Attack of the Cobra Chickens...Our Alaskan Adventure September 16-23, 2024

[Kari0180]

It's been a while since I've last posted a trip report. But we just came back from an amazing trip to Alaska on the Disney Wonder and I can't wait to share our trip with you.

Who are we:

I'm Kari and my DH is Bill. We live just outside of Minneapolis. I work in the veterinary field and DH is a photojournalist with a lifestyle show. We are your typical Disney adults, anything that is Disney and we're all for it! Love the parks, love the cruise line, and in February we were lucky enough to get to Aulani for a few nights. Here we are at the luau



Alaska has been on my radar for many, many years and finally in March of 2023, I was able to convince DH that 2024 was our year to book. We booked using our place holder that we picked up on our last cruise (February 2023, also on The Wonder). And then it was a lot of time waiting and planning until September 2024. I will say that this cruise wound up being a little bittersweet for us. My in-laws were set to join us on this cruise, we've been trying to get them to join us on a cruise for years and my mother-in-law has always wanted to go to Alaska. DH and I had all of these plans that we wanted to do with them, that we were going to get them on Match Your Mate, play trivia, drink tastings, we were very excited. Sadly, in July, my mother-in-law became very ill, at first, we had hoped that she would recover in time to still travel. Unfortunately, she now requires dialysis, and she is wheelchair bound so my in-laws had to cancel. We debated canceling ourselves, but they insisted that we still go and that we have a good time. Which we did, but we really missed having them with us and we had a few sad moments and some guilt over leaving them behind.

Okay, enough with the depressing. Let's get this party started! We woke up on September 13 very excited to finally be headed out on vacation. We dropped our fur babies off with grandpa and headed to the airport.



Aren't they adorable? They are my babies, and I hate leaving them. Anyway, my father-in-law lives about 30 minutes from the MSP airport, so we got there pretty quick. We were flying WestJet which was a first for us. There was nobody in line, so we got checked in quick and then headed to TSA. This was our first time flying TSA precheck, so we got through security in a flash, and it was so nice not to have to remove our shoes or our laptop. We got through security and decided to grab some lunch, Buffalo Wild Wings was right next to our gate and DH had enough points saved, so lunch was free!




Nothing special here, I got my usual, the chicken wrap with the honey BBQ sauce and fries and DH got wings with medium and the newer buffalo ranch sauce. Lunch hit the spot and of course, food almost always tastes better when it's free, all we had to pay for was tip!

Before we knew it, it was time to board, WestJet doesn't have a direct flight to Vancouver from Minneapolis, so we had to connect through Regina, Saskatchewan. Our first flight was about 2 hours, in which they served us beverages and these really yummy chocolates.


These were so yummy! Our first flight went really quick and before we knew it, we were landing in Regina. Now, here is where I started to get a little anxious. When it comes to travel, I'm a planner. This was my first plane ride outside of the US and I thought I had researched everything about customs. I was absolutely convinced that we would clear customs in Vancouver, even downloaded the AirCan app and had everything filled out for Vancouver. But nope, learned when the flight attendant comes through the aisles with the customs forms that we clear customs in Regina. When I start to lowkey panic, DH (who has traveled internationally) was like, "of course this is what happens", which also goes to show that DH doesn't listen to me, I know I brought it up in conversation multiple times and he never said a thing. So yeah, that was pretty stupid on my part, but I now know how customs works if I ever take another trip outside of the US (at least I hope so). We landed a little late due to wind, but thankfully, we were seated toward the front of the plane, so we got off pretty quick and we were the only plane that had landed so we got through customs quickly, picked up our bags and checked in for our second flight. We ran into a little bit of trouble at check in, we had a new employee, and he kept trying to charge us for our bags even though the ticket we purchased included bags. Thankfully another employee came over, straightened everything out. Then it was time to go through security and then we finally made it to our gate. We were supposed to have a 2 our layover in Regina, but we had about 15 minutes to sit down before it was time to board our next flight. That flight was very smooth, and I was able to indulge in another one of those delicious chocolates, and before we knew it, we had landed in Vancouver.

