I can relate. We were planning on a 2017 Alaska cruise, but just booked it for 2016 because we couldn't take the wait.
Thanks! It's so much easier asking someone who lives there than looking at maps, etc.Not at all, ask away
Agreed, the best way I found to save money is skip the 5 star accommodations near the cruise terminal. Vancouver is a very compact city to get around. $31 for a cab ride (US$24) to the airport.
Oh yay, I'm glad you got all caught up!
Would you believe we're actually thinking of switching our Alaskan cruise to a different 7 day Disney cruise for Jan 2017 instead? Only because of our sh*tty CDN dollarhaven't made a final decision yet though (and our PIF date for Alaska isn't til mid-April)
Totally agree. We're hanging on for summer 2017 - if that is awful when it comes out (re: dollar), we'll probably either avoid DCL entirely, or go back to the Caribbean- or we might move to winter 2017 anyway so we're not tempted by summer 2017 itineraries with EEEKKKK prices!
I see you jumped.
Port Canavral debarking is easy - MUCH nicer!
) and it is a good price I do want to see if Panama releases any GT cabins, but I bet the exchange will still make it pretty pricey. Have you looked into the flights at all? Are they around 400?
Are you booked on the first or second cruise? I'm seriously considering one of these as if would be 2 ports we haven't been to and CC (
We just booked for December. The waiting is killing me already! LOL.Welcome to my first ever trip report! I've read so many of them on the DisBoards so I hope I can live up to the standards that are set here!
Just a couple of housekeeping notes: I'm not very tech savvy so posting links and such is not my forte. Also, I'm writing this on my chromebook so I don't have any internal storage. Which means all photos are saved to the 'cloud' - which stumps me! My husband is the tech one in the family so I'll have to get him to show me where the darn photos are so I can post some in this TR at some point
So, onto the cruise! DH and I love to travel, but we are mostly road-trippers and all-inclusive resort worshippers. When we returned from our most recent trip in November 2014, a week at Now Jade in the Mayan Riviera, I was all set to start planning the next trip (that's what gets me over the home-from-vacation-blues, planning another one). We'd never done a cruise before and after speaking with some cruise-savvy friends, we thought a repositioning cruise would be a great place to start. Imagine my surprise when I discovered Disney cruise line offered such a cruise and not only that - it left from Vancouver (where we live!!) and was actually quite affordable.
Before you could click your heals, the cruise was booked! Vancouver to San Diego via Victoria BC September 27-October 1 2015! But what would we do after the cruise? Stay in San Diego? Fly home? Hmmmmmm....the wheels turned even more. I know, I said - let's go to Disneyland!
But we were just there in August 2013, whined my husband. I know dear, I said. But the kids are only young once (oh how I LOVE to play that card lol).
Oh......the kids......can't believe you played that card again, he moaned. Alright. Let's do it. So we tacked on 3 days at the end of our trip to go to Disneyland. And thus the waiting began. I've never planned a trip so far in advance, so the waiting was a bit of agony at times. Luckily there were hotels to book, park tickets to buy, fish extenders to learn about (and eventually make), cruise meets to plan and all the fun stuff that goes along with a disney cruise.
So, who went on this cruise?
Myself, hubby and our two girls. We live in a suburb of Vancouver BC. But who exactly are we?
Well there's me. Angela. 39 year old wife and stay at home mom. Pinterest and I are old pals. And now, thanks to this trip, the DisBoards and I are, too!
Then there's Frank, 38, hubby and dad. Reluctant disney lover. Hard worker whose long hours (and overtime) help to fund our adventures ;-)
There's Gwen, 7, our oldest. Loves all Disney. Loves the thrill rides. Loves to talk! Can play with anyone, get along with anyone. The social butterfly.
And rounding out our foursome is Gabrielle (Gabi), 4. A bit of an introvert,until she gets going. Then there's no stopping her! A bit of a loner, a bit of a joiner, a bit moody, a bit jovial.
