Kicking off the 2017 Alaska Season! May 22-29, 2017 Alaska cruise on the Wonder (complete 7/14)

Let's get this cruise started! Yippee--embarkation day! (Monday, May 22)

We got up in the morning and saw all the posts in our Fb group that the Wonder had arrived! So we went for a short run down to the port area, and snapped a few photos.
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Food for us to eat!
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My husband works in food distribution, so this was interesting to me. :)

We ran back up to the hotel, stopping at Tim Horton's near the hotel because I really wanted one of their donuts. yum! Then we got cleaned up, ran a few more errands (down to Spokes to replace the water bottle I lost the day before, to Safeway to get some bandaids and extra toothpaste, and to the liquor store to get a bottle of prosecco to bring on board). Packed the rest of our things, then checked out.
A taxi was hanging out right outside the hotel on Robson, so we piled aboard for the very short ride down to the port. I decided that we had already walked enough with our bags on Saturday, no need to lug them any further.
There wasn't too much traffic, since it was a holiday in Canada, and I think we were the only ship boarding at that time. The cab driver dropped us off (fare around $8-10), and the DCL porters were right there to collect bags.

At Canada Place, there were plenty of people to direct you where to go-- we just kept following their directions, and following other people. Easy enough. When we got to the DCL check-in area, the room was arranged with multiple check-in stations. There were a few lines: one for concierge/platinum Castaway Club, one for gold/silver Castaway Club, and one for the rest of the people. When I told one worker we were Silver, for some reason, she directed us to the first time cruisers line. It had a lot of people. Our PAT was something like 11:30. I finally figured out we were in the wrong line, so we jumped over the silver line, which moved a little faster. This probably took a good 40 minutes altogether.
Once checked in, we got our silver lanyards and continued through the rest of the process.

Mickey was just leaving the photo area (to get the ship ready to leave), so Minnie was there in her cruise director attire. So cute! Almost no line to get a photo.
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We then went through the line to have the security people check our prosecco, then on to the ship! :)

Pretty shortly after boarding (I should have taken better notes of the time frame of all of this-- so sorry, readers), we went to Triton's for lunch. On our first cruise, we had gone to the buffet at Parrot Cay, it was nicer here to just sit down and let someone bring the food to us. Since it was (maybe 1 pm?) a bit crowded, we told the server that of course, we don't mind sharing tables, so they found 2 seats at a larger table of adults.
And.. I don't remember what I ate.

by the time we were done, we were able to go find our room-- perfect! Deck 6 with a great view. Our luggage wasn't all there yet, though we checked back a couple of times.
I was tickled to see that our TA had sent a bottle of prosecco for us, which was on the counter with a nice note, and glasses were provided. (I think hard plastic, actually)
We stopped by Azure ("Azzzzzuuuure" in the accent of the cruise director ;) ) to sign up for an adult beverage tasting-- I would have liked to do the champagne tasting, but it was offered when we had an excursion. So we signed up for wine tasting for our first sea day.

We took a few photos of the ship. Who doesn't have a zillion photos of this smokestack?!bdclstack.jpg

The new chandelier (sorry, not a great photo). I liked the old one better, though this one is supposed to represent the flower in Ariel's hair.
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Our Facebook group had a meetup at 3 pm. I was happy to meet the person who organized it, and a few others, though it was fairly crowded and it's hard to try to match online with actual people. So we didn't stay too long. We did end up meeting several others of the group at our dinner seating (several of us adults had linked seating), and at other activities.
Muster was at 4 pm, and we were assigned to Animator's Palate, so that was easy enough.

Finally, SailAway!!
On our first DCL cruise, it was raining when we left Miami, so we had SailAway in the atrium. It's MUCH more fun outside on a gorgeous sunny day! So much energy and excitement! I had brought prosecco up with us to toast our departure. With all the music, dancing, and clapping, it was so much fun! We toasted each other, the ship, Vancouver, and waved to all the people watching our departure from Canada Place. I got teary-eyed at a couple of points, because I was so happy.

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When we sailed under the Lions Gate bridge, people were up there waving down to us. :)
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Monday, May 22-- continued

After Sail Away, we went to our room, and unpacked. We hung our Fish Extender (first time doing this--had fun with it), checked out our DVC magnet on the door.
We did not go to the Be our Guest show for some reason-- probably just trying to relax a little.
We went to the DVC reception at 7:30 and didn't win any prizes (they gave away caps, bags, and a grand prize of $200 OBC). But a fun time to get into the cruise excitement and see some video about the new Copper Creek DVC property.