We arrived in Vancouver a little after 6, the nice thing about clearing customs in Regina was that we didn't have to in Vancouver. The Vancouver airport was very busy, so it was really nice to just walk right out of departures. We then headed to the Sky Train to head to our hotel. We got off at the City Centre stop and walked the couple of blocks to our hotel. It was a little bit of a pain dragging our suitcases since it was raining, but the walk was an easy one and before we knew it, we were at our new home for the next 3 nights, the Downtown Hyatt Regency. We booked our hotel stay through Costco, our package included the hotel stay, breakfast every morning and a rental car. Now you might be thinking, if we had a rental car, why did we take the Sky Train? Mainly because parking at our hotel was $60/night, plus all the places we planned on visiting had pay parking. It was actually cheaper to still book the package and leave the rental car behind than just booking the hotel itself (and then we would lose the free breakfast). There was no line, so we were able to get checked in right away and then head to our room. I can't believe I didn't take any photos of our room, but it was a pretty standard hotel room, we were on the 17th floor.


This was the view from our room, that's the Fairmont Hotel on the left. It is such a beautiful hotel; I would've loved to have stayed there. It was getting late, but we were hungry, so we headed to the hotel lobby bar for dinner. Obviously, I was tired because I took no photos of our food, but we both had a chicken sandwich with fries. The sandwich was pretty good and the fries were hot and crispy. As part of our package, we also got a 20% off coupon to use in any of the restaurants, so that helped us save a little money. It was almost 10:00 Vancouver time (so midnight back home) and we had a long travel day, so it was time to head to bed. We planned on getting up early the next morning because we had a busy day ahead of us!

Up next: Capilano Suspension Bridge

 

[Kari0180]

If you're interested in checking out our vlog on our travel day...here you go!

 

[Kari0180]

Vancouver Day 1: Capilano Suspension Bridge

I was hopeful that with the long travel day the day before that I would be able to sleep in. But with the time change, I was still up at 4:00 am. I spent a couple of hours trying to get back to sleep, but finally gave up and got up around 6:30am. DH woke up shortly after and we started getting on with our day. We headed downstairs to the Mosaic Grille for our free breakfast buffet.


My first plate, I started with a cup of fruit and a couple of pastries. The fruit was so good, it was very sweet. The pastries on the other hand were not so great, they were pretty dry and not very flavorful. DH went straight to the main buffet for his first plate.

They had a french toast bake with blueberries that was so yummy. My plate at the main buffet.

I loved that they had dried apricots (as part of the yogurt bar), I grabbed a few every morning. In addition to the main buffet, they also had a make your own omelet station, I kept meaning to make an omelet, but I was full after my first plate every morning, so it never happened. These are only photos I took, the other mornings, our plates pretty much looked the same: eggs, potatoes, bacon, either french toast, pancakes, or waffles.

After breakfast, we headed downstairs to catch the shuttle to Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. One of the perks of staying at the Hyatt was that the free shuttle to the park picked up at the Hyatt. Once we were on the shuttle, we were on our way. We drove over the Lion's Gate bridge; this was exciting as we knew we would be sailing under it in a couple of days. The shuttle ride was about 25 minutes and before we knew it, we had arrived here


We had purchased our tickets ahead of time online ($3 discount) and once they opened the gate, it was a quick scan until we were inside and posing outside this sign


When we arrived, there was a constant drizzle, it wasn't too bad, and we were prepared with our rain jackets. We walked through the Story Center and learned about the history of the park. Then we walked through Kia'Palano and saw the totem poles.

It was then time to cross the suspension bridge. Now when they say suspension bridge, they mean suspension bridge, it swayed, it was wobbly, but it was so much fun! The bridge is 450 feet long and 230 feet above the ground. It was an amazing site.

