Questions for early Alaskan cruisers!

[DisneyBasket]

Yes. Lollipop's Mom downloaded navigators from the cruise last week (3rd one). Look for her Alaska May 17th info thread.

It looks like Semi-Formal night changed to the last night (was originally on the Ketchikan night)

That is incorrect. Semi-formal night is on Ketchikan night. I was also on last week's cruise, and I know this because we had to rush to get ready after we got back from our Ketchikan excursion!

Pirate Night was Saturday, but nothing special for dinner (except a lot of cruisers dressed up). The party was on deck, and it was C-O-L-D! Last week was especially confusing, since the movie Prem-EAR was on Friday, and the show after dinner was... Pirates of the Caribbean IV in the Walt Disney Theater. It didn't make sense to wait to have the party til the next night, but who knows what they were thinking??

 

[smb6]

Yes. Lollipop's Mom downloaded navigators from the cruise last week (3rd one). Look for her Alaska May 17th info thread.

It looks like Semi-Formal night changed to the last night (was originally on the Ketchikan night)

That is awesome news!! I had been bummed that we were going to miss dinner that night due to a late excursion; I sure hope they keep it this way; as we sail on the 31st!

 

[DisneyBasket]

That is awesome news!! I had been bummed that we were going to miss dinner that night due to a late excursion; I sure hope they keep it this way; as we sail on the 31st!

Our excursion was supposed to conclude at 6 p.m., and our dinner seating was 5:45! We spoke with our server ahead of time, and he suggested we come late if we could get there before 7. He also said we could speak with the head server about shifting to the second seating, but that his tables were full for second seating, so we''d have to sit elsewhere. We got back to the ship early enough to change to nicer clothes, and were at dinner by 6:15. It was lovely, but a little hard I think on the servers, since there were many more who came in after we did. This made the servers' jobs a lot harder, but they all performed with good grace! It WAS lobster night, so few wanted to miss, I'm sure!!

 

[buddywesley]

That is incorrect. Semi-formal night is on Ketchikan night. I was also on last week's cruise, and I know this because we had to rush to get ready after we got back from our Ketchikan excursion!

Pirate Night was Saturday, but nothing special for dinner (except a lot of cruisers dressed up). The party was on deck, and it was C-O-L-D! Last week was especially confusing, since the movie Prem-EAR was on Friday, and the show after dinner was... Pirates of the Caribbean IV in the Walt Disney Theater. It didn't make sense to wait to have the party til the next night, but who knows what they were thinking??

Thanks for your info... It'll be interesting to see if they make changes to Pirate Night since I haven't heard ONE GOOD thing about it yet!

http://dclalaskanavigators.homestead.com/Day_6.PDF
According to this it says "cruise casual" for Ketchikan day. She doesn't have a navigator posted for the last day... I thought someone else had said it moved to Monday at Sea? hmmmm

 

[smb6]

Thanks for your info... It'll be interesting to see if they make changes to Pirate Night since I haven't heard ONE GOOD thing about it yet!

http://dclalaskanavigators.homestead.com/Day_6.PDF
According to this it says "cruise casual" for Ketchikan day. She doesn't have a navigator posted for the last day... I thought someone else had said it moved to Monday at Sea? hmmmm

The cruise overview states semi-formal is Ketchikan night, but the navigators show it as sea day! I was SOOO excited that they had changed it, I guess not based on Disneybasket's post... That is a bummer...

 

[DisneyBasket]

The cruise overview states semi-formal is Ketchikan night, but the navigators show it as sea day! I was SOOO excited that they had changed it, I guess not based on Disneybasket's post... That is a bummer...

Actually, this may still be a work in progress, as we were going on the say so of our servers and did not closely read our Navigator. I do know that we had the lobster tail menu on Ketchikan night, however, we were not in the dining room for the last sea day, we dined in Palo, so were semi-formally dressed both nights and enjoyed a delicious meal both nights. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. I will say that they were most accommodating about late excursions, though. No one wants you to miss out!

 

[smb6]

Actually, this may still be a work in progress, as we were going on the say so of our servers and did not closely read our Navigator. I do know that we had the lobster tail menu on Ketchikan night, however, we were not in the dining room for the last sea day, we dined in Palo, so were semi-formally dressed both nights and enjoyed a delicious meal both nights. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. I will say that they were most accommodating about late excursions, though. No one wants you to miss out!

