2025 The Wonder of Alaskan Cruise - The Third Time Around

[ZapperZ]

I'm back home. Got in through the door around 12:45 am today. Then I woke up with a splitting headache.

Unfortunately, not a whole lot of time to recover because work is pilling up. Hopefully, by this weekend, I'll be able to download all my photos and videos and sort through them. I'll start posting a recap of the trip as soon as I can.

Zz.

 

[ZapperZ]

By the way, many of us are monitoring the water level at suicide basin, which may break soon and flood the Mendenhall basin .

Suicide Basin

Zz

We missed this by a few days. However the wonder is going to visit Juneau this Friday!

Ice dam at glacier releases floodwater toward downstream homes

A huge basin of rainwater and snowmelt dammed by Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier has started to release, sending a potentially record surge of flooding toward parts of Juneau in what has become an annual concern for residents

abcnews.go.com

Zz.

 

[MaryJaneP]

TY ZapperZ

 

[ZapperZ]

As promised, here is the start of the recap of our cruise.

Day 1

We got to Canada Place around the designated time. Before we got into the departure hall, we had to take a snapshot of The Wonder.

It wasn't a long wait to check our papers, etc. We were at the waiting lounge rather quickly, and met a few lovely families who were taking their first Alaskan cruise.

When boarding started, they were calling the boarding group numbers rather rapidly. We were in boarding group 6, but we were already getting called barely 5 minutes since the boarding process started.

Once we got into the atrium, we were greeted by Ariel and Pluto.

We walked over to the French Quarter to make minor adjustments to our Palo reservations. Once that was done, we waited for our friends to get onboard and then headed up to Cabanas for lunch. We had a lovely table outside and a good view of Vancouver.

My first plate of food on the cruise.

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[ZapperZ]

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After lunch, we walked around the ship a bit while we wait for our state room to be ready.

It was also a good time to sit down, take a breath. Departure day is always hectic and stressful, so we need to sit and calm down.

After we got out state room, we freshened up a bit and attended the DVC welcome reception. Got to meet Pluto again!

Soon, the ship was on its way to start off the cruise. It looks so calm and peaceful now, but oh, if only they knew what's to come!

Our first dinner rotation that evening was at Tianna's.

We called it the night after dinner since it had been a long day.

Zz.

 

[ZapperZ]

Day 2

Overnight, the seas got rougher. By the time I woke up, there was significant turbulence in the waters that walking became an amusing activity.

We had breakfast in Cabanas, but it wasn't that full. I think a lot of people skipped meals that day. In fact at some point that day, one of the entrance to Cabanas was blocked off due to a "protein spill".

We decided to chill off in The Cove. I got my latte.

Mid morning, I attended a talk about bears around the area that we were cruising.

Lunch was the same, at Cabanas, but not as busy as it normally would. The seas was not as bad as the morning, but enough that we were hearing reports of people needing medication from the medical center.

In the evening, we attended the Golden Mickey. I haven't seen this show in years, and it was amazing! Everything you want out of a Disney stage show, full of nostalgia and excellent performances.

After the show, we got dressed for our dinner at Palo.

It was a very eerie scene. Palo is usually full and lively. This time, it was eerily quiet. It was barely 1/4 full. Chatting with our server, it turned out that a lot of people cancelled their reservations due to the condition. Many people were still suffering from motion sickness.

Anyhow, this is my appetizer, their version of capresse salad.

For my entree, I order the lamb chops. It certainly was better than what I had in 2022, but I don't think anything can compare to the first time I had this dish in Palo on The Dream in 2011.

For dessert, I of course had chocolate souffle.

By the end of the meal, and after sharing a bottle of wine, I was feeling no pain!

We walked around the ship a bit, it wasn't rocking as much anymore, and tomorrow promised to be a gorgeous, perfect day to view a glacier.

Zz.

 

[ZapperZ]

Day 3.

When we woke up for Day 3, the worst of the weather was over. In fact, it promised to be a glorious day, which was lucky for us because this was the day we visited Dawes glacier for our first excursion.

Walking around the ship, I can still see remnants of the rough seas the day before, because there are still barf bags being displayed in the restrooms.

But enough about that. We were soon out on the top deck admiring the scenery.

Soon we could see Dawes Glacier as we approach it.

I'm actually quite shocked at how much it has receded since 2022. In just 3 years, the front of the glacier has moved back to where the two glaciers meet. The left glacier that used to feed the main glacier is in fact, "drying" out.

There were passengers who started their excursion in the morning. They boarded two boats that took them on their adventure. Ours didn't start until early afternoon, so we had time for lunch and then getting ready for it. The excursion we booked was "adults only". They served sparkling wine upon boarding and another complimentary alcoholic drink, plus snacks during the excursion.

Soon it was time for us to start our excursion as we boarded one of the boats.

We waved at the Wonder as we sailed closer toward the glacier.

In this picture, you can see our sister boat already moving closer toward the edge of the glacier.

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[ZapperZ]

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How close did we get? Very close. In fact, of all the excursions we had taken to Dawes Glacier, this was THE closes we came to it.

We saw several caving of the front of the glacier. They were spectacular. I will upload a video soon to show this after I finish editing it.

The boat captain also brought us close to an iceberg that broke off from the glacier. This was huge, and according to the captain, based on what we could see above water, the total size of iceberg was probably almost half of the size of the Wonder!