The photos don't do justice; the views were amazing! We spent at least 20 minutes on the bridge taking in the sights and also it was kind of fun watching people trying to walk across

Up Next: Headed to the forest moon of Endor (aka Treetops Adventure)

 

[Kari0180]

Our next stop was the Treetops Adventure

Now, I'm a Star Wars geek, and being a child of the 80's my favorite movie is Return of the Jedi because as a 4-year-old, the Ewoks were the best part of the movie (don't necessarily feel that way as an adult, but I do love me some Ewoks)! While walking up to and through the Treetops Adventure, you felt like you were in the Ewok village on the Forest Moon of Endor. I kept wondering if Wicket was going to come find me and say "Yub Nub".


Once again, the views were amazing. This was our first experience being in a temperate rainforest and being around all of the green and the tall trees was so beautiful. I loved the moss that was growing on some of the trees


Stopped for a quick selfie


It's very rare that I get photos of DH on his own.

After we finished the Treetops Adventure, we explored the grounds a little bit. They had a couple of hawks and an owl out at Raptors Ridge.


At this time, the gentle drizzle that we were experiencing had turned to a steady rain, we were getting pretty wet. We had finished up the one side and headed back over the suspension bridge to explore Cliffwalk.

There was a beautiful waterfall off the trail



At this time, we were getting very wet

On our way out, we hit up the gift shop and bought an ornament and a gift for DH's mom. We then got in line to take the shuttle back to the Hyatt. We spent about 2 1/2 hours at the park, and we had a great time. If it hadn't been raining, we probably would've stayed longer, we originally planned on getting lunch, but I just wanted to get to the hotel and dry off. I would definitely recommend going to Capilano prior to your cruise if you're able to, it was amazing!

Up Next: Granville Island Public Market

 

[Kari0180]

Vancouver Day 1, Part 2: Granville Island Public Market

Once the shuttle dropped us off at our hotel, we spent about a half hour drying off and figuring out what to do next. Since it was lunch time and we were getting hungry, we grabbed a ride share and headed to Granville Island Public Market. After about a 10-minute ride, we were dropped off here


We were lucky enough to explore Pike Place Market in Seattle several years ago and this market was very reminiscent. It's so cool to see a place where you can get fresh groceries (fruit, fish, deli, bread, etc), eat a meal, and do other shopping as well. We were amazed at everything there; we had to walk through it all. I'm a sucker for a mixed bouquet of flower, the ones at the market were beautiful.


But we were here to eat! We decided early on that we would just share little bites throughout the market so we could try things. Our first stop was The Stock Market for some soup

This was the small Salmon Chowder, and it came with a piece of focaccia bread. This was so good, the chowder was creamy, had a great flavor and really hit the spot since the weather was a little chilly! The bread was also very good, nice and warm and didn't even need butter. The only unfortunate thing was that I had to share with DH, I just wanted my own bowl! The market was really busy, so we weren't able to find seating inside, there's plenty of outdoor seating and thankfully the rain had stopped, but seats were still a little wet, so we didn't hang around long before going back inside to find our next treat. Which we found pretty quick at Celine's Fish & Chips

I will be the first to admit, I'm not a huge fried fish fan, but DH loves it. This was cod and I have to admit, it was delicious, it was probably one of my favorite pieces of fried fish. The breading was so light and crispy, and the fish was so flaky. The fries were perfect, nice and crispy! I didn't get a lot of the fish, DH gobbled it up so quick, he thought I split it in half ahead of time (I didn't), so I was sad that I only got a couple of bites. We started looking around the market some more and let me tell you, I wanted to eat at almost every booth. I wanted food, coffee, bubble tea, candy. It took a lot of restraint to not spend our whole vacation budget there. We decided on one last purchase prior to exiting the market, we had to get dessert. We found this beauty at Stuart's Bakery

This was the Black Forest Cake, and it was so yummy! Everything was so light, and I loved the chunks of cherries throughout the cake. Again, didn't want to share (especially since DH ate almost all the fish), but I was a good wife and split it with him. It was really tough deciding on a dessert, everything looked so good.

