Official May 17th Alaska Cruise Thread!

[nicolemate]

Hope everyone has a safe journey and happy travels. See you all tomorrow.

Nicole
Dante
Anabella
and Nonna Carole

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Omg I slipped in the shower and landed in the splits. Now let me say it's been 20 yrs since I have done the splits. Lol. I have totally twisted my back and ankle!!! All I can do is laugh and know I am gonna be pretty sore tomorrow!

 

[epicureangirl]

Wishing everyone happy and safe travels. See you all tomorrow!

 

[Rat-a-too-ee]

Have a great trip everyone, I cannot wait to see Alaska in August!

 

[magicimaginear]

Checked in at the Pan Pacific... look for the younger couple my wife's a red head about 5'2 and i'm the goofy guy next to her lol

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

We are here and I think we checked in behind a diser. She was very excited. In purple pants. One of us????

 

[nick.turpchinoff]

we are on I5 on our way! can't wait!

 

[nick.turpchinoff]

what a wonderful day and drive up from Seattle!!!

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

what a I went to thewonderful day and drive up from Seattle!!!

I went to the courtesy desk and was told not to
Arrive until 11. Gonna go at 1030.

 

[Con5421]

Have a great cruise.

Connie

 

[tap & dap]

I went to the courtesy desk and was told not to
Arrive until 11. Gonna go at 1030.

Sorry just saw email I sent you a pm thanks have fun

 

[Rat-a-too-ee]

Welcome back everyone! I see the ship is in the port right now on cruise cam... http://www.northvancouver.com/webcams/cruisecam/

Please share some of the details of your WONDERful cruise!

 

[tap & dap]

Hope everyone enjoyed the cruise

 

[Disney Dreams]

Welcome back everyone! I see the ship is in the port right now on cruise cam... http://www.northvancouver.com/webcams/cruisecam/

Please share some of the details of your WONDERful cruise!

It was absolutely amazing. Unbelievably gorgeous views, great excursions, and Disney all rolled into one incredible week.

 

[DisneyBasket]

Just hopping on to say how fabulous this week was! I enjoyed meeting and chatting with some of you, and exchanging gifts with some of you. Everything in the exchange was terrific, thank you to each and every family that participated, and special thanks to Nick & Cordelia for organizing us! We are still in Vancouver tonight, will be travelling home all day tomorrow. We have over a thousand photos to sort through, and will be posting some photos and a trip report some time after we get home. Highlights were that we had as good weather as we could hope for, and even had sunshine on our sea day on Monday. Eating in Palo was a highlight, loved both brunch and dinner. We loved having a verandah, felt that was worth the cost - we had scenery wherever we were on board. We enjoyed all of our excursions, and wish only that we had gone on a whale watch, since we saw too few of those! We did not see bears, but did see eagles, puffins, many gulls, goats, seals and sea lions. Tracy Arm was absolutely terrific, I could cheerfully have done that a second day rather than visit one of the ports! The shopping was unimpressive in my opinion, hope no one is going to shop - stores are essentially the same in each port, and keep in mind that everything sold there has to be transported in, so the shipping costs are added to the prices.

Our accommodations were comfortable, the food was fine, (although we didn't think it was over the top, except for Palo), and the entertainment was fun....what we participated in! We enjoyed the Pirates prem-EAR at midnight (and appreciated the adults only show, we love the kids, but it was pleasant to have our own showing!). Most nights we were unconscious relatively early. We made a conscious decision not to try to overdo, so we gave up some of the late night activity in favor of some sleep! Our servers and state room host were efficient and friendly, but not overbearing. We had no issues on this trip!

The Wonder is ready for her stint in dry dock, we noticed she is looking a little tired in more than a few areas. I would love to sail her again afterwards. She is a gem. Seas were relatively smooth, very small waves. The Inside Passage is a great passage for calm waters. I took very low dosages of meclizine the entire week, and experienced very mild reactions to the ship's motion only on the first night.

Overall, we enjoyed everything very much. I would go again in a New York minute. My husband is not so much a Disney fan, so he is happy he went, but would like to try other cruise lines should we choose to go again. So, we did not book on board ... not much cash left, anyway

Hope everyone is arriving home safely, and had as good or better week than we did. I'm sorry I missed meeting all of you on this thread, and thanks for everyone's input ahead of time. Thanks for helping to make our cruise so magical!