Thanks for joining inand hopefully I can make this TR a good 'un
I get terrible motion sickness and I am worried about this as well. I have been told my doctor can give me a pill to help before I ever board the ship. crossing my fingers that this is true!Day 2: Victoria
The girls woke at their usual early time (some time after 7am) and quietly (hahaha) turned on the tv until dh and I got up. We had 9:15 tickets for the princess gathering so we decided to be lazy and stay in the cabin until then, take the girls down and then go for breakfast. Now Gabi, who is usually quite outgoing, was proving to be anything BUT this trip. She had already made a face in our embarkation photo (rendering it awful, poor girl!) and now was refusing to wear one of her princess dresses to meet the princesses! Not sure what was going on with her, because before we left for trip it was all she could talk about "I'm going to meet Elsa, I'm going to wear my Elsa dress!" But she was having none of it. Gwen put on her Aurora dress and we went down to the Walt Disney theatre. Gabi refused to be in any of the photos *sigh* I swear in a few years she's going to want to see photos of this cruise and will wonder why she wasn't in many photos!
But Gwen was:
Oh well, whatcha gonna do?
After meeting the princesses Gwen wanted to change so Frank took her up to our cabin while Gabi and I went to deck 3 and got some fresh air. We met them near the elevators closest to Parrot Cay and went to breakfast.
"mommy" Gwen exclaims "the ship isn't moving any more!!! Why did we stop?" Because we're in Victoria, we told her. "Is the cruise over now?" Haha, no thank goodness ;-)
We had a fairly hearty breakfast at Parrot Cay (although those mickey waffles eluded my belly the entire cruise, grrrrr!) This was also our first taste of coffee from an MDR and I have to say, it wasn't half bad. It wasn't fabulous, but honestly we thought it wasn't awful, not like so many on the boards seem to think it is. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.
After breakfast the girls were dying to go to the kids club, but first I wanted to start delivering our FE gifts, taking advantage of many people being off the ship so we delivered the first 6, leaving the last 4 for later on. When we were done we dropped them off at the club and then we went to see Inside Out (dh was rather reluctant as we'd already seen it but knew I wanted to see it again on the ship). I love that movie :0 Well as hard as he tried I know DH was a bit bored so we left half way through (my idea) and went to explore the ship some more.
We checked out the various bars/clubs on deck 3, went to see the Duty Free shop (which was closed so we pressed our noses up against the glass) then went up to deck 9 and enjoyed some rather warm sunshine! It was nice being in port, but not getting off the ship (we've been to Victoria and Vancouver Island loads of times so we felt no desire to get off). I had a lovely mojito and then tried to kick my hubby's butt at ping pong ;-)
I can't remember what we did for lunch that day (actually all of the days we just grabbed something from the quick services places up on deck 9 by the pools) but I do know we had a LOT of ice cream conesso yummy!
That afternoon the girls went for a swim in the kiddie pool and it was super busy! DH had brought his beer stein up from the cabin and I got in trouble by the lifeguards a couple of times because I was drinking too close to the pooloops.
After a long while we decided to grab the kids out of the pool and put them back in the club to suss out some more adult entertainment. Before that though I think we ended up delivering our remaining FE gifts.
We ended up playing bingo (yes I know kids are allowed in there)....not the best $40(US) we have ever spent hahabut it was fun. Didn't win but came close. I was standing during a couple of the rounds and on the last one, which was a blackout game, I was only 2 numbers short when someone won. Darn it. After that I think we vowed no more bingo mwahahaha We grabbed a couple of coffees from Cove Cafe and walked around the deck again, before heading to our cabin and spiking them
then we went back up to get some sodas and came back down and spiked them with Vodka
Soon it was time to go to our 6pm show, The Golden Mickey's. We'd heard this was a popular show and while we didn't have any problems getting a seat the first night we thought we'd show up a bit earlier this time and I'm glad we did. DH went to get seats while I filled our popcorn bucket. Gotta say I think the Golden Mickeys was everyones' favourite show. It was so well done.