Well hopefully, they can accomodate us a little late that night..... I hope so because the lobster tail menu is the one I was most looking forward too! And if we do miss it; we surely won't go hungry either way

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

No, semi formal was definately on the last night - the navigator says cruise casual on Ketchikan night - look here http://dclalaskanavigators.homestead.com/Day_6.PDF
Then inside it stated something about Mickey and Minnie being in semi-formal wear.

We went to the dining room in jeans on ketchikan night and 90% of people were dressed in hoodies/jeans because we all raced back from port.

The next time, everyone was dressed up - http://dclalaskanavigators.homestead.com/Day_7.PDF
Notice it says Semi-Formal at the top.

Mickey and Minnie were in the lobby in semi-formal attire that night - the navigator had something wrong - but we definately confirmed at guest services that Ketchikan was NOT semi-formal. We saw a few people dressed up that mis-read the navigator - but it was definately the last night - our entire dining room was dressed up.

 

[kris3kid]

Thanks for your info... It'll be interesting to see if they make changes to Pirate Night since I haven't heard ONE GOOD thing about it yet!

http://dclalaskanavigators.homestead.com/Day_6.PDF
According to this it says "cruise casual" for Ketchikan day. She doesn't have a navigator posted for the last day... I thought someone else had said it moved to Monday at Sea? hmmmm

If you eat at PK on Pirate night the servers are dressed up for the night but it is the only room that does this. They do have the Buffet that is after the party, worked for me.

 

[jodeja]

The charge is from Disney Cruise Lines based in Florida, so no international fees.

Great! And thank you so much for the fast answer

 

["Got Disney"]

That is Awesome! I've heard that the Fairmont Waterfront where we are staying does the same thing, has anyone used the direct to the ship luggage service there? TIA!

We r staying at the Panpacific and they do this also....in addition we are staying there on a Wed for one night before heading up to Whistler for 3 days...than back again to the Panpacific for 2 days before the cruise and for those 3 days they will hold on to the luggage we are not taking up with us to Whistler..

 

[fliplover101]

Having read through all the responses on this, I must admit I'm still confused about the boarding process. I have heard that port security doesn't open until 11 am, and that the boarding times given when checking in online don't really mean much. We signed up for the 10:30-11 am group, and would really like to be on the ship as soon as possible. However, we also don't want to get there really early just for the sake of standing in line, and have it not really make a difference. Is it worth it to line up early, and if so, how early? What time did people actually start boarding the ship? Thanks!

 

[Prose]

No, semi formal was definately on the last night - the navigator says cruise casual on Ketchikan night - look here http://dclalaskanavigators.homestead.com/Day_6.PDF
Then inside it stated something about Mickey and Minnie being in semi-formal wear.

We went to the dining room in jeans on ketchikan night and 90% of people were dressed in hoodies/jeans because we all raced back from port.

The next time, everyone was dressed up - http://dclalaskanavigators.homestead.com/Day_7.PDF
Notice it says Semi-Formal at the top.

Mickey and Minnie were in the lobby in semi-formal attire that night - the navigator had something wrong - but we definately confirmed at guest services that Ketchikan was NOT semi-formal. We saw a few people dressed up that mis-read the navigator - but it was definately the last night - our entire dining room was dressed up.

So....we really don't care about the dressing-up part -- we just don't want to miss lobster night! Was that still on Ketchikan night? Our excursion doesn't get back until our seating is almost over.....thanks!

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

So....we really don't care about the dressing-up part -- we just don't want to miss lobster night! Was that still on Ketchikan night? Our excursion doesn't get back until our seating is almost over.....thanks!

Ketchikan was lobster night! The next night they used allthe leftover lobster and made bisque! lol

 

[Prose]

Hmm, looks like we'll have to find out about moving to late seating that night. We're one of the cruise weeks that doesn't even arrive in Ketchikan until 1pm, so our excursion is late. We are actually listed as not getting back until after all aboard, but since we booked the excursion through Disney, we're assuming we'll be ok. There's just no possible way to make first seating. Had we known about the excursion times sooner, we might have moved to late dining - we might still.

 

[jilljill]

Hmm, looks like we'll have to find out about moving to late seating that night. We're one of the cruise weeks that doesn't even arrive in Ketchikan until 1pm, so our excursion is late. We are actually listed as not getting back until after all aboard, but since we booked the excursion through Disney, we're assuming we'll be ok. There's just no possible way to make first seating. Had we known about the excursion times sooner, we might have moved to late dining - we might still.