We had a great time exploring (and eating through) the market. But it was time to explore some more. The great thing about Granville Island is it's not just the public market, the area is huge! The next area we explored was the shopping areas. Didn't purchase anything because I had to keep telling myself I had very limited space in my luggage and had a 7-night cruise ahead of me. But there was this one shop (Provence en Couleur) that sold all these products with lavender, and I wanted to buy the whole store! Even though we don't have any kids, and our nephews are all teenagers and adults, we still had to explore the kids' market. That place was so cool, it had toy stores, clothing stores, the upstairs and an arcade, VR and even a little bumper car ride (we were lucky enough to watch a little boy ride, it was so cute!). While exploring, we kept seeing these all over the market.

These doggo huts were so cool, you used an app to use, and they were free! When they were occupied (like in the photo), they front frosted up so you couldn't frighten the puppies while they waited. I wish they had these at home, I love taking Morty places with me!

We then explored the Artisan District where we found the Artisan Sake Maker and decided to indulge in these beauties

I had the Sake Sangria, which was muddled with mint and strawberries, it was so refreshing, and I loved the strawberry flavor. DH had the Artisan 76, he really enjoyed his, but it wasn't really my thing. DH was feeling very bougie with his drink and felt the need to pose

We continued to explore the area. It was about 4:30 when we finished up and we debated what to do next. We enjoyed staying at the Hyatt, but the one downfall is that we were staying in the financial district, and while there was a strip mall and some quick service places around the hotel, most were closed on the weekend. So, we decided to get an early dinner at one of the restaurants at the market.

Up next: Dinner time

 

[Kari0180]

The great thing about the market is there is soooooo much to do, there are also a lot of places to eat independent of the market itself. We took a few minutes to look at menus and figure out what we were in the mood for and decided on Tap and Barrel Bridges for dinner.


We had to wait a few minutes for a table but were seated pretty quickly. We had a difficult time deciding what to eat as everything on the menu looked tasty. We decided to split a couple of mains and an appetizer. Our appetizer

These are the famous fried pickles with creamy dill dip. I love pickles so anytime I see fried pickles on a menu, I have to order them. I really liked these, the breading was light, and the pickle was still crunchy on the inside. The creamy dill dip was the perfect dip for them. DH isn't a big fan of pickle spears, he prefers pickle chips, but he even enjoyed these!

For our mains, we split the

Lobster Roll with French fries. This was okay, I've had better lobster rolls, I've had worse. There wasn't a whole lot of flavors to either the roll or the fries, but they were edible, we didn't hate them. We also shared

Fried chicken Mac & Cheese. This was very tasty, had a really good cheesy flavor. The only downfall was that there were only 2 pieces of chicken on top, I really wish there was more chicken. We paid our bill, and grabbed another ride share back to our hotel. We had a pretty quiet evening, we got into our suits and headed to the pool. We spent most of our time in the hot tub, we were talking with another couple who were also headed out on Monday to Alaska, but they were on the Norwegian Jewel, we joked about meeting them in port because it sounded like they had the same itinerary. Spoiler alert: we kept running into them at the hotel and we saw them at Canada Place on embarkation morning, but never saw them again after. We were still adjusting to the time difference, so after about an hour in the pool and hot tub, we were worn out, we headed back to our room where we watched some Netflix before calling it a night.

Up Next: Day 2 in Vancouver, the Aquarium and Stanley Park

 

[Kari0180]

Our vlogs for the day:

 

[Kari0180]

Vancouver Day 2, Part 1

I will admit I was having a lot of trouble sleeping in our hotel, the beds were comfortable enough, but the pillows were so flat. I woke up multiple times and finally gave up and got out of bed around 6:30 and started getting ready for the day. After showering and getting dressed, we headed back to Mosaic Grille for breakfast.


The pancakes were very tasty, I'm not a big fan of maple syrup, so I was very happy that whip cream was available every day. The fruit wasn't as fresh as the day before, but still enjoyed it.


