The Bonney/White Family Alaskan adventure 2011 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Well, here we are smack dab in the middle of reality after an amazing cruise to Alaska on the Disney Wonder! Thought I would take some time to complete a trip report for those of you sailing next year with them. Will go day by day as that is the way I remember it best!
First a small bit of background on how we ended up booking the trip. We saw that Disney was planning on sailing to Alaska awhile ago. While I was still pregnant with our DD the news came out! I did not want to miss this chance, so in February of 2010 we booked our cruise. This has been such a long time coming! Many things have happened in our lives since then including the most amazing blessing our our precious DD. We have been planning and dreaming about this cruise for so long. Can't believe it has come and gone already! Well, hope you enjoy my memories!
8/28/11-We left our home to travel about 2 hours south to Phoenix to stay closer to the airport as we had a flight out at 1000 the next day. We were soooooo excited. Our travel party consisted of myself, my DH, my DD (17 months at the time) and my mom and dad. We arrived at the hotel, the Aloft Phoenix airport and after checking in we ordered pizza and hung around in their fun lobby to relax a bit and finish all our last minute plans. That night none of us slept well at all. My poor dad felt sick all night and us and our DD were up pretty much all night. Well, by the morning he was feeling better so all was well.
8/29/11-We departed Phoenix after much ado at the the US Airways check-in counter. We tried to check in at the self serve kiosk and were told that we needed to "see an agent" as our DD was a "lap baby." We waited, and waited, and waited in line to see the sole agent at the desk. She was very nice though and we were able to check our bags and get our boarding passes. I was very apprehensive about flying with our daughter, but it went well. The agent at the gate was awesome and after seeing that we were traveling with a toddler she checked to see who was assigned to the seat next to ours. The plane was pretty open, so she called the other passenger up and asked if she would be willing to move seats. Of course the woman was wise and chose to sit somewhere else instead of sitting next to a screaming kid! Finally we were off. I was so worried about taking care of the kiddo that I didn't even have time to get air sick. I did have the sea bands on and I did take a dose of Bonine, but whatever it was, something worked and we had a relatively uneventful flight to beautiful Vancouver.
Upon our arrival we collected our bags very quickly and made our way through customs. Every one was very nice and gave us great directions to get onto the sky train to get into the city. We had booked our stay at the Westin Bayshore in Vancouver and we took the train to Waterfront station. We could not take a taxi as we did not have a car seat for our daughter. We didn't think the hotel was too far from the train station, so we set off, looking like the Clampets I am sure, with all our luggage and our daughter in tow. We should have sucked it up and paid for a taxi for the folks and our bags, but hindsight is always 20/20 right? At any rate, we finally made it to the hotel. It was beautiful and in a great, let me say that again, great location. The views of the marina and the harbor were amazing! We dropped our stuff off in our rooms and made our way to a nearby restaurant where we enjoyed some local beer and some great food. After dinner, my folks took the DD back to the hotel and the DH and I made our way to a Safeway grocery store nearby to pick up some water for the ship and some diapers for the kiddo. We have many Safeway stores in our area, so we had purchased a gift card to take with us to use there. We were able to get what we needed and were able to use the card no problem. We finally collapsed into bed at the end of the night after a long day of travel. Sweet Disney dreams.....
8/30/11-We awoke the next morning and were sooooo excited to be able to look out the window of our hotel room and see the Disney Wonder waiting for us! We were beside ourselves that our wonderful vacation was finally here! We packed up our stuff and made one more trip to the grocery store for some last minute items. We were smart and sent the parents in a cab with the bags to the cruise terminal while the DH and I walked with the kiddo in the stroller. It was a very easy and very nice walk (without the luggage) to the cruise terminal. Once we got there, the folks had already arrived and off loaded our luggage. We walked into the terminal to find that Disney had done a great job of making the terminal as Disney as possible! I was a bit sad to be using a terminal that was not "Disney" made. (We have sailed with other cruise lines before and found their terminals to be depressing). But, as I said Disney did a great job of making it a very happy place! We checked in, lickity split and waited a very brief period before our boarding number was called. During that time we were able to check out our first daily navigator! What fun we had in store!
Once our boarding number was called we made our way through the boarding area and onto the beautiful Disney Wonder! Once we were on board of course they directed us through the hallways to our first chance to chow down. I stopped in the bar area to get the drink of the day. It was my goal to have the drink of the day every day! I am glad to say I reached that goal btw! Parrot Cay was too full, so the directed us to the beach blanket. The area was pretty chaotic, but we made it there. We ended up finding a great table outside and took turns making our way into the buffet for a snack while we waited for our room to be ready. We had our fill and the DD had a blast running around near the Mickey pool. My dad took her for a bit and when we found them she was happily playing in the kiddie splash pool in her clothes. Thank goodness I packed a spare change of clothes for her or else we would have been doomed! Once our rooms were ready we made our way downstairs and me our room steward the wonderful Troy! He was so friendly and came right away to help us set up the pack and play that was waiting for us in our room. The room as fantastic. The porthole was nice and big and I could tell that we would be seeing some amazing things through that window. Our bags came very quickly and we were able to unpack completely before the safety drill. Once the drill was done (very quick and easy). We celebrated at the sail away party. We had a ball dancing on deck as we sailed under the Lions Gate bridge. We waved to all those poor saps staying on land and we were off to the great white north!
We went back to the room and got all ready for dinner which thankfully was cruise casual. We made our way to Tritons and we met our amazing serving team of "Pong" and "Tita." I was so surprised to see that they had a cup of water with a straw with the DD's name on it. Very helpful for a toddler who was antsy. We enjoyed a wonderful meal and delicious dessert before we made our way to the theater for the anchors away show. DH took DD back to room as he wasn't interested in seeing the show. I went with the folks and loved it.
After a long, day we once again fell asleep quickly and deeply, dreaming Disney dreams of course.
Well, my fingers are tired for tonight. I will add more in the coming day!
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How cool that we were on the same cruise! I'm guessing we may have headed to Parrot Cay at the same time, as we were told that, but we refused to go anywhere and they seated us within minutes...
The way I do it is through the "quick reply" at the bottom of the screen. I then hit "go advanced" just to check all the photos are there, before posting my trip report updates. Hope that helps.
Thanks for all the encouragement! One question before I continue on: Do I continue the RP by replying or do I go into the original and edit it?
Yes, please do as chezp mentioned. Just reply to the thread, and don't keep updating the original post. It's easier for people to follow along if you add new posts as they can look for your updates.
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Parrot Cay was too full, so the directed us to the beach blanket. The area was pretty chaotic, but we made it there. We ended up finding a great table outside and took turns making our way into the buffet for a snack while we waited for our room to be ready. We had our fill and the DD had a blast running around near the Mickey pool. My dad took her for a bit and when we found them she was happily playing in the kiddie splash pool in her clothes. Thank goodness I packed a spare change of clothes for her or else we would have been doomed! Once our rooms were ready we made our way downstairs and me our room steward the wonderful Troy! He was so friendly and came right away to help us set up the pack and play that was waiting for us in our room. The room as fantastic. The porthole was nice and big and I could tell that we would be seeing some amazing things through that window. Our bags came very quickly and we were able to unpack completely before the safety drill. Once the drill was done (very quick and easy). We celebrated at the sail away party. We had a ball dancing on deck as we sailed under the Lions Gate bridge. We waved to all those poor saps staying on land and we were off to the great white north! 
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I'm guessing we may have headed to Parrot Cay at the same time, as we were told that, but we refused to go anywhere 
and they seated us within minutes...
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