We walked back to the ship, which we had really been missing. Hello, beautiful Disney Wonder!
Looking back out at Skagway
We certainly enjoyed our day off the ship. For anyone interested, I tallied our expenses for our activities and it was $577 USD total (specifically: Jeep rental $303, Dogsledding $176, lunch at The Bistro $67, gas for the Jeep $31). We felt this was an excellent, budget-friendly way to spend our day. I had originally planned to do an excursion through Chilkoot Charters and Tours called "Yukon Rail and Bus Excursion with Dogcart Experience," which would have been $1175 for our group ($235 per person). I’m sure we would have enjoyed that tour, too, but we are happy with our decision. It was perfect for us.
The movie “Disneynature: Penguins” was showing in the Walt Disney Theatre at 5:45pm, but we skipped that. It would be nice to see it at home later, we thought, but didn’t want to use cruise time for it. The twins hung out in Vibe, where Benji participated in Marshmallow Olympics. The rest of us played The Wheel in the Promenade Lounge. Sam then made his first visit to Vibe to check out an activity called Hero Vision Iron Man Experience, but left early because he decided it wasn’t for him. He joined Jeff and me for “Folk Music with John Charles” in Azure.
We honestly aren’t passionate folk music fans and had a hard time coming up with any song we would like to request, but John Charles put on a fun show and we enjoyed ourselves very much.
Dinner was in Animator’s Palate. Before the cruise, this was the restaurant I was most excited to see. Our son Kevin (not pictured here) is a talented artist and his goal is to be a Disney animator, so I knew it would be especially perfect for him.
I love all the details of this restaurant, including the paint bucket table number (above) and the famous paintbrush butter knife.
Benji won multiple sunglasses in Vibe. He brought this pair, earned at the Marshmallow Olympics, to dinner.
Over the course of the evening we saw the room change from black and white to full color. Simple sketches appeared in the frames on the walls, followed by details and color and backgrounds and finally full animation. The waitstaff were dressed in black and white, and I had thought I’d heard that their clothes would even change to being in full color by the end of the meal. They did not, despite all the servers being out of the dining room for an extended period before the finale. (Maybe something went wrong, or maybe I’ve misunderstood and my expectations were incorrect?)
Unfortunately, the service that evening was off. Our serving team seemed very rushed and several things went wrong. For example, one of the two entrees Jeff ordered never came. My steak was undercooked (rare not medium), but in a departure from the usually excellent and attentive service, they weren’t around our table for an extended period of time, so we didn’t have an opportunity to tell them. We still had a great time and focused on enjoying the food we did have, because we wanted to get seats for the PremEAR of Aladdin at 10:15pm. Prolonging dinner further could make that difficult. (Of course I did not mention any problem in the survey at the end, because normally they took great care of us, and we really did appreciate them throughout the cruise. It was our responsibility to tell them of the trouble with the food, and they surely would have made it right if told.)
I took photos of the menus, but unfortunately they are blurry due to the low lighting in the restaurant.
We loved the Bread Service, a Garlic and Herb Focaccia. For appetizers, Sam and I started with the Black Truffle Pasta Purseittes (Pasta Purse Filled with Truffle-scented Cheese and coated with a delicate Champagne Sauce).
Next I had the Creamy Butternut Squash Soup (Garnished with Chives and drizzled with Sour Cream).