Official May 17th Alaska Cruise Thread!

[DisneyBasket]

We have booked one excursion at each stop. We are doing the White Pass RR at Skagway (we are old RR buffs, Steve volunteers at the PA RR Museum in Lancaster County here. We are also planning on the Mendenhall Glacier Adventure Hike (although I am not sure I am up for a hike,,,), and in Ketchikan we are doing the Misty Fjords Boat and Float Plane adventure.

What is everyone else doing?

 

[JTN2005]

We have already booked a floatplane to Misty Fijords in Ketchikan and are we are considering the railroad as my son would love it. Nothing in Juneau confirmed yet.

 

[nick.turpchinoff]

We have booked the "Exclusive Whale Encounter" in Juneau for 7:45AM!

 

[nick.turpchinoff]

My wife and mother-in-law and myself want to know if there are is anyone here that would want to LINK reservations with us for dining. We have the LATE dining time.

We went on the Dream back in March and did this with two other families. It was wonderful because we had something in common -- the DIS! We had a splendid time and didn't have to worry about who we would have as table mates! We also requested a server / assistant server on the Dream -- and got them! (Jayson and Adriana -- amazing team!) If anyone knows a great server on the Wonder, please speak up and let me know so that we can request them!

Cant wait to hear from you!

 

[disneycruznrn]

Thank you nick.turpchinoff for including us in the fish extender list. I will get our cabin number to you as soon as I can.

DisneyBasket: Would like to meet you all since we too are a "more mature" couple sailing by ourselves. We too are flying into Vancouver the day before and staying a couple of days after. Where are you planning to stay? We are at the Best Western downtown. Getting excited for this cruise.

 

[kris3kid]

Thank you nick.turpchinoff for including us in the fish extender list. I will get our cabin number to you as soon as I can.

DisneyBasket: Would like to meet you all since we too are a "more mature" couple sailing by ourselves. We too are flying into Vancouver the day before and staying a couple of days after. Where are you planning to stay? We are at the Best Western downtown. Getting excited for this cruise.

We are also staying at the downtown best western, what time do you need o be at the port? We need to be there at 10:30.

As for excursions we are doing several...
Skagway we are doing the summer camp dog sled with Disney
Juneau we are whale watching with Harv and Marv and the Mount Roberts Tram
Ketchikan we are doing the Bering Sea tour and then being picked up at the dock by Seawind Aviation for a float plane trip both we booked on our own.

 

[DisneyBasket]

DisneyBasket: Would like to meet you all since we too are a "more mature" couple sailing by ourselves. We too are flying into Vancouver the day before and staying a couple of days after. Where are you planning to stay? We are at the Best Western downtown. Getting excited for this cruise.

Disneycruznrn: We are still going back and forth about where to stay! We are flying in on the Sunday before and hope to do a little sightseeing on Monday. On the flip side, we are not getting back to the port early enough to fly out the day we dock, so we are staying over near the airport that night to fly out early the next morning.

This Tuesday sailing is my only complaint - it means giving up 3 more vacation days than a Saturday to Saturday or Sunday to Sunday cruise! But, I've never been to western Canada, so I am looking at it as an opportunity. We are cruising to celebrate our 30th anniversary, so we are indulging ourselves with a more expensive cabin and hotels than we otherwise would get!

I'm looking forward to meeting everyone!!

 

[disneycruznrn]

DisneyBasket: We plan to spend sometime in Vancouver after the cruise. Staying at a timeshare our daughter got us. It is in downtown area also, not too far from the port. Plan to maybe hop over to Victoria on Wednesday.

I kind of like the Tuesday sailing because I work everyother Friday/Saturday nights and this way I so I can leave on Monday and only have to take one week end (which is my week-end off).

Kris3kid: We hope to get to the port early and try for an upgrade. The Best Western looks nice and is not far from the port. Do you know if they have transportation from the airport to the hotel?

 

[kris3kid]

DisneyBasket: We plan to spend sometime in Vancouver after the cruise. Staying at a timeshare our daughter got us. It is in downtown area also, not too far from the port. Plan to maybe hop over to Victoria on Wednesday.

I kind of like the Tuesday sailing because I work everyother Friday/Saturday nights and this way I so I can leave on Monday and only have to take one week end (which is my week-end off).

Kris3kid: We hope to get to the port early and try for an upgrade. The Best Western looks nice and is not far from the port. Do you know if they have transportation from the airport to the hotel?

