! We had our own private tour guide for the four people in our plane who told us all about the area, salmon, and black bears. I couldn’t believe how close we were able to get to the bears who were catching salmon in the creek. At one point there were 7 bears just 50 or so yards away from us! We also were excited to see a sow and her two cubs, and a few bald eagles showed up as well. There was such a great tour, I’m so glad we stumbled upon it!
Icy Strait Point: This was Disney’s second ever visit to ISP and it was obvious the owners are working hard to attract Disney to come back. All I had to say was “wow, wow, wow” because it was such a cute port and everyone was so friendly! The ship docked at a brand new dock constructed last year which leads you directly into the “Adventure Center” from where tours depart. We had booked a combination ZipLine and Whale Watch tour but had some time to explore before hand. We were so impressed when we checked in for our tour; they have iPads set up to sign your waivers making the process very organized. We then boarded a bus driven by Glenn who was a native Tlingit and had lived in Hoonah (town near ISP) his entire life. He drove us through Hoonah and up the mountain and we managed to see a few Sitka deer along the way. When we arrived to the top of the mountain it was very cold and rainy. After about a 20 minute wait (they had a tent and campfire for us) it was our turn on the “World’s Largest ZipLine.” Unfortunately, at this point we were basically zip lining through a cloud and I didn’t see anything until I was almost at the bottom. Other people just an hour or so later had a fantastic view as the weather had cleared up but unfortunately this kind of ruined the experience for me. Oh well, at least they give you a free shot of Fireball once you finish the ZipLine! We grabbed a quick lunch at the Crab Shack and had the best Dungeness crab I’ve ever tasted. Our whale watching excursion then left from the marina and took us to one of the best whale-watching spots in Alaska. We saw orcas, sea otters, and humpback whales. One whale got right up next to the boat and we got some great photos. When we returned it was already time to board the ship, but we got a nice send off with a Tlingit tribal dance on the dock. We really enjoyed our time at “Castaway Cay of the North” and hope Disney will continue to visit in the future!
Hubbard Glacier: This glacier definitely lived up to the hype and was an awe-inspiring experience. Words and pictures simply cannot live up to the experience of being there, seeing it calve and hearing the “thunder” that it makes. I simply could not get over how massive the thing is. Fortunately our captain was able to get the ship very close, with about one hour of viewing for each side of the ship. We watched our arrival to the glacier with a ton of people on deck 10 forward, then went to our room and watched from the verandah before going to deck 4 on the opposite side. This was truly a highlight of the cruise. Another bonus was that up on deck they were serving mulled wine in a souvenir mug for just $10 with $5 refills!
Juneau: For Juneau we had booked our “bucket-list” excursion of taking a helicopter to the glacier and dog-sledding. As we arrived into Juneau it was cloudy and rainy making us very concerned it would be cancelled. But as luck would have it, the weather had turned around enough and we were on the first tour that our operator, Era Helicopters, had done in 3 days! They have a very professional operation and our pilot Mike was great. We flew over the several glaciers before landing at the camp. The sled dogs were so excited because they hadn’t done runs for three days! We met our musher who had her own team of dogs and would be running her first Iditarod next year. After some time learning about her team we each took a seat on the sled and off we went! We each got a turn “driving,” which you don’t really have to do anything because the dogs know where they are going. This was just an exhilarating experience and definitely lived up to the hype. We were then able to get some great photos and spend some time with the dogs. We had about an hour up on the glacier before the helicopter ride back.
Skagway: We booked the “Best of Skagway” tour which began by meeting our bus driver Rhonda on the dock. She took us up the Klondike Memorial Highway which has some incredible views and told us about the history of Skagway and the Gold Rush. This continued all the way to Fraser in British Columbia where we boarded the White Pass & Yukon sightseeing train. I’m a big fan of trains, but definitely felt that just doing a one-way trip on board was enough. The train does have some nice views and gets you close to waterfalls, but I think the views were better from the highway. The train let us off in Skagway where Rhonda was ready to pick us up and take us to Liarsville for lunch. Mmmm, that salmon bake was delicious! We then saw the Liarsville show which was fun and hokey before panning for gold. The final stop was the Red Onion, which functioned as a brothel in Skagway during the gold rush. Our tour guide was a hoot and made quite a few very “non-Disney” jokes! At this point we elected to explore Skagway on our own and walk back to the ship. We spent some time watching the salmon run which is just next to the docks. All in all it was my least favorite of the excursions we did but still a good time.
