Mickey Boat to the Last Frontier!

We just returned from a seven day cruise to Alaska aboard the Disney Wonder.  We had the best time, and I took 1000 photos.  No, seriously.  Once I whittle them down, I'll load them onto our Shutterfly site in case anyone is really interested, but will just hit the highlights here.

We flew into Vancouver on a Saturday, and spent the afternoon exploring the harbor and Stanley Park:

We took this cruise with two of John's medical school buddies--Don and Ali--and their families.  We get to see Don and Yomary fairly often, but Ali and Marcela live in Washington state and we haven't seen them in almost 4 years, so we had a great time visiting.

We met up with the whole group on Sunday morning, and took a shuttle bus tour of Vancouver.

The Capilano Suspension Bridge park was a favorite stop:

Stanley Park totem poles:

We stayed in the Westin Bayshore in Vancouver--an older hotel, but with fabulous harbor views.  I realized the cruise ships all came in around 7 am, so decided to try timing my run on Monday morning so that I could catch the Disney boat coming into port.  Worked perfectly:

Vancouver has a long seawall, and I ran the portion that runs around Stanley Park.  It was gorgeous!

We left for the cruise terminal around noon and boarded the ship:

Waving bye to Canada during the Sail Away deck party:

Passing under the Lion's Gate Bridge:

Tuesday was a rocky day at sea.  A few of the kids got seasick, although nothing a little Dramamine and a swim in the pool couldn't fix.

Character breakfast:

Fancy napkin headdresses:

Anna asked our server, Jose if he could make her one to match me.  He was a saint and very patient with the kids--when I asked Anna what she missed most about the Mickey boat, she said "Mr. Jose."

We saw so many whales in Hawaii that we didn't bother to book any whale excursions in Alaska.  However, I lucked up by being on deck when we passed this breaching whale.  He put on quite a show:

Formal night!  This little princess didn't last through dinner, though:

Wednesday was another day at sea, in which we traveled to Tracy's Arm Fjord to view the Sawyer Glacier.

A little more whale-watching:

Don and Yomary and a few extra kids next door:

Our first iceberg!

Our kids didn't last long on the top deck, so we finally checked them into the kids' club and grabbed them back out when we arrived at the glacier.  Little Florida wimps--there were plenty of kids swimming in the pool at that very instant.  Probably Canadians. :-)

Lots of calving, sounded like thunder:

 

That afternoon, we had a very important date with the Frozen Princesses, Anna and Elsa.  We were given an appointment time, which sure beats a 3-hour line at the theme park.

Princess Anna pointed out that our Anna was wearing the wrong dress. :-)

All the kids posed for a pic, except Will, who wants nothing to do with princesses.  Ick.

We arrived in Skagway on Thursday.  John and I took a quick run around town, then hiked up to Lower Dewey Lake.  

Then we collected the kids from the Oceaneers Club and went for our port excursion, a ride up the Takshanuk Mountain Trail.

Our vehicle:

Views from the trail:

On the way down, we stopped for a lunch of dill-beer-battered halibut and smoked chicken.   The halibut was fantastic, some of the best fish I've ever eaten.  Will and I had thirds. :-)

On Friday, we docked in Juneau.  Our entire group did both excursions on this day.  First, we toured an old gold mine and went panning for gold:

Then we boarded a seaplane and flew to the Taku Glacier Lodge.  The flight was fantastic--we were able to view five glaciers from the air, and they were spectacular.

Proof that Cub Scout Pack 74 was here:

Kids played with a block of glacier ice:

And made it into a snowman.  Sort of:

We walked on some of the trails around the lodge, fighting mosquitoes the whole way.

Gorgeous ferns and moss:

We ate a lunch of grilled king salmon here, along with some delicious side dishes.  This and the Takshanuk mountain lunch were the best meals of the trip.  (That's a tribute to them, not a dig at the cruise ship food!)

On Saturday, we arrived in Ketchikan around 11 am.  The weather was terrible, with steady rain and lots of wind.  Ketchikan apparently gets a lot of rain, but the wind was a problem and most of the boating excursions were cancelled.  Yomary, Louise, Alexiya, Ayva, Anna, and I were supposed to take a catamaran to Misty Fjords, but that was cancelled.  I scrambled to get us into another excursion, only to find out Ayva was too young to do it.  So Anna, Alexiya, and I ended up going to the lumberjack show and Potlatch Park by ourselves.  We had a great time, though!

Anna in the slingshot competition:

At Potlatch Park, we learned how totem poles are made and listened to native stories about the totem poles in the park.  The girls also got to paint some scales to be added to a totem pole at the park.

After returning the girls to the ship, I took a short walk around Ketchikan.  My waterproof jacket and rain boots were great, but I still got soaked!

The boys spent the day fishing for salmon.  I thought surely their excursion would be cancelled, but they booked a private trip and their captain said he was willing to go.  (Although he later said that it was some of the worst weather that he'd encountered when doing one of these guided trips.  Glad I didn't know that until later.)   They survived, though, and caught a lot of fish.

That evening, we tracked down Mickey and Minnie for photos, and John humored me with some formal pics on the stairs.

Sunday morning was our final day at sea, as we sailed back to Vancouver.  We started the morning by attending the Princess Gathering:

And stuck around to meet pirate Jake.

We found the sun and some gorgeous weather after leaving Ketchikan, so spent the afternoon in the pool.  The adults also watched "Guardians of the Galaxy", which was playing onboard the ship.  Then we went to the final musical, "Dreams", and our farewell dinner.

I was so sad after dinner, until I went out on the balcony and saw the most gorgeous moon and moonpath:

Such a nice finish to the trip!

I got up early Monday morning and went to the top deck to watch us arrive in Vancouver.  The sunrise was beautiful:

Back under the bridge....

....and back to where we started.

We really had just the best time--maybe the best vacation ever!  The kids had so much fun playing with one another, and we adults had fun, too, so we're already saving for the next one.  I called this trip in 2012, so this time I'm predicting Europe in 2016. :-)