Yes they do provide free transportation to the port, have you done your online check in? We picked the first time slot of 10:30 for our port arrival time. We were goiong to ask about upgrades as well it all depends on the cost of them. Have you ever done a port upgrade and know the average cost?

 

[magicimaginear]

Hey Everyone,

For those that want to do the shirts for this cruise, it looks like white t-shirts will work the best. It will be your choice if you want a long sleeves or not.

If you want to do the shirts then PM me with the your names and an email to send images to. I will also need to know if you are able to "mirror" print or not. You will also need iron-on paper for light colors.

 

[mvcomet]

There appears to be more than one Best Western in the downtown Vancouver area. Which one(s) would have shuttle service to the cruise terminal?

 

[dfsc]

We would like to join the FE. We do not have our room number, I will post later when I have it. We have participated in FEs many times. They are fun for adults even without kids. I'm always amazed by the cleverness of some of the gifts. On our last cruise my favorite gifts were a Disney music CD and a journal for the kids.

Dan and Felicia
DD 11, DS 7

 

[disneycruznrn]

Kris3kid.

We did an upgrade on our first Magic cruise. We upgraded to a balcony for $400. Our daughter upgraded to a conceiger(sp) suite for $1000.

 

[MontanaDJ]

Can someone tell me how it works? Do we bring one gift for everyone on the list and then just pick a day to give it? or is it like names in a hat? Any ideas on what to give...I've seen journals, or stickers, or candy....going to by my FE soon...can't wait...Cruise is coming way too fast.

Thanks,
Deanna

 

[nick.turpchinoff]

Can someone tell me how it works? Do we bring one gift for everyone on the list and then just pick a day to give it? or is it like names in a hat? Any ideas on what to give...I've seen journals, or stickers, or candy....going to by my FE soon...can't wait...Cruise is coming way too fast.

Thanks,
Deanna

For our last cruise on the Dream on March 10-13, we gave each person a little goody bag of candy and each room received a mixed CD of tropical music along with some Disney classic songs. The CD cover had the DCL logo with the cruise date and on the back was the list of songs and who created the CD.

We choose to do something for the whole stateroom to share AND a personalized goody bag of candy for each individual person in the stateroom. Now, it's totally up to you if you give per stateroom, per person, or both. Kids definitely like getting their own little gift.

As for when you distribute the FE gifts, is totally up to you. It's really fun to come back to your stateroom to find that surprise in your Fish Extender! We had noticed on our last cruise that others were waiting a little bit later because several other FE participants were giving our their gift that day, so they waited until the next day. I would suggest not the last night as baggage will needed to be set out by 10:30. We did ours on day 2.

We just felt crafty, generous, and generally excited about our cruise on the Dream! We even decorated our stateroom door! And will be doing the same again on the Wonder cruise! It's so much fun!

Deanna, if you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Here is a picture of our door from our last cruise:

 

[MontanaDJ]

I'm so excited...just ordered our fish extenders and pillow cases for the kids...I feel like there's so much that I still need to do...but at least that's one thing I can cross off my list...I'm very excited about this cruise and the idea of getting little treats sounds very cool...can you please add my inlaws?... Alan (75) and Barbara (70) her bday is 5/23! but she'd kill me if I told you that lol! they are in room 8524 and we are in room 7002

 

[MontanaDJ]

Nick...LOVE the door...where did you get the stuff that goes around the room number?

 

[EOppegaard]

Hey everyone!

We would like to add our names to the FE list as well.

Eric and Erica both 26 y/o

We will be in room 6585 and excited to join the fun!

Like others, we also will be arriving a day prior, getting in around noon on Monday. We are looking at staying at the Westin Grand, Westin Bayshore, or the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that any of these offer transfer from the airport for free, however the Skytrain looks like a promising option from the airport.

 

[EOppegaard]

Nick...LOVE the door...where did you get the stuff that goes around the room number?

Run a search on here, the graphics are posted somewhere....

I will see if I can take a peak later.

 

[nick.turpchinoff]

Nick...LOVE the door...where did you get the stuff that goes around the room number?

The thread is located at:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2172891

They recently posted an "Alaskan Flap Hat" for Alaska:

We did a Night cap theme since we were on the Dream. We went to Jo Ann Fabrics and bought the foamy sheets. We printed out the Sorcerer hat a our template and conformed it to look like a sleep cap for the "Dream". You can put in requests and the DIS member creates new ones, however, the night cap still has not been got to yet.

They are fun to do! I believe we were the only cabin on our Dream cruise that had actually done one of these. Maybe they'll be others for our Alaska cruise.