After breakfast, we headed back up to our room to grab a few things, then we grabbed a ride share and headed to Stanley Park and the Vancouver Aquarium. I had purchased our tickets ahead of time, the aquarium still has timed entry. There is a standby line, and it didn't look like there was any issue for anyone in that line, but I wanted to make sure that we got in. Once inside, we started by exploring The Tropics



Piranha's really creep me out, whenever I see them, they almost look fake because they're so still in the tank, but you know what will happen the second some type of food gets in the tank. There were a lot of interesting animals on the tropics trail, tortoise's, monkeys, we got there just in time to watch a thunderstorm (unfortunately, didn't get any photos) before the trail ends at the shark tank

We hung out in front of this tank for a few minutes, it was really cool watching all the sharks and fish swimming around. We then headed to the next area of the aquarium: Pacific Canada. If the name didn't give it away, this section was filled with marine life that you can find throughout Canada's coasts.


I felt really bad for this stingray, you can see at the top he's all bloody, we saw him banging and scraping himself against the rocks and the glass. I hope they were keeping an eye on him


There was a giant tank filled with moon jellyfish; I think jellyfish look so cool, but I don't need to encounter them in the water. As we were coming into this area, we saw that the 4D theater showing was going to start in a minute, so we grabbed our glasses and headed in. I'm not going to lie; the film was kind of sad. It was a strange film to have with 4D effects, it's definitely more of an adult film, the kids that were in the theater with us seemed a little bored. After the film, we headed into the Wet Lab to get to know some animals up close. On this day, we got to interact with 3 different tanks, first we got to touch some moon jellyfish, we had to use our pinky finger to touch them, and we had to stay away from their "faces and butts" (you could tell this was catered more the children). The next tank had both sea urchins and star fish that you could touch.


Even as an adult, I found the Wet Lab very interesting. We got a lot of information, they make it fun, and we got to touch marine life! We wandered around the aquarium some more, saw frogs, snakes, and lizards (tried to take some photos, but nothing was really turning out). We then came to the Treasures of the BC Coast tank. This tank was huge and beautiful and home to a giant pacific octopus.

This photo doesn't do this guy justice, he was huge, he was mesmerizing. I wanted to spend hours watching him glide around the bottom of the tank. I called him Hank because he reminded me of the octopus from Finding Dory.

 

[Kari0180]

We then looked at more jellyfish


These guys were huge, I wouldn't want to encounter them in the ocean, but they were really cool to watch in their tank. We had wandered throughout all the inside exhibits, and it was now time to head outdoors. First up were the seals. The trainers were out with them, weighing, measuring and working with them.


I was a lot of fun watching the trainers working with the seals and then just watching them swim around after, they were so cute! We then headed to the sea lions, no special training going on, but they were swimming along and one of the sea lions was very talkative. It was then time to take a peek at the otters, unfortunately, most of the otters were snoozing in the corner of the exhibit so it was impossible to get a photo, you could barely see them with our eyes. The aquarium had recently rescued a 5-month-old otter, he was in his own tank for the time being, but he was swimming around and looked so cute!


It was lunchtime as we were headed out of the aquarium, so we decided to grab something to eat before we headed out. We settled on the Courtyard Cafe and split a couple of entrees.

We split the chicken, apple, and brie panini, we upgraded our regular fries to poutine. Sadly, this would be our only experience with poutine in Canada. And we also ordered the cod tacos. For quick service food, I thought these were pretty good, I really liked the panini and the poutine. It was then time to exit through the gift shop, where I was very well behaved and didn't purchase anything. I really enjoyed our visit to the aquarium; we were here about 3 hours, and I felt it was the worth the money.

 

[Kari0180]

Here's our vlog of the aquarium, DH got a lot more video than I was able to get photos.

