It's a Wonder-ful Alaska!! May 30th-June 7th

Our Alaska cruise was finally here! We booked this cruise when it first came out over a year and a half ago! We waited soooo long!

When we first booked we weren't sure we would do it. It was so expensive! At $5000 for the four of us for an oceanview room, plus airfare to Vancouver, we weren't sure we should. Several times over the next few months I checked other cruise line rates.

Slight rant - People love to talk about how much more Disney is than other cruise lines, but that's just not always true. I never found a savings of more than a few hundred dollars on any other line. Sure you can find great specials on other lines at times, and you can find great specials on Disney at times. But comparing exact same date for date, the difference was not much if at all. Is Disney worth a few hundred more? You bet your bippy it is!:)

So we stuck with our current plans! Then when the kids sail free offer came out, our price dropped to $3000! Score! So glad we didn't jump ship so to speak! :)

Who:

We ended up with 7 cabins of friends and family on this one! It was awesome! Disney cruises are the perfect vacation for large groups with different ages and interests.

Now a disclaimer. I did a horrible job of getting a picture of everyone this time! I don’t know why! Everyone appeared in different pictures, just no good pictures of each family. So here’s a hodgepodge of photos of the group. I had to steal a few from my brother in laws facebook! We’ve got a great group picture of everyone, but unfortunately it was on the desktop which is now packed and on it’s way to Washington DC. Here’s the breakdown of who is who and then I will post pictures. This will also give you a preview of some of our activities during the week!

First - Us! I'm Tammy, Disney lover, travel agent. My Dh is Stephen, Air Force officer. Ds 16 is Chase and Dd 13 is Ally.

Next - My parents. My parents have been on most of our cruises and WDW trips, including the Med cruise last year.

Then - My inlaws. My inlaws have also been on several cruises with us. My parents love WDW and cruises, my inlaws, however, are Disney cruise addicts. Their favorite vacation, hands down. This time my brother in law got to join us again. It was his second Disney cruise.

Next up - my brother in law and fam. This is their third cruise with us. They have a Dd15 and Dd 12. You may recognize them from our Grand Villa vacation last October.

Then - Friends with twins! You may recognize these cuties from another cruise with us when they were littler. They are 3 now!

Next - More friends! This is my Ds's best friend. His sweet grandmother brought him.

Finally - More friends! These are two long time friends of my inlaws. We've known them for 20+ years.

Here’s the run down!

Dh and I –
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Dad and Mom –
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Inlaws and Uncle Scott – (Stole this picture!)
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Brother in law and Sister in law –
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Friends with Twins –
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Long time friends –
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Friend! – (Stole this picture!)
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Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
While we were kayaking, they had smoked some salmon and put out some crackers and bottles of water for us.

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While we were eating, another group of kayakers was approaching the boat next to us. One of the guides yelled to one of our guides, “Hey Charlie, you may want to go up to the top of the boat.” No one really did and so he casually yelled again, “Hey Ben, why don’t you go up to the top of the boat.” Neither Ben nor Charlie were in any kind of hurry, so the guide yelled, “Charlie!! GO to the top of the boat.”

I finally looked at the top of the boat and guess what he was so worried about?

The boat was on fire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:eek::eek:

Luckily with two sprays of the fire extinguisher Charlie got it out, but that was pretty funny (:lookaroun) for a minute!

I didn’t grab my camera fast enough:

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Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
A float plane landed next to us:

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On the boat trip back we saw eagles by the dozens. Eagles in Alaska are pretty easy to spot. Their white heads look almost fake. See the white dots?

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There’s our beautiful ship!

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The girls had a little nap on the way back:

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Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Two eagles gave us a great show while we were docking. Unfortunately my lens was so big and my arms so tired I had a bit of a hard time getting a clear shot! I missed the money shot, so to speak, but I got some:

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Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
This little beauty landed right across the street:

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And two friends right next to him:

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We got back on board and got ready for semi formal night. Since we didn’t really have time to go into town, others in our group skipped dinner and toured Ketchikan.

After dinner Heath Hyche was doing a comedy act. You may remember from a few trip reports ago, that this was the same comedian that I made the mistake of sitting on the front row of his adult show. Huge mistake. Let’s just say I was used as the example the entire show and it was the longest show of my life. :lookaroun His voice still gives me the heebie jeebies. :lol:

I’ve skipped his show the last couple of times, but we decided to give it one more shot. Most of the show was the same one we’ve seen a few times (he’s on like every cruise I go on. I think he’s haunting me :D). But at the end he had a brilliant Indiana Jones piece. I won’t spoil it because if you ever cruise he will probably still be doing it :lol:, but it was great!

After the show we decided it was finally time to try out the adult pool! Actually, the hot tub. Dad, Mom, Bil, Sil, Dh and I had a hot tub to ourselves. It was hot! Like really hot!

We decided to get in the empty pool to cool off. I thought it would be short dip.

The pool was 90 degrees and in one word – amazing. It felt like bath water. We stayed in forever!! I wish I had known this earlier. I would have spent a lot more time in there.

When we got back to the room I ordered some Mickey bars and we watched TV. We lost an hour tonight so it was a short night!
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Monday June 6th - Day at sea – Last day

Unfortunately today was our assigned character breakfast. I say unfortunately because of the hour time change the night before! It was so early!

The only ones who made it were dh, me, and friends with twins.