Our first dinner (late seating, 8:15 p.m.) was at Animator's Palate. Our server was Hernan (awesome), assistant server was Patricia (adorable-- had a little voice like Minnie Mouse), and head server Englebert.
As mentioned above, several of the adult couples on our group linked to have dinner together-- our tablemates were great, and it was fun to get to know them over the course of the cruise. It's always fun to hear how other people experience their days-- everyone's cruise adventure is overall the same, but oh, so different, what with all the various activities and excursions to choose from.
Even now, as our group continues to post, as well as seeing posts from other people's cruises-- I realize that we could do this cruise at least 3 times and not do it all.

Animator's Palate is a very cool restaurant. When you walk in, everything is in black and white, like cartoon sketches. As you are eating, on multiple screens around the room, the sketches come to life, as you see an animated rendition of various character drawings. Later in the dinner, the cartoons are colored in-- at the same time, some of the lighting in the room changes to color. At the finale, the colored cartoons are animated and you see bits of Disney animated features. Then the waitstaff comes out with a fanfare, and sorcerer Mickey Mouse appears! All magical.
For dinner, I had butternut squash soup and the pennette bolognese. The pasta was ok-- nothing spectacular, but good. DH had the truffle pasta pursettes (shared with me), the chicken and walnut salad, and the pork loin. For dessert, he had the deconstructed carrot cake and I had the some kind of berry tart. (I seriously should have taken better notes and/or more food photos!)
This is the deconstructed carrot cake.
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Dinner took a while, being a group of 11, and late seating. We were going to go watch Match Your Mate afterwards, but got out of dinner late, and decided just to go relax and hit the hay.
 
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Please feel free to ask questions about details I may have missed. I feel like we did so much, and then I look back at the Navigators and feel like we did so little (overall, not just day 1)
 


Alaska Cruise day 2-- at Sea
Formal Night
Golden Mickeys
Various ship activities

We are underway!
Overnight, I could tell when we came out from the protection of Vancouver Island, verified by checking on the tv channel that showed the map of our progress. The ship was definitely rocking more than the day before. Luckily, we don't have seasick issues, but it was noticeable (and expected, due to geography).
This is the water later on day 2:
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We woke up and decided to go for a run on Deck 4. It was sort of funny, since we certainly were not running in straight lines. It was cool and windy, but I got warm in a long-sleeved tech top and running skirt. DH ran longer than I did, then I ordered some room service bagels and cereal for us.

That morning, we went to the Art of the Theme Tour, which was quite interesting. We've always been fans of Disney's attention to detail. After that, we had tickets for the Princess Gathering. DH went to get a DCL postcard so we could have the princesses sign it for our granddaughter. Tiana and I hit it off when I told her I used to live in New Orleans.
(we have no photos-- I had the great idea to have DH check the camera memory since he had been taking tons of photos. In doing so, we ended up on the page that asks if you want to reformat the memory card. His finger slipped and this camera does not have a secondary "are you sure?" feature. Thankfully, we had a few photos from Vancouver on our phones, and we hadn't gotten to the key adventures of the cruise. Lesson learned.)

After the princesses, we grabbed a quick lunch in Cabanas and then went to the Cadillac Lounge for wine tasting. It was fun, but I didn't learn too much. Not a bad value for the cost, though. (We did beer tasting on our first cruise.)
It was then time for the naturalist talk about whales. I love whales. However, Doug Jones' calm voice, comfy seats, and the wine I had just drunk sort of led to napping during the talk. oops.

We just rested and chilled in the cabin/on the verandah for a while, then I took off to go find the clues for Elsa's Scavenger Hunt. I had seen a few of the clues earlier in the day, so it was pretty quick and a good way to explore more of the ship.
Few pics from either day 2 or 3:
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We got ready for formal night and attended the Golden Mickeys show, which was really good. DH is not a dress up guy, but he indulged me. :)
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Dinner was at Tiana's Place. OMG, I love this addition to the Wonder!
Fun New Orleans theme, good food, lively atmosphere!
I might have to add in what we ate later, as I thought we had different menus the 2 nights at Tiana's, but I can only find one. :/
The cool thing was that Tiana remembered me from earlier in the day! We're all besties, now, I think. ;)
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After dinner, we popped our heads into the Family Wonder Quest game, but didn't stay long. (again, dinner went a little overtime)

Next up-- Glacier day!
 