 

[Kari0180]

On our way to the aquarium, we drove past the horse drawn carriage, it was a quick walk down the hill, so we decided to check them out. The next available ride was over an hour away and it was kind of pricey ($80 CAD/person), but we were on vacation, and we didn't have anything else to do so we signed up for the next available tour. There were some benches around, so we took a seat, both called home to check in on things and people watched. There was a bride and groom taking photos by the seawall, I didn't take any photos of them, but they were beautiful. The wait went by super quick and before we knew it, we were loading into our carriage.

We were seated 4 to a row, DH was seated at the end, and I was in the middle. The also had blankets for us to use. It was a beautiful, sunny day, but it was a little chilly. Our guides for the day were Bud and Banjo and they were Percherons, we went through a few moments where they were a little stubborn and our tour guide had to get them moving again, but for the most part, they were very well behaved!

Our first (and really only) stop on the tour was to check out the Totem Poles. These were amazing and a very popular place. We had about 5 minutes to look around and grab some photos.



These were really neat; I wish we could've spent more time exploring and taking a closer up view of the Totems, there was also a gift shop, but we only had a few minutes, so it was time to get back on the carriage. Our tour guide was great, and we learned a lot about Stanley Park. I knew Stanley Park was huge, but I didn't know that it's the largest urban park, larger than Central Park. Our tour only took us around the eastern edge of the park so I can only imagine how large the park really is. Our tour continued around the sea wall, we could see Canada Place at one point, there was a cruise ship in port, and it made me excited because that would be us the next day. We then pulled off for a moment for our next "stop", The Girl in the Wet Suit Statue

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get off at this stop and since I was sitting in the middle seat, I wasn't able to get really good photos, but this one wasn't too bad. Our tour continued and this is where the title of my trip report came from, we went by a large flock of Canadian geese and our tour guide tells us how a lot of people in Canada refer to Canadian Geese as "Cobra Chickens" because if you get close enough to them, they hiss like a snake. So, for the rest of our trip, whenever we saw a goose (Canadian or otherwise), we would make joke about the cobra chickens attacking. The name has stuck with us because now back at home whenever we see them, we still call them cobra chickens. And if you haven't learned this already, DH and I are kind of lame....

Before we knew it, our tour was over, and we were back at the beginning, we were able to come say hi to Bud and Banjo, but were cautioned that these were working horses and may bite. I was able to sneak in a friendly pat to each of them before we headed on our way.


We met a couple of families on our carriage that would be on the Wonder with us, so we talked about our week ahead and what we were looking forward to. Unfortunately, we never saw either of them once we were on board. At this point, it was almost 5:00 and it was a Sunday, so everything was closing up for the day. We debated going to Canada Place to wander, but we knew we would have time the next morning, so we called a ride share and headed back to our hotel. We were both okay with having a quiet night since starting the next day we would constantly be on the go (13 cruises in and we still haven't learned how to just chill and relax ).
I also love Schitt's Creek and so I was very excited to see Eugene and Dan Levy host the Emmy's. We headed back to the hotel and since Tim Horton's was next door to our hotel, we decided to try their sandwiches. No photos, but they weren't bad. I wanted to grab a couple of doughnuts, but they were sold out of the ones I was interested in. As we were walking out, I saw they had a Too Good to Go sign. When we got back to our room, I logged into the app and sure enough, they had a surprise bag for doughnuts, and it was a pickup any time deal. I ordered and paid for the deal ($4.99 CAD) and when we finished our dinner, we ran back downstairs and picked up this beauty

and inside

Sadly, we left most of this behind the next morning, but we ate all the Timbits and split one of the doughnuts for dessert. I was kind of bummed that I didn't even think to check the app in the day's prior. There were a bunch of deals for meals within walking distance to us and everything was so cheap! If you're not familiar with Too Good to Go, it's an app that to prevent food waste, restaurants will put their extra food on the app, heavily discount it for people to pick up. It's always a surprise, you never know what you're going to get. It's fairly new to the Minneapolis area, so we don't have a ton of options yet, but it's growing. We've never had a bad experience yet with the surprise bags we've received.