Tracy/Endicott Arm: I was disappointed when it was announced that we would be entering Endicott Arm on this voyage after earlier in the cruise they were adamant we would be going in Tracy Arm. Even worse, we would be entering at 5am, at the glacier from 7:30-8:00, and out of Endicott Arm altogether at 10am. This made for a very early day with what seemed like a very brief visit compared to other cruises. At least the weather was much better and the morning sunshine off the glacier and mountains was so beautiful. There were quite a few characters meeting up on deck and mulled wine was being served again.
Room: Our stateroom host was great but quiet and we were rarely saw him. We did come home with a huge haul of shampoo bottles though!!! For me, a verandah was definitely the way to go to Alaska. There is just so much incredible scenery to see and it's so nice to be able to look out while you're back in your room getting ready. It was especially great for Hubbard Glacier and Endicott Arm to be able to go outside and enjoy the view then quickly retreat back inside to get warmed up! It was also very special watching the Tlingit children giving a sendoff to the ship as we pulled away from Icy Strait Point.
Dining: We had late dining and our rotation was TR - AP - TP x 3. Triton's and Animator's were basically comparable to what I've experienced on previous sailings and the food was excellent. But WOW...Tiana's Place is now the crown jewel of the entire fleet! Everything about the atmosphere, the live music, and the food just made me fall in love. Hopefully Disney will be creating more experiences like this in the future. It took a little while for us to warm up to our serving team, but they were truly great guys, if a little slow. Our server was a wanna-be magician so every night there was a magic trick with dessert. Unfortunately it was usually about 10 o'clock at this point and I was in a rush to get to adult activities.
Entertainment: Our stage shows were Be Our Guest, Golden Mickeys, Frozen, and Disney Dreams. The shows were fine, the cast was good, but something seemed missing. I think for a 9-night sailing there should be more than 4 main stage shows. I have been on the Magic before when we've had 5 shows on a 7 night sailing! The projection upgrades to Golden Mickeys were great as were the special effects in the Frozen show. There were a LOT of character greetings this cruise with great staff. The highlight was Susan Egan who is one of the most amazing and gracious performers I have ever met and was absolutely amazed by her performance!
Would I do it again: ABSOLUTELY! Alaska is absolutely amazing and there's so much else I'd like to experience. I really felt like the 9-night was the way to go as it gives you a full week in Alaska and Hubbard Glacier was absolutely spectacular!
I will be posting a video trip report on Youtube in a few days once I've had a chance to edit; I'll post the link here. Thanks for reading and please let me know if you have any questions!
Vancouver: Our flight arrived late (1am) into YVR so we had just booked a room at the Fairmont Vancouver Airport. Customs was a breeze this late but we did have to wait a while for our luggage to come out to the carousel. The hotel is easily accessible from the US departures area and we were surprised with how nice it was. When we checked in, the gentleman at the front desk upgraded us to club level! Score! After a good night’s rest we were treated to a hot breakfast in the club lounge with a view of planes coming and going. Around 9am, we made our way to the Skytrain to get to downtown Vancouver. I can’t say enough good things about the Skytrain; it’s a clean, fast, and inexpensive way to get around. In fact, I don’t think there’s another city that has such a direct connection from the airport to the cruise port. When arriving at Waterfront Station, head to the Cordova St. exit, turn right and then another right once you get to Howe St. Straight ahead is Canada Place as well as the Pan Pacific, our hotel for this pre-cruise night. I had read a lot of rave reviews about the Pan Pacific but ended up being underwhelmed. It does have a beautiful expansive lobby, great location and views, but it seemed 5-star circa 1989 to me with pretty average rooms. But maybe we had just been spoiled by the fantastic airport Fairmont the night before. Anyway, our room wasn’t ready yet so we checked our luggage and booked tickets to Grouse Mountain with the hotel concierge. There is a free shuttle that leaves from Canada Place every 20 minutes, and as it was quite busy that day we ended up waiting in a long line for about 30 minutes to board. The bus ride is nice and takes you through Stanley Park and across the Lion’s Gate bridge to the base of Grouse Mountain. When we first arrived it was still quite cloudy but by the time we arrived at the top via the tram the sun was started to shine. The views front the top are spectacular and we enjoyed the bird shows and bear exhibit, as well as a few local beers. We then took the shuttle back to Canada Place and met up with the rest of my family who had just flown it and checked into our rooms. We then walked around downtown Vancouver and had dinner at the fabulous Steamworks Brewpub. Jet lagged, we all went to bed early as we wanted to be up to watch the Wonder come into port!
