lovely_serenity

Big Island Extra-large Chocolate Chip Cookie:

We ended the day with our tummies full and smiles on our faces :)

Crispy Chicken Tenders:

Fresh Fruit Bowl:

Potato Chips:

Chicken Noodle Soup:

Caesar Salad:

plus a dinosaur (:

I also took a quick snap of my outfit before changing hehe

Yay! Room service is here!

Chicken and Guacamole Fajita:

Buffalo Chicken Wings without sauce:

We briefly stopped by the shops

In the atrium, Mr. Incredible and Flick were having photo sessions too!

We then headed back to our room to have a little room service party with everyone! Saw the daily navigator ready on the bed and a note reminding us to move our clocks an hour forward

We headed into the theatre to get ready for tonight's show. It was supposed to be a musical act. Supposedly two guys with buckets LOL.

First our cruise director came out for a few words

And you know what, the two guys were actually pretty entertaining. I didn't really know what to expect, but it was definitely a good show!

They were very funny too! ^^

After the show, we saw Woody holding a photo session outside

No pictures of you and the family on the cruise? (other than fingernails>)

Haha we do but my family doesn't really want their pictures on the internet ^^

I really enjoyed your great review. Looking at a Alaska cruise now on Disney for sure. Thank you for sharing with us.

Thanks for reading! :) I agree, it's definitely an option worth considering.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I'm going with my fiance and this will be our honeymoon trip. Were there any aspects or or excursions you found particularly interesting to your relatives? My fiance is of Chinese nationality also.

It's my pleasure, I hope it helped :) I think it really depends on what kind of things your fiance is interested in. If she's outdoorsy and adventurous, I'd say go whale watching or do the helicopter ride. Generally, I'd say (Juneau) do the tour to Mendenhall Glacier (a smaller one farther into the city), (Skagway) the White Pass scenic train ride (a bit pricy, like 100 bucks a person I heard), (Ketchikan) Mount Roberts tramway. These are the popular attractions that most do. If she's extremely non-adventurous and laid back, just walking around the towns and exploring/shopping is plenty fine.

Hi Sarah,

 

thanks for putting so much effort into your reviews. I was going to PM you this, but I guess I'm not allowed to do so as I'm new.

We're looking to do an Alaskan cruise at the end of summer (I was told today) and it may not be enough time to plan for.

I tried reading but there's a LOT of information available here and it's a little overwhelming.

Any recommendations as to which of the three were your favorite?

thanks.

Ed

ejm91206

 

at that really big search engine's inbox.

Hi! :) Thank you very much for reading!

I (personally) think this is plenty of time to plan!

So typically, if you are going for the 7 days round trip, the available cruise ports are: Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan and possibly the tiny Icy Strait Point.

If you are going for the 7 days up to Anchorage (which I haven't done), you might hit Whittier and the College Fjord.

Each of the cruises will hit generally one (two if you're really lucky or you're doing the one way up to Anchorage) glacier: Tracy Arm Fjord, Hubbard glacier, and Glacier Bay National Park. Here are my personally preference rankings for them: #1) Glacier Bay, #2) Hubbard glacier, #3) Tracy Arm. Here's why. Both Hubbard glacier and Tracy Arm are the type where you drive into this narrow area, and stop kind far from it and look at it from afar. Glacier Bay is like a whole area of glacier/cold things that's a lot more interesting. Its like you actually go into this large area and cruise along and look at a few other glacier things before you arrive at the "main" glacier (which you're actually quite close to).

Hubbard glacier > Tracy arm (for me) because on a good weather day, Hubbard glacier looks larger and more impressive than Tracy arm.

Also note, your glacier experience is extremely affected by your weather (so a lot of luck) - and even though my weather experience was better at Hubbard glacier and tracy arm, i STILL found glacier bay much better.

I would say if the cruise line you choose doesn't really matter (because let's be real, they're going to be generally similar in most aspects when they head up to Alaska - it's not like the Caribbean where some have parties and whatnot), I would say pick your cruise based on which glacier you want to see. (I enjoyed all 3, as all cruise lines must cater to this particularly cold and scenery-based cruise, there aren't too many things that set them apart in terms of "how well they do Alaska").

In terms of excursions, I'd say unless you're going to do something extreme or possibly dangerous (ex. helicopter ride, riding sleds with dogs, zipline, things you're afraid could go wrong and want the ship to wait for you), I wouldn't book those overpriced excursions with the cruise line. Get off the ship and find the booth area where lots of people are trying to sell excursions to you. It's way cheaper there. Whale watching, city tours, glacier tours are things you'd be better off doing with the independent tour people at port.