The rest of our evening was spent packing up what we could, watching the Emmy's and at one point, we went back down to the pool and hot tub for awhile. Talked to a couple who had just gotten back from one of the Alaskan train/sea adventures. That sounded amazing, I may have to look into that if we ever go to Alaska again. It was then time to go to bed, we were so excited to finally board the Disney Wonder and take off for Alaska!

Up Next: Embarkation Day

 

[Kari0180]

Our horse drawn carriage tour

Our full day vlog

 

[Kari0180]

It's Embarkation Day! We booked this trip on opening day back in March 2023 and after everything that happened with DH's mom over the summer, we thought we would never get here. The first thing I did when I woke up was log into the DCL app to see this happy little picture

Our port arrival time was 10:45 am so we had a couple of hours to kill. We headed down for our final breakfast at the hotel, then went back up to the room and finished packing and just relaxed until it was time to leave. We originally planned on walking to the train station to go to Canada Place, but it was raining, and we weren't feeling walking in the rain, so we called a ride share to get us to port. There was a ton of traffic, and our driver was a little aggressive, but after about 10 minutes, we were entering the parking garage to drop off our luggage. We got a little turned around trying to get upstairs, but there were 2 other couples with us who were having the same problem, but we made it and before we knew it, we were staring at this beauty.

Our last cruise was February 2023, also on the Wonder (we did a B2B out of San Diego), but it felt like forever. We got to port around 9:30, we wanted to explore Canada Place and see the Olympic Cauldron before boarding. The Olympic Cauldron was about a 5-minute walk from port, so we headed that way, taking a couple of photos along the way.


After a few minutes, we arrived at the Olympic Cauldron, this was from the 2010 winter Olympics.


I love the Olympics so I always get excited when we can see previous cauldrons. Our tour guide the day before told us that the cauldron had just been lit for the Paris Olympics, that would've been so cool to see. Just on the other side of the cauldron was the Digital Orca statue

This was very cool, and very large! It was getting closer to our PAT, so we started walking back to port to get checked in, taking a few photos along the way




We headed under this sign and headed into the building for check in

 

[Kari0180]

One more shot of the Wonder before heading inside

We headed into the building and got checked in very quickly, we got our wrist bands that we needed to wear while we were at port, we would not be able to get on the ship without them. We then went through security and then were escorted in a very large room with folding chairs, this is where we would wait until it was our turn to get on the ship. We were boarding group 5 so we thought we would get onboard fairly quickly. I'm not sure if there was some sort of delay, but it took a VERY long time before they started calling groups, we were in the room for over an hour before they started calling groups. We finally got on board and headed toward Tiana's Place for lunch. We both enjoy the Embarkation menu in the dining room versus going to Cabanas. We were quickly seated and handed our menus

We skipped out on appetizers, but started out with soup

DH started with the seafood and chicken gumbo

I had the Leek and Potato soup. We've both had these soups before and really enjoy them. I will say that service was very slow through lunch. It took FOREVER to get our food. It wasn't just our dining team; it was the whole dining room. We were seated near the entrance, and they had to keep turning people away because the dining room was a capacity. It was almost a half hour between ordering and our soup arriving and then another half hour before we got our entree

The whole reason we get lunch in the dining room on Embarkation Day, the sliced Roasted Beef Sirloin. This is so good and prepared to a perfect medium rare. We then waited about another half hour for our dessert