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[ZapperZ]

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As we made our way back to the Wonder (which by now has wondered way back off along the Endicott Arm), the captain made several diversions as we explored a few nooks and crannies along the main arm.

Soon we caught up with The Wonder.

It was a fun excursion. We saw a lot of things we haven't seen before, such as the caving of the glacier.

That evening, to commemorate all the ice that I saw that day, I had a Frozen-theme dessert for dinner! It was a good ending to the day.

Zz.

 

[ChuckElias]

Great pics!

 

[ZapperZ]

Day 4.

Day 4 saw our first port-of-call: Skagway. We didn't have any excursion planned, so we had a leisurely day before we got off the ship.

The Wonder pulled in rather early in the day.

Behind us was Quantum of the Seas, also about to pull into Skagway. It eventually ended up docking right next to The Wonder.

Had a nice breakfast of miso soup, fried rice, stir-fried bok choi, hash browns, and fruits. Almost reminded me of the breakfast I had while we were in Japan! (notice the hidden Mickey?)

At mid morning, we got off the ship.

The map we encountered showed not only the layout of the town, but also all the 4 ships that docked.

We then just walked around Skagway aimlessly.

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[ZapperZ]

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We saw a few historical building that appeared to be one of the first homestead for the area.

We bought coffee and ice cream and had a wonderful time just wondering around town. By lunch time, we decided to head back to the ship.

I know that I'm definitely biased, but I think Disney's cruise ships look so much more elegant than your standard, typical cruise ship.

We had a nice lunch at Cabanas, and then after a brief rest, went to the Cove for an afternoon tea.

I decided to attend a drawing class, because I got to draw Donald. Donald decided to come along and critique my drawing.

By early evening, Quantum of the Seas had left, and so had one other ship. We were preparing to depart Skagway when I took this photo. This is probably what Skagway looks like most of the time when there is not tourists.

Our dinner that evening was at Animators Palette. I capped it with a lovely Sundae.

Zz.

 

[ChuckElias]

Skagway is my favorite Alaskan port! Glad you had a good day! I love how the Wonder looks in port. It looks like it's parked right at the end of the street.

We also took a good part of our morning just walking around the town. But in the afternoon, we did a small bus tour excursion, hosted by a "historical figure".

Loving your pics!

 

[ZapperZ]

Day 5

We arrived at Juneau with a bit of a trepidation. There was always that threat of the collapse of the ice dam at Suicide Basin that may change our plans since our excursion will start at the Mendenhall Glacier. Luckily, nothing happened, and as we now know, it actually happened 4 days later.

We arrived at sunrise.

After breakfast at the Cabanas, we began our long excursion, which comprised of a visit to the Mendenhall Glacier, a whale watch, and ended with a salmon bake.

Here we were on our bus heading to the Mendenhall Glacier.

It was a chilly and drizzly day, so not the best weather to snap photos. But we still got a good look at the glacier. We didn't walk all the way there (we've done it previously) since we barely had only an hour, so we viewed it from a distance.

It's still shocking to see how much it has receded. We first saw it back in 2018, saw it again in 2022, and now in 2025, I could not believe my eyes how quickly it is shrinking. I have family members who came here back in the 1980's, and the difference is jaw-dropping.

We walked around a bit and saw a small creek that had spawning salmon.

I'm glad we took this picture, because the river that we were hoping to see a lot more salmon in Ketchikan the next day turned out to be a bust due to heavy rain and huge water flow.

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[ZapperZ]

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Soon we hopped back onto the bus and got to our whale watch. This was the highlight of the day because we had never seen so many whales in one outing before.

Oh, it was so good! In fact, a few of the people in our boat who sat on the right side saw a breech. We missed it!

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[ZapperZ]

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The final part of our excursion was a salmon bake. It was better than I expected because there was a lot of food, the salmon was grilled rather well (although it was a bit dry), and it was delicious. I had 2 helpings!

But it wasn't just that. It was a rather nice location. They had live musicians, a nice gift shop (of course), and a gorgeous waterfall.

I actually wanted to stay longer and explore the area, but we were running out of time to get back to the ship. We actually walked onto the Wonder with only half an hour to spare.

We left Juneau later afternoon. The weather hadn't change a bit all day.

I decided to chill out back at The Cove before the evening. It was a very pleasant day as we scrolled through the pictures and videos that we took that day.

Zz.

 

[ZapperZ]

Day 6.

We arrived in Ketchikan rather early, but the weather was no different than in Juneau. In fact, it was rainier and wetter. Luckily, we had no excursion planned other than the intention of walking around and find the creek that we encountered last time that had spawning salmon.

This is a view of a wet day at Ketchikan. In fact, it rained also the previous two times that we had stopped by here. In our first trip, we even did our zipline excursion in a light drizzle.

We braved the wet weather and strolled around town a bit. Got a view of The Wonder.

We went to the creek. The torrential rainfall that they had the past couple of days had turned it into a raging river, so there were no salmon spawning. That was the disappointing part. We walked back, stopped at a cafe, and then got back to the ship.

After we changed into drier clothes, we made our way to Tiana's cafe for some beignets, cafe ole, and Bloody Mary.

Since quite a few passengers were still off the ship, we managed to get a better shot of the atrium of The Wonder without too many people there.

We ended up being among the first in line for a picture with Donald!

It turned into a quiet, relaxing, and peaceful day.

Zz.