I realize that we could do this cruise at least 3 times and not do it all.

Agree completely--I have done 2 (7/11 and 5/12) and am still reading along finding more things to do. Time to start thinking about AK cruise 3 :)

Thanks for your trip report, really enjoying it.
 
Reading along. Thanks for sharing. I was on the cruise right after yours. Loved the pic of food awaiting to be loaded on the ship too!
 
The pic of the food waiting to be loaded is cool! It looks like you had a blast! I can't wait to read more!
 
My fiancé and I were on the same sailing! Your comment about "Azurrrrreeee" made my heart happy! Following along!
 
Hi, everyone reading-- so sorry about delays in getting back to the trip report.
I'm working on resizing photos, but let me just put a few in from glacier day, so you don't think I am a total slacker. :)

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those are a little out of order-- just a preview. Glacier face, waterfall on the way to the glacier, me and DH with the Wonder in the background from the excursion boat, and an earlier shot of the approach into Endicott Arm.
More to come!!
 
Ooooh...... SOOO beautiful!! That picture from the excursion boat is INCREDIBLE!! And your headband....ADORABLE!!!! Did you see any calving?! Oh Oh! I can't wait!
 
Wednesday, May 24-- Endicott Arm/Dawes Glacier Day! Glacier Explorer excursion

Of course, one of the highlights of any Alaska cruise is to see glaciers!
I think on this morning, I ordered room service for a continental breakfast-- a couple of bagels, cereal, coffee for DH, juice. We must have slept in because I seriously cannot recall anything I did on this morning, other than drop off FE gifts (I had distributed some of them on the previous sea day as well). I know we didn't go run, though I probably meant to. And we missed the naturalist talk about glaciers, though I'm sure it would have been interesting.

Couple of photos from the ship as we head towards our destination:
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We had a noon meetup time for the Glacier Explorer, so we got to Cabanas right at 11:30 am for a quick lunch.
After gathering in the Azure lounge, we all headed down the stairs to deck one to get on the excursion boat. Waters were calm, so it was just an easy transfer to the other boat. Here is a photo of the smaller boat next to ours (taken later in the day when the second excursion group returned).
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Once boarded, we went to sit on the upper enclosed level-- the boat seemed pretty crowded to me. This boat essentially has 3 decks. There were rows of enclosed bench seating on the lower and middle decks of this boat, with outside viewing areas on all 3 levels, though we could only access the very top level when the boat wasn't moving much. And it was cold and windy enough you wouldn't want to be on the top deck when it was moving fast anyway. We found a place to sit, but were so eager to see the sights, we pretty much ended up outside the entire time, although I popped inside for a hot chocolate at one point. They did provide some snacks after we were underway--donut holes, crackers with a local jelly, and some crackers with salmon spread. I think other snacks were available for purchase.

The excursion boat took off from the Wonder, providing us opportunities to take photos of the ship on the water from a different perspective.
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We so enjoyed the scenery as our boat led the Wonder into Endicott Arm.

Hanging glacier (Sumdum glacier)
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Love how the clouds are enveloping this mountain
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Crab pots on the shore
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We saw several eagles-- this was probably our best shot. For those who haven't been, basically you look for white spots up in the trees or along the shore. Once you know what you're looking for, they're not too hard to find.
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DH was fascinated watching these ducks take off from the water-- I like this shot, where you can see the splashes from their takeoff.
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More photos from the Glacier Explorer excursion:
Waterfalls--
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The excursion boat brought us close to that last waterfall and allowed ample time for taking pictures.
There was a naturalist or two on board, providing narration and information, and the crew were helpful when asking questions. Since we chose to remain outside almost the entire excursion, however, we didn't hear too much.

Seeing the various effects of the glaciers carving the rocks was quite interesting.
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And here are a couple more photos of the Wonder following us toward the glacier.
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And finally, the Dawes glacier comes into view. Ta-dah!! So enormous.
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You can't even tell how large this glacier is from that shot. The 'tracks' that look like monster truck tracks are moraines, which is where debris piles up from the glacier movement. You'll see in later shots that they are huge.

The excursion boat is allowed to get to 400 meters (about 1/4 mile) from the glacier face.
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(sort of a wonky shot, but you can see this exposed rock on the left is where the glacier used to cover)
 

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