Who are you going with? :)

Thanks for writing, can't wait to read more! Is there any reason why y'all do not do shore excursions? Or have you done them on your previous cruises?

 

Ty

Hi Ty!

Thanks for reading! & Yes we've been to Alaska quite a few times and did many excursions the first time around, so we don't really do them anymore :)

On the way to the theatre, we saw Mickey, Minnie and Donald in their super adorable Alaskan themed outfits! :)

Mickey and Minnie were passing their shift off to Donald!

I stood in a spot where I'd pretty much guarantee a close interaction with the couple

During dessert, Ericson comes over and says he has a magic trick for us. He takes a flat brown paper bag and pulls some shiny boxes out of it!

My funny uncle then went over and tried to peek inside the bag, so Ericson panicked a bit and started running away ^^

After that fun

We wrapped up our meal and started heading out.

I enjoy the delayed gratification, it makes it all the sweeter when we do finally get another update!

Haha thanks for your patience :p

lovely serenity,

 

I had really enjoyed your review and your journalistic approach to it.

However, this review has been going on since Aug 2014! And is so intermittent in your posts it feels like some of your original posts are and maybe are out of date now. I so wish you could have compiled your report in a shorter amount of time but understand you are away at college.

It is still a very valuable resource for cruisers, but it feels to me now a little like those click bate sites where you have to wait until the next page loads eventually to see the next part.

 

Again I've loved reading your comprehensive review and writing style, but please find the time to conclude it!

It's almost like when I was waiting for the next season of 24 to come out to find out the dramatic ending to the last season!

 

ex techie

Yeah... sorry about that. I have a terrible habit of putting things off and forgetting about it ><' I really should get around to finishing it.

I need more!! We have our second Alaska cruise booked for August.

Can't wait!!

Nice!! Have fun!!! :)

Cool-n-Crunch Sundae:

(This was pretty great. I love mint ice cream so this was right up my alley ^^ 8.9/10)

Skagway Chocolate Truffle Torte:

(Kinda squishy and not my style, but I'm sure someone else would like it! 7.3/10)

Poached Pear and Hazelnut Cake:

(A bit dry, but the Butter Pecan Ice cream that came with it was great 8.3/10)

Chocolate Ganche (*they probably meant Ganache) and Mandarin Curd Tart:

(This was pretty interesting, 8.0/10)

Sticky Fig and Walnut Pudding:

(A little dry but good. 7.9/10)

Butter Pecan Ice Cream:

(Delicious~ 8.6/10)

On to dessert!

Taste of Alaska Sweet Temptations: Chocolate Truffle Torte, Vanilla Panna Cotta & Poached Pear Hazelnut Cake:

7.8/10, 7.6/10 and 7.6/10

Creamy Velvety Fish Soup:

Not enough flavour for me, but maybe it's just me! 7.7/10

Crispy Garden Salad:

It's a salad haha 7.0/10

Juniper-Spiced Elk Tenderloin:

This was actually pretty good! Tender and great! 8.6/10

Honey-Mustard Marinated Alaskan Salmon:

Anything honey mustard is wonderful to me LOL 8.4/10

Roasted Pork Tenderloin:

Pork's not my thing, but the sauce was nice! 7.8/10

Marinated Sirloin Steak:

Steaks are always fantastic :) 8.9/10

They started us off with some bread with Cucumber Yogurt Dip:

Alaskan King Crab Legs:

Could use more butter hehe, nice that it's cut horizontally 8.3/10

Green and White Asparagus Spears:

These were tasty 8.2/10

Our two wonderful servers!

Trio of Salmon:

This was delicious, nice variation 8.4/10

Yellow Pea Soup:

This was alright, not too salty 7.8/10

Anyways, here was tonight's menu at Animator's Palate!

The kid's menu

As time got closer to dinner, we all split and headed back to our rooms to prep. On our way to dinner, we saw these guy in the Atrium!

While we were exploring the place, some kids were having a little toy car race in teams :)

After that, we went to Diversions to play some games and eat some snacks!

While inside the shop, I spotted something from afar.. something quite funny ^^

I pulled out my super zoom lens and found my sister waving to us and reminding me that the kid's club open hours were happening soon (I told her I needed to get back by that time to take pics of the facilities while I had the opportunity).

We headed back on board after that shop and dropped our stuff off in the room before heading over to the kid's club. Saw this in the room before going:

This was only chance during the trip that I saw that the Oceaneer's Lab (lab extension of kid's club) had open hours.