Disney Wonder: I have been cruising with Disney since 1999 but believe it or not this was my first time on the Wonder! Unfortunately our room didn’t have a view of the side the Wonder was docking on, but did get to see her from breakfast in the Pan Pacific lobby. About 10 o’clock we called bell services who took all of our tagged bags to the ship for us and we headed down to check-in. This was a very smooth and quick process and before I knew it we were sitting waiting for boarding to begin. Around noon boarding began, and then we were welcomed into the atrium of the beautiful Disney Wonder! And I do mean beautiful. She really looks like a brand new ship after her re-imagining. We headed up to Cabanas for embarkation day buffet, set up chat on our apps, and perused the Navigator for the upcoming 9 days. We were so excited to see that Susan Egan would be on this sailing!
Ketchikan: Ketchikan was our first port of call on this voyage. We had originally booked a floatplane trip to Misty Fjords but we were dismayed when we arrived and it was a foggy, cloudy, and rainy morning. All of the trips to Misty Fjord had been cancelled. We walked around the city for a bit and were thinking of taking a ride on the funicular. We happened to ask a person at the visitors center about any flight options today and as luck would have it, he had a floatplane trip to Neets Bay for bear-watching available! The tour was about to leave and he quickly put us in a cab to Taquan Air. There were boarded our floatplane and had about a 30 minute flight over water to Neets Bay. This is the site of a salmon hatchery along a creek, which attracts a lot of bears. As luck would have it, the salmon had just started running last week and we were their fifth day of tours. And wow, this trip surpassed all of my expectations! We had our own private tour guide for the four people in our plane who told us all about the area, salmon, and black bears. I couldn’t believe how close we were able to get to the bears who were catching salmon in the creek. At one point there were 7 bears just 50 or so yards away from us! We also were excited to see a sow and her two cubs, and a few bald eagles showed up as well. There was such a great tour, I’m so glad we stumbled upon it!
Icy Strait Point: This was Disney’s second ever visit to ISP and it was obvious the owners are working hard to attract Disney to come back. All I had to say was “wow, wow, wow” because it was such a cute port and everyone was so friendly! The ship docked at a brand new dock constructed last year which leads you directly into the “Adventure Center” from where tours depart. We had booked a combination ZipLine and Whale Watch tour but had some time to explore before hand. We were so impressed when we checked in for our tour; they have iPads set up to sign your waivers making the process very organized. We then boarded a bus driven by Glenn who was a native Tlingit and had lived in Hoonah (town near ISP) his entire life. He drove us through Hoonah and up the mountain and we managed to see a few Sitka deer along the way. When we arrived to the top of the mountain it was very cold and rainy. After about a 20 minute wait (they had a tent and campfire for us) it was our turn on the “World’s Largest ZipLine.” Unfortunately, at this point we were basically zip lining through a cloud and I didn’t see anything until I was almost at the bottom. Other people just an hour or so later had a fantastic view as the weather had cleared up but unfortunately this kind of ruined the experience for me. Oh well, at least they give you a free shot of Fireball once you finish the ZipLine! We grabbed a quick lunch at the Crab Shack and had the best Dungeness crab I’ve ever tasted. Our whale watching excursion then left from the marina and took us to one of the best whale-watching spots in Alaska. We saw orcas, sea otters, and humpback whales. One whale got right up next to the boat and we got some great photos. When we returned it was already time to board the ship, but we got a nice send off with a Tlingit tribal dance on the dock. We really enjoyed our time at “Castaway Cay of the North” and hope Disney will continue to visit in the future!
Hubbard Glacier: This glacier definitely lived up to the hype and was an awe-inspiring experience. Words and pictures simply cannot live up to the experience of being there, seeing it calve and hearing the “thunder” that it makes. I simply could not get over how massive the thing is. Fortunately our captain was able to get the ship very close, with about one hour of viewing for each side of the ship. We watched our arrival to the glacier with a ton of people on deck 10 forward, then went to our room and watched from the verandah before going to deck 4 on the opposite side. This was truly a highlight of the cruise. Another bonus was that up on deck they were serving mulled wine in a souvenir mug for just $10 with $5 refills!