Ketchikan is a later arrival each week. My cruise reservation says 12:10 arrival for us.

Just talk with your head server to see what your options are for that night - doing that earlier in the week gives them time to come up with something for you.

 

[Disney Dreams]

...It looks like Semi-Formal night changed to the last night (was originally on the Ketchikan night)

That is incorrect. Semi-formal night is on Ketchikan night. I was also on last week's cruise, and I know this because we had to rush to get ready after we got back from our Ketchikan excursion! ...

That is awesome news!! I had been bummed that we were going to miss dinner that night due to a late excursion; I sure hope they keep it this way; as we sail on the 31st!

...According to this it says "cruise casual" for Ketchikan day. She doesn't have a navigator posted for the last day... I thought someone else had said it moved to Monday at Sea? hmmmm

The cruise overview states semi-formal is Ketchikan night, but the navigators show it as sea day! I was SOOO excited that they had changed it, I guess not based on Disneybasket's post... That is a bummer...

Okay, so... here's the deal on semi-formal night on the cruise for the week of May 17-24,2011.

Semi-formal night was set for Ketchikan night. Originally.

It was then changed to the next night, but not really announced anywhere unless you noticed the navigator on Ketchikan morning.

We came back from Ketchikan and stopped at Guest Services to speak with a CM we wanted to see. While talking, DH excused himself and said, "I'm going to go upstairs to shower and shave. Don't forget to leave time to get ready for semi-formal night."

At that moment the CM we were speaking with said, "Excuse me. Semi-formal night is not tonight. It has been moved to tomorrow."

We questioned him on it because everything we knew said differently. He picked up the Navigator and showed us that it said "Cruise Casual." So, we went to dinner in casual. Half our table was casual, half was semi-formal. The servers were in tuxes. They said that Guest Services made a mistake on the Navigator. We talked to our Head Server. He said apparently the decision was made to move semi-formal night, but somewhere there was a disconnect and dining did not get told.

We found out later from another CM that they are still trying to figure out what is best for guests on this itinerary. Putting semi-formal night on a non-port day was the idea so that guests have time to get ready. However, as is understandable, there was a disconnect somewhere in the getting made correctly across all departments.

Hope this helps

Side-note to future cruisers: This is why I would not invest TOO much in what previous Navigator's say. Changes can and do happen from cruise to cruise, especially with a new itinerary.

- Dreams

 

[Disney Dreams]

k

Having read through all the responses on this, I must admit I'm still confused about the boarding process. I have heard that port security doesn't open until 11 am, and that the boarding times given when checking in online don't really mean much. We signed up for the 10:30-11 am group, and would really like to be on the ship as soon as possible. However, we also don't want to get there really early just for the sake of standing in line, and have it not really make a difference. Is it worth it to line up early, and if so, how early? What time did people actually start boarding the ship? Thanks!

We were told people arrive around 10am, but that security does not until 11am. We were at the Pan Pacific, so all we had to do was literally take the elevator downstairs and walk through a parking garage, so we were trying to figure out the timing. However, I figured that if we got there at 11am there would be a lot of people in line and we wanted to avoid that.

We checked out of the hotel at noon. Bell services took our bags at about 12:05pm (no, it didn't matter that we were in the room technically a few minutes late). We stopped by the front desk to thank a staff person who was very kind to us, we - okay, I - took a bunch of photos - and we headed down to the port level via elevator. So... 1pm, maybe? We were probably onboard around just before 2pm.

Our stateroom was ready. We went and dropped our carryon bags and went up to Beach Blanket to enjoy the buffet and the amazing view of Vancouver.

Easypeasy.

HTH,
Dreams

ETA: Oh yeah! Add into the picture taking some time for me to go up to the pool level to get a picture of the Wonder in port. That took some time, not an easy picture to get.

 

[mouseclick1]

Are they doing any galley tours on the Alaskan cruises?

 

[buddywesley]

Side-note to future cruisers: This is why I would not invest TOO much in what previous Navigator's say. Changes can and do happen from cruise to cruise, especially with a new itinerary.

- Dreams

I agree as "Ignorance IS bliss!"...Just wish my type A personality agreed with that

Thanks for the update on that. My bet is that they end up officially changing it to Monday across the board because so many people are having late Excursions. I guess we'll know when we know!