It was also during this show that I felt movement on the ship for the first time (and then every time after that when we were in the Walt Disney theatre I always felt movement). At first I thought perhaps I'd overdone it with the vodka and soda, but honestly we hadn't had that much to drink. When we left the theatre I was still feeling movement and by the time we were back in our cabin I was really feeling it. And not feeling too well.Uh oh.
I was glad for the hour between the show and dinner and I laid down while the kids watched tv. The movement didn't get any better so I finally relented and put on my seabands. Gabi is also prone to sea sickness (she was horribly sick on a boat ride in Cabo San Lucas 3 years earlier), but she said she didn't feel the movement and didn't want the bands.
At dinner that night (Parrot Cay) I was still feeling the movement. Our tablemates did not join us that night (they had gone to Palo for dinner and put the kids in the kids club) so we had the table to ourselves. I drank a lot of ginger ale lol and didn't really eat too much dinner. I ordered dessert, not sure why as I barely touched it. Ugh, I felt awful. Going out on deck, getting some fresh air, did nothing to help. So after dinner we went back to our cabin, put the kids to bed and I laid down and prayed for our room to stop moving. At this point the room was also creaking and the noise was getting on my nerves.
At this point I was getting a bit upset, thinking I'd feel like this the whole time and how would I enjoy the rest of the trip? And would I ruin it for the rest of my family?Read on to find out......
What benefits are there to booking at se? are there very high cost savings?
Day 5: Disembarkation and off to Disneyland!
That morning our alarm was set for 6:15amas we had to be in the Walt Disney theatre for 6:45am for customs. Guess what time I was awake at? 4:50am.
I had to go to the bathroom and never really fell back asleep. You know how it is, the harder you try to fall asleep the worse it is. I think I dozed but I never really slept. When the alarm went off I pulled the covers over my head and groaned.
And of course, our kids who are usually up with the roosters were fast asleep and very hard to wake up. Not fun. Eventually we were all dressed. We made sure all our carryons were packed up and that everything was pretty much ready to go for when we got back to the cabin. We figured we'd be back up stairs within half an hour and would just watch some cartoons and relax for a bit before heading to Tritons for our last breakfast. Boy, were we wrong.
So we get down to the theatre and there is just a small line. Great, we think. Not so bad. Then they usher you inside and that's where the crowds were. EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE OF THEM.They had it so you could only enter the theatre on the far right and we were ushered over to the far LEFT. Awesome. It was 6:40am at this point.
Customs were on the stage, about 6 or 8 officers I believe, sitting at a long table. People were being led from their seats down a long line and up onto the stage. On the screen was a notice that you were not allowed to use your cell phone while in the theatre. There was also a big table of coffee and pastries at the end of the stage as people walked off. We didn't know if those were for passengers as they finished with customs or if they were for the officers, as no one was touching them. We were about half way up from the front, in the row where people can walk by. At one point this family (parents, kids, grandparents) walked by us, complaining that why weren't they allowed to just go up to customs because they were concierge don't you know and they are very important and why wasn't a cast member helping them?! I almost tripped one of them. I have no time for self important, self absorbed people. Especially at 7am when I haven't even had one cup of damn coffee.
Kids were getting restless, babies were crying all over the theatre, people were just grumpy. NOT a good end to our vacation. Somewhere shortly after 7:30am a woman came down the stairs with a kid with her (turns out they were from the concierge family) and complained to a CM that their daughter had thrown up. The CM went to clean it up immediately but this woman argued with the CM the reason her daughter threw up was because she was hungry. She needed to eat NOW and thus they needed to get their entire family through customs at that instant. And what happened? They got moved to the front of the damn line!!!!
Are you EFFING kidding me???!! I'm hungry!! My kids are hungry!!!! Every person in that damn theatre was hungry!!!! SERIOUSLY?!!!!
