It's All Disney's Fault-My Alaskan Adventure 5/3-5/10 About This Page:

[MEM]

It truly is all Disney’s fault. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it! My husband has always wanted to go to Alaska. I had been years ago with my mother so I kept telling him when Disney sailed to Alaska we would go. Well Disney is going and we are going along for the ride!

First, let me introduce to you the cast of characters. First, there is me, Mary, MEM on the boards. I do all of the plotting and vacation planning. My husband will tell you this trip is my fault but you will see in the end that it REALLY is Disney’s fault! My husband, Tom, works extremely hard and pretty much leaves all the vacation planning up to me. He just shows up when I tell him to but, every once in a while he makes a request that we do something other than the parks and I oh so politely give in which is why we have done two Adventures By Disney and two Disney Cruises. Hey, they’re not the parks! Since our marriage he has grown to love Disney, but will grumble about that fact that I am using so much of his vacation time on this one trip. We both work for the government and because I have been there longer than he has I earn more vacation time than he does. Unfortunately, I always forget that small detail when I’m plotting/planning our next adventure. When he starts grumbling it develop selective hearing. I select not to hear his grumblings! He truly does appreciate the trip once we are on vacation but it’s getting him to there that can be the challenge. Our picture can be found below in my signature.

When Disney announced oh so long ago that in the summer of 2011 they would offer Alaskan itineraries I knew we would be on one of those weeks, but which one? The inaugural was not my original choice. Heck, it wasn’t my second, third or fourth either. Actually I try to avoid the inaugural of anything. It’s just the way I prefer things.

So how did we end up on Disney’s Inaugural Alaskan cruise? Thanks for asking. My mother and my aunt were originally going to go with us. My aunt’s youngest daughter (my cousin for those keeping track) is set to graduate from College on May 17th. She will be the first on her paternal side to graduate from College so it’s a big deal. Anyway you all know how College graduations are, you plan a party, you hold the party and then you recover from the party (that’s how it works in my family!) Well that took out most of May. So there you go, the week that worked best at the time of booking was the Inaugural. But wait did you catch the part where I said my mom and my aunt were going with us? Well, not anymore. The Economy tanked, my uncle lost his job and my mom didn’t want to go without her sister. You get the picture. So now your asking why we didn’t we just move from the Inaugural to another cruise? While most of May doesn’t work well for my aunt the rest of the summer doesn’t work at all for me. I have a seasonal part time job with the Baltimore Orioles. I work all of the O’s home games. (If you ever come to Baltimore let me know!) I try my hardest to plan around the O’s home schedule so I won’t miss any games but every once in a while a really good reason comes up and I end up missing some games. This was one of those occasions that I had to book first and hope it wouldn’t mean too many games missed. The MLB Schedule Gods were smiling on me as I’m only missing 6 games, but it could have been much worse. (I have to work 10 of the previous 12 days so you see where it could have been worse!)

So how is this trip Disney’s fault? I never gave any thought to their schedule when they first announced, I just knew that we would be going to Alaska in 2011. Then I had that light bulb moment and it finally dawned on me that the ship would sail from Vancouver on a Tuesday. Since my husband and I live in Baltimore flying to Vancouver the day of the cruise was obviously not an option. When we were originally planning and my mom was still coming it made sense to fly to Vancouver early, this would give my mom who is in her 70’s time to recover, heck it gives me and my husband time to recover and adjust to the new time zone.

Then I had the next great idea. Since we were going to be on the west coast and we don’t get here that often we should just fly to LA and go to Disneyland for a few days. It made perfect sense to me, especially since the cruise that begins on a Tuesday would also end on a Tuesday. SO after the cruise we are flying to LA so we can spend some time at Disneyland. It really was a no brainer. Hotel costs would be covered since I’m a DVC member and I was able to snag a villa at the Grand Californian for the time that we are going to be at Disneyland at the 7 months. We are Premier Annual Pass holders so our park admission was taken care of.

So there you have it - my explanation of how our Alaskan cruise is truly Disney’s evil plan to take vacation time from my husband and how our one-week cruise became a two-week vacation. See, I told you it was Disney’s fault