This was the Cookies and Cream cheesecake, this was very yummy, but not going to lie, we were a little annoyed at this time and just wanted to wrap up and get going. We should've just skipped dessert, after all, there would be plenty of time to have dessert. By the time we finished with lunch it was after 2:00, the one good thing about wrapping up lunch so late is we were able to head to our room. We were in room 2012, our room was in the forward part of the ship. When we first started cruising, we would always get a verandah room, but our last few cruises, we started getting inside staterooms, we see it as saving money for excursions/drink tastings/Palo, etc. and DH always tells me he gets the most amazing sleep in an inside stateroom. We found that we never used our verandah, we were only in our room to sleep. But this was Alaska, and everyone says a verandah is necessary, but even booking opening day, the verandah categories were at least a thousand dollars more. So, we decided to book one of the porthole categories and hoped we wouldn't feel like we were missing out. Spoiler Alert, once again, we were never in our room, I'm really happy that we went with our room category, also learned that this was probably our favorite location. We were right below the adults only area where we spent most of our time. Every night, we would leave Azure, head to Crown & Fin, grab a snack and walk down to our room. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Once in our room (I can't believe I didn't take any photos), we dropped off some stuff and headed off to explore a little bit. We headed up to decks 9 & 10, wandered around the pool decks and walked through Cabanas. Then, we took our required smokestack selfie

I'm going to wrap up here for now, getting too distracted by the Vikings game. But up next, we explore the kids club, and we have our first drink tasting!

 

[Kari0180]

Embarkation Day, Part 1

 

[DMMarla07860]

Been following your vlogs for years love the trip report

 

[buteraa]

I love Alaska, Looking forward to your report!

 

[Kari0180]

Been following your vlogs for years love the trip report

Thank you so much for following and reading! I'm so excited to continue to share our amazing trip!

 

[Kari0180]

I love Alaska, Looking forward to your report!

This was such an amazing trip, I know that someday, we'll need to go back, we saw so much, but still feel like we missed so many things!

 

[Kari0180]

Happy Friday! Today is my day off so planning on getting some writing done and then trying to officially figure our Disney days before our dining reservation opens tomorrow. Spoiler Alert: Our next cruise is in just a couple of months; we're headed out on the Treasure. We'll be the third overall cruise, I'm a little nervous that things won't be finished yet (we sailed the Wish within the first couple of months of sailing and we had a lot of issues), but I'm super excited too! We're planning on a couple of days prior at the parks and for sure want to hit up MK and Epcot, we have park hoppers, so not sure if we'll try all 4 parks in 2 days or not. It's also marathon weekend, our cruise in 2020 was over marathon weekend, so I know it will be a little crazy in the parks, but still looking forward to all of it! Anyway, back to Alaska...

We finished wandering around the upper decks, we had a tasting at 3, but still had some time to kill. We headed down the Oceaneer's Club and Lab. Can I say that I love the hand washers, why can't they have them all over the ship? They're so much fun! We started with the Lab, and I was very surprised how empty it was. Usually, the tables are filled with coloring sheets and other activities, but this time, the tables were all bare. There were a couple of families playing with the ship simulators, but that was it. We did a quick walk-through and then headed to the club. This is where the action was, the place was packed. Grabbed a couple of photos

I love the little Frozen area, I was trying to get Oaken to come out of his sauna to say hi, but wasn't successful.

I love all the Marvel Superhero stuff.

Mickey was in the club having a dance party with the kids, it was very adorable watching the littles try and dance along with Mickey. I could've stayed and watched the whole thing, but it was finally time to leave all the kiddos behind and start doing some adult things.

We headed down to Cadillac Lounge for our first of many tastings ahead. Up first, Champagne tasting, we've done this tasting before, it's still the same champagnes, but I love each sommelier's spin on educating us about them. The Champagnes we tasted were





These were all good, but my favorite is always the Moet Ice Imperial. I love how it's served with ice cubes, I forgot to look on this cruise to see if it was offered, but one of my favorite drinks that I've had on the Dream, Fantasy, and the Wish is a glass of Moet Ice with a homemade popsicle, it's so good, kind of expensive, but it's worth it for a glass or two. We were also served a chocolate truffle and a chocolate macaroon

This was our little set up, minus the Moet Ice. I love champagne so I love when we can get this tasting. After the tasting it was up one deck to the muster drill. No photos, but we were in the Walt Disney Theater, so we were able to sit down while we waited for others to show up. Thankfully, everyone behaved and there didn't seem to be any no-shows, so it was over quick and then it was a trek up the stairs to deck 10 for the sail-a-wave party.