Juneau: For Juneau we had booked our “bucket-list” excursion of taking a helicopter to the glacier and dog-sledding. As we arrived into Juneau it was cloudy and rainy making us very concerned it would be cancelled. But as luck would have it, the weather had turned around enough and we were on the first tour that our operator, Era Helicopters, had done in 3 days! They have a very professional operation and our pilot Mike was great. We flew over the several glaciers before landing at the camp. The sled dogs were so excited because they hadn’t done runs for three days! We met our musher who had her own team of dogs and would be running her first Iditarod next year. After some time learning about her team we each took a seat on the sled and off we went! We each got a turn “driving,” which you don’t really have to do anything because the dogs know where they are going. This was just an exhilarating experience and definitely lived up to the hype. We were then able to get some great photos and spend some time with the dogs. We had about an hour up on the glacier before the helicopter ride back.
Skagway: We booked the “Best of Skagway” tour which began by meeting our bus driver Rhonda on the dock. She took us up the Klondike Memorial Highway which has some incredible views and told us about the history of Skagway and the Gold Rush. This continued all the way to Fraser in British Columbia where we boarded the White Pass & Yukon sightseeing train. I’m a big fan of trains, but definitely felt that just doing a one-way trip on board was enough. The train does have some nice views and gets you close to waterfalls, but I think the views were better from the highway. The train let us off in Skagway where Rhonda was ready to pick us up and take us to Liarsville for lunch. Mmmm, that salmon bake was delicious! We then saw the Liarsville show which was fun and hokey before panning for gold. The final stop was the Red Onion, which functioned as a brothel in Skagway during the gold rush. Our tour guide was a hoot and made quite a few very “non-Disney” jokes! At this point we elected to explore Skagway on our own and walk back to the ship. We spent some time watching the salmon run which is just next to the docks. All in all it was my least favorite of the excursions we did but still a good time.
Tracy/Endicott Arm: I was disappointed when it was announced that we would be entering Endicott Arm on this voyage after earlier in the cruise they were adamant we would be going in Tracy Arm. Even worse, we would be entering at 5am, at the glacier from 7:30-8:00, and out of Endicott Arm altogether at 10am. This made for a very early day with what seemed like a very brief visit compared to other cruises. At least the weather was much better and the morning sunshine off the glacier and mountains was so beautiful. There were quite a few characters meeting up on deck and mulled wine was being served again.
Room: Our stateroom host was great but quiet and we were rarely saw him. We did come home with a huge haul of shampoo bottles though!!! For me, a verandah was definitely the way to go to Alaska. There is just so much incredible scenery to see and it's so nice to be able to look out while you're back in your room getting ready. It was especially great for Hubbard Glacier and Endicott Arm to be able to go outside and enjoy the view then quickly retreat back inside to get warmed up! It was also very special watching the Tlingit children giving a sendoff to the ship as we pulled away from Icy Strait Point.
Dining: We had late dining and our rotation was TR - AP - TP x 3. Triton's and Animator's were basically comparable to what I've experienced on previous sailings and the food was excellent. But WOW...Tiana's Place is now the crown jewel of the entire fleet! Everything about the atmosphere, the live music, and the food just made me fall in love. Hopefully Disney will be creating more experiences like this in the future. It took a little while for us to warm up to our serving team, but they were truly great guys, if a little slow. Our server was a wanna-be magician so every night there was a magic trick with dessert. Unfortunately it was usually about 10 o'clock at this point and I was in a rush to get to adult activities.
Entertainment: Our stage shows were Be Our Guest, Golden Mickeys, Frozen, and Disney Dreams. The shows were fine, the cast was good, but something seemed missing. I think for a 9-night sailing there should be more than 4 main stage shows. I have been on the Magic before when we've had 5 shows on a 7 night sailing! The projection upgrades to Golden Mickeys were great as were the special effects in the Frozen show. There were a LOT of character greetings this cruise with great staff. The highlight was Susan Egan who is one of the most amazing and gracious performers I have ever met and was absolutely amazed by her performance!
Would I do it again: ABSOLUTELY! Alaska is absolutely amazing and there's so much else I'd like to experience. I really felt like the 9-night was the way to go as it gives you a full week in Alaska and Hubbard Glacier was absolutely spectacular!
I will be posting a video trip report on Youtube in a few days once I've had a chance to edit; I'll post the link here. Thanks for reading and please let me know if you have any questions!
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