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Of course our servers made us awesome hats:

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Come on, you know you all want one:

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Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
It was pretty rocky this morning! It did calm down after breakfast. We left in time for a theme park presentation in Wavebands. It was interesting.

Later when we saw friends with twins they told us that Mickey came by after we left. He spent tons of times with the twins. In fact when they got up to leave, he followed them and played some more. This must have been the start of the special surprise for the twins. Mickey’s handler asked for their names and room numbers. Hmmmm? What was coming? :lookaroun


After the presentation we went back to the room to wake up the kids. And then it was time to eat again!! :sohappy:

Today was Palo brunch in the private room! We were dropping like flies though. Friend wife was sick, and friends with twins bowed out.

Brunch at Palo is about my favorite meal. There are tables and tables of tasty food. Breads, desserts, seafood, breakfast treats, etc. Then there are several things made hot to order.

I somehow only managed to get a picture of the dessert table. Imagine that. That statue was white chocolate!

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Here’s the view from the private room. I kept waiting for this lady to move, but she stood out there a long time.

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I always get the chicken parmesan and I am never disappointed!
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I didn’t take too many scenery pictures today since we were going back over old territory. Beautiful territory though!

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We relaxed in Cove Café for a good part of the afternoon. Dh took his relaxing seriously.

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Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We ran into Mickey sometime that afternoon.

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Our last dinner was at Animators again.

During dinner a cast member came by with an envelope looking for friends with twins! Is this why they asked them their room number earlier? :eek:

It is!! They had a special invitation for a character party later that night in Studio Sea! Oh my word!! I was so excited!! I had only heard rumors of such a thing!! :sohappy:

Okay, so more to come on that later…

We said goodbye to our servers and most of us skipped Dreams (seen it so so many times) and went to go see “I am Number Four”. Not bad!

I raced out of the movie at the end and headed to Studio Sea to see the party! There was a cast member standing in front of the doors so I asked if I could peek in the window and see our friends. She said of course. It was a character palooza in there!! There were about 5 families and 20 or more characters. Just about every character you could think of, plus several characters from the shows. They were dancing, taking pictures and having so much fun. The twins looked like they were in heaven!! It was the most magical of magical moments. :):):)

We popped in on the goodbye party and then went to Shutters to buy some pictures.

Afterwards I wandered the ship for a while with Sil. I had planned on taking some night pics, but it didn’t really work out this time. The girls went to watch Pirates up on deck and the boys went back to the club for the last time.

I finally got in bed around midnight.
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tuesday - June 7th Trip home

Sadness! It was the last day. What a great cruise!

Since we have early dining, the last breakfast is always way too early for us! We always sleep in a little and go to Beach Blanket right before it closes.

We ate and then went to the lobby to wait for our luggage tags to be called. They do things a little differently in Vancouver because the terminal is small. They call you off by luggage tags.

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Surprisingly ours was called pretty quick!

We said goodbye to Dad and Mom who were staying in Vancouver another day and then caught a cab at the airport. Bil and Sil had a flight out right before ours, so we hung out with them in the airport until we left.

The flight home was uneventful.

I was sad this cruise was over after we’d had it planned for so long! I really didn’t know if the cooler weather was going to be everyone’s cup of tea and I was slightly afraid the weather would be horrendous! Thankfully the weather was great over all and everyone seemed to have a really great time!!
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Since the pictures I bought are on a moving truck somewhere, here’s a few that one of the friends sent. Just scanned in.

Here’s our boarding picture. Ds’s friend ended up boarding with our family. He was the only clean one in the bunch:

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Minnie:

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Here’s the kids at pirate night by themselves:

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Here we all are at formal night:

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Here's dd:

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Ds:

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Palo dinner:

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Oh, and Bil has one of the free rafting pictures on Facebook. So here we are!

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Next up, WDW in August!! Thanks for reading everyone! :sohappy:
 

mouselvrmom

Well-Known Member
I was so sad that it was ending too!! :cry::lol:

Sounds like you all had a wonderful time!! Ooh, that character party sounded FUN!! I need one of those at WDW! :D

{and for the unclean picture, you all look pretty clean to me!-when I haven't showered, I look it!:lookaroun:lol:}
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I was so sad that it was ending too!! :cry::lol:

Sounds like you all had a wonderful time!! Ooh, that character party sounded FUN!! I need one of those at WDW! :D

{and for the unclean picture, you all look pretty clean to me!-when I haven't showered, I look it!:lookaroun:lol:}

Me too! :cry:

You're right! They should have those private character parties everywhere!

We definitely could have looked a lot worse in that boarding picture.:lol:
 

HollyBelle

Well-Known Member
Tammy, how did you miss him?! I'm so disappointed in you!!! :lol:

Make that two of us! The scenery was nice and all, but it's Mickey and Minnie that have me sold on an Alaska itinerary. Priorities, right? :D To only be so lucky as the twins. :lol:

Fabulous report, as always, Tammy!
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Make that two of us! The scenery was nice and all, but it's Mickey and Minnie that have me sold on an Alaska itinerary. Priorities, right? :D To only be so lucky as the twins. :lol:

Fabulous report, as always, Tammy!

I know I failed miserably.:cry::lol:

I don't know why the twins didn't take their official photographer to the party!!!:lol:

Thanks, Holly!:)
 

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