 

[matsterrocks]

Made it home after a very long drive got in the car at 8:45am and got home at 12:30am 15.75 hours later. (this included a breakfast and a supperbreak) We decided that we would just carry our bags off. We were on our way to breakfast at 8:30 in Parrot Kay and noticed that there was no line up for disembarking but there was a huge line for breakfast so off we went we had a 10 second wait for customs and that was it. We had to call our friend to see where she parked our car. She had dropped it off on Sunday and it still cost us $86 Oh well it was supper easy for us. Seen a Black bear and a bunch of Elk on our drive home.

Our cruise was really nice. We ended up with a waiter that we had had from a RCI cruise about 3 years ago. On that cruise he was not into having anytype of personality but thankfully Disney had him straigtend out and we enjoyed him this time

We enjoyed the EXTREMLY smooth waters for this cruise. By far the smoothest cruise we have every been.

Enjoyed the FE exchange. The one gift that was great but don't know how it was possible to get done was the 5x7 photo mate with the character signatures.

I kept meaning to try to match the gifts to the list of names but never got around to it did anyone else?

Anyone know what time blue donald duck tags got called? Thats the tags we had but did the self walk off after the first two colors were called.

 

[nennewmom]

We had blue donald duck tags and we were called pretty close to 9:30. We didn't mind since we had the 10:45 Quickshuttle and it worked out.

This was our first cruise and everybody had a great time. Thanks everyone for all the tips. I didn't get a chance to meet everybody but I did see some of you guys.

 

[leeleelew]

Oh, what a trip. We started a week earlier in Calgary and drove to Vancouver through the Rockies. We were in awe of the beauty we saw and it continued on the cruise. Everything was perfect Disney. Had the same server from our cruise in Sept. 2010 and just loved her and her new husband who is also a server. They made it very special for us.

We took the train ride in Skagway and I must say this was my favorite day of the cruise. What a wonderful 7-1/2 hour trip up to the Yukon Territory and we had a fabulous guide on the bus return trip.

We are really sorry we did not go on a whale watch trip. I only saw about 13" of a whale's back in the water. So disappointed. We will know better next time. Met some other wonderful Disney passengers at the Totem Pole Park in Ketchikan. We shared a ride back to town in a taxi and they graciously paid my portion. Thanks again.

Scenery was just a constant OMG! What beauty. Would do this trip again in a heartbeat.

 

[MontanaDJ]

Thank you Nick for coordinating the FE Exchange. A BIG huge thank you to all who participated in the FE exchange....it was definitely a highlight for my kids to open the door to the room and see if there was anything in there...we didn't get a signed frame through the FE...but the way to do it is you drop off a photo mat on day 1 with sharpies to guest services and ask them to have the characters sign it...I did this with three pillow cases and two photo mats and they have all the characters on board sign them...it's a great souveneir!

The gifts were amazing...so I thank each and every one of you who took the time to come up with such creative gifts...and those who brought so much stuff for the kids...I thought I'd come home with more room in my suitcase, but I had almost a whole bag of fe gifts LOL! I didn't keep a list of who gave what...

We gave the post it note holder, and the little tins with mickey on them and a chocolate coin and pin inside..

 

[LoveMickey]

We also just returned from this wonderful vacation. Although we did not attend any of the meets, nor participated in the FE exchange, it was a great trip. I thank all who let me read their posts to get ideas.

We were able to book the Pan Pacific for 2 nights before the cruise. This was a great deal for us. In more than one way. We got it from Hotwire, thanks for the tips on that. Also it was nice and convenient since we were travelling with 2 small ones. The Pan also gave us connecting rooms, which was great for all 6 of us.

We did the Liarsville tour with the Disney characters and that was great, we panned for gold there. It was a very nice tour.

In Juneau, we did a whale watch. There were humpbacks there. We saw 3 different areas of whales. The last had a mother and calf. It was very neat. We were in a smaller boat, which I thought was nice. Only about 40 of us at most.

We loved Tracy Arm the most and that night we had dinner at Palo, so were finished up Tracy Arm at Palo, wonderful views.

I hope everyone enjoyed the trip as much as we did. Words cannot adequately express what a great trip this was, and pictures do not do it justice either. You had to experience it to really get the feeling.