People in the row behind us started whispering about it but didn't know exactly what had happened so I turned around and said "well don't you know they are special snowflakes. Darling daughter was sick and she was hungry so they let them all pass the entire line." These people could not believe it and before long our entire row and the row behind us were talking about them lolWell after that we all kind of bonded over it and we got to talking to all these people behind us (a lovely couple from Edmonton Alberta!) Made the time go by faster. As our row finally got up to move we were all still chatting about the cruise, Canadian politics, flying, really anything we could talk about the pass the time! We even chatted about the fact no one had touched those pastries on stage. And then don't you know, a little girl a few families in front of us took a pastry!
Good on ya kid lol we practically high fived and other people in line thought we were nuts.
Finally we got through customs and it was 8:10am when we got back to our roomJust enough time to grab our carryons, do a final sweep of our room and of course grab our final bill that was tucked into the fish outside our room
Ahem.
So we took the elevator down to deck 3 and when the doors opened crowds of people were everywhere. Yikes. Is it always this disorganized on disembarkation morning? Because many, many people (ourselves included) had absolutely no idea where we were going. Eventually we found the line for Tritons, it met with the line for Parrot Cay and intersected with the line of people waiting for Express Walk off.
Yeah, Express Walk off by the way? Not so much express. We had planned to do that but the day before decided not to and now I'm glad we didn't. Names kept being called over the PA system of those people who still had not known up for customs. And of course, until those people were cleared, no one could get off the ship. Our table in Tritons was right by a window and we finally saw the Express walk off line start moving around 8:45am or so.
Our last meal was .....not great. I understand they need to get us off the ship but the food quality definitely suffers lol I got about 15 pieces of bacon (good lord, who's eating all that!!!?) and made the mistake of asking for two boiled eggs. I thought I was getting soft boiled, nope they were hard boiled
We got out of breakfast probably by 9:15 or a bit sooner and decided to wait in the nearest lounge to Tritons for our luggage tags to be called (we were in the Donald Duck group). Well that was another long wait. By then the kids were beyond annoying and were fighting with each other. It was just a gong show. Finally at 10:10am our luggage tags were called. We were one of the last groups to be called off the ship - I thought they wanted everyone off by 9:30?
Anyway, we got off the beautiful ship and I took a couple of last photos
So long beautiful Disney Wonder, can't wait to see you again in 2016!!!
As soon as we were outside the warmth of San Diego hit us. Wow. Inside the terminal we found our luggage easily then entered yet another long line to get out of the terminal. Luckily that line moved VERY quickly.
Outside it was HOTWowza. We had all dressed in shorts and tshirts in anticipation of the heat but boy oh boy, October 1st and holy hell it was hot.
We had to head to Avis rental a few blocks away to pick up our car to drive up to Anaheim; google maps made the office seem not too far away but in the end we opted for a cab. This ended up being a very smart idea!! Yes the taxi line was long (no surprise) but it moved ok and we were in an air conditioned cab within half an hour. The ride was short but it was hilly and through construction - 2 kids, plus multiple suitcases, plus heat would not have made for a pleasant hike so it was $6.70 well spent on the cab ride lol
And guess what greeted us at Avis? A short but painfully SLOW line. Of course. I took Gwen next door to 7/11 and loaded up on bottled water and some snacks for the ride up.
Frank had reserved a compact car - Ford Focus, but they were out so we got a VW Bug. Oh lordy this did not please my husband one bit lol He used to work for Volkswagen for 2 years loooong ago and hated it. Oh well, what're you gonna do? We located the car in the poorly lit garage (seriously, it was dark and scary. Everyone was hitting the panic buttons on their key fobs so they could find their rental cars!!) Barely got all our luggage in the trunk of the funny clown car
I hope you don't all mind but I wanted to add just a quick Disneyland TR to this one instead of writing a separate TR in the Disneyland section. We were only there barely 3 days and it honestly was not our best trip to DL/DCA sadlyso I wanted to just run down some of the highlights. Plus I wanted to write a final words section to this TR about our final thoughts on the cruise and our future in cruising, so stay tuned!
