Our Wonderful “Very, Very Lovely” Seattle & 9 Night Alaskan Cruise including Sitka & Hubbard Glacier! ~ with pics ~ July 2019 ~ Completed!

I'm enjoying your TR. :lovestruc This itinerary is on my "to-do" list but it looks like DCL are going to keep me waiting a bit longer for this itinerary to come out again.
 
I'm enjoying your TR. :lovestruc This itinerary is on my "to-do" list but it looks like DCL are going to keep me waiting a bit longer for this itinerary to come out again.
Thanks for reading! I'm sorry! Hopefully DCL will get to Sitka and Hubbard Glacier again in the near future after next season. I'm wondering if the Hawaiian cruises are limiting DCL to the 7 day cruises next year? I'm sure it's scheduling issues since these 2 ports take longer to get too.
 
Day 10
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Hubbard Glacier






One of the reasons we specifically chose this particular itinerary was because of Hubbard Glacier. I was especially sad about missing this when we cancelled our 2017 cruise. I was really looking forward to see the glacier today.

I woke up early and lay in bed pondering how late I could get up and still get a washer in the laundry room. Since we had five days of travel before the cruise, I needed to wash a few things to last the rest of the week. I finally got up at 7:45 AM and headed down. When I got there and purchased my tokens, the screen stated that 3 machines were available. Unfortunately 1 of the machines was not working and 2 were full of wet laundry. According to one of the people in the laundry room at the time, the machines had stopped 20 minutes prior and nobody had removed their wash yet. I certainly wasn’t going to move their laundry, though I know some people do! Oooh! I waited for another 10 minutes. Several people came in looking for machines and we told them that they weren’t available. Then a women obviously who had just finished her workout came running in to empty both machines. Really, her workout was obviously longer than the machine cycle. She could have planned that better? Anyway, I was able to get a washer, load my laundry and go back to my room to get a shower.

As soon as I got back to the room, I went to the map to see where we were.



We were scheduled to be at the glacier by about 10:30 AM. I have to tell you that I was getting pretty worried. When we got up, we looked out the verandah and saw nothing! Yep, we were totally socked in with fog. I was beginning to doubt that we’d see much today.

We went to get a quick breakfast at Cabanas. I went and moved my clothes from the washer and found an open dryer. There were 6 people waiting for my washer. I’m glad I went down early. The dry cycle took about 47 minutes.

DH decided that he would go down with DD to the Cove Café today to see about getting a latte.



This time DH got one too.



In a switch, the baristas asked DD for her KTTW card before they made her drink. Here’s why!



Shortly after 9:00, all of the sudden we were out of the fog and the bank was behind us.



By 9:40 AM we were starting to see ice float by.





The fog was lifting a little. I went down shortly before 10:00 AM to the laundry to get my dry clothes. Well, while the clothes were hot, they were nowhere near dry. I used another token for another cycle and discovered that the dryer did not spin. Of course, there were no other dryers available. I called guest services to have somebody come fix the machine. I was given credit for my laundry token, but after waiting a bit, nobody came to fix the dryer. I eventually took my damp clothes back to our room to try again after we left the glacier. In the meantime, I put a sticky note on the dryer saying that it did not spin, so others wouldn’t use it.

A little after 10:15, we went to the front of the ship, with it seemed like everybody else, to watch us approach the glacier. It was misting and cold.

ckr

The servers were going around providing coffee and hot cocoa. They were also selling a DCL tervis type cup.









Then the glacier came into view.



Not that you could see it through the humanity!







After about half an hour of being jostled and cut in front of, I decided to move down to deck 4. There was hardly anybody down there and I had a great view of the glacier, especially after the captain turned the ship so we could view it from the starboard side.





This particular glacier is an anomaly in that it is still growing. In fact, as recently as 2002, the glacier blocked of Russell Fjord before the river blew it out.



I couldn’t believe how close the captain was getting. It was slowly clearing up and you could see the glacier better and better. Because of the cloud cover, it was very easy to see the magnificent blues of the ice.



The captain rotated the ship maybe 2 or 3 times and we would all run to the viewing side when he turned. You could hear the loud thunder like sounds coming from the glacier. You could also hear cracking and groaning noises as the glacier calved. I was able to catch several photos of the calving.

























To be continued . . .
 
Day 10 (Continued)







An amazing thing happened. The longer we were there, the brighter it was getting. The sun actually came out.







Shortly before 12:00 DCL crew members hoisted some ice up from the bay and took it up to deck 9. We walked back up there to get some pictures. The crowds had definitely thinned.





We saw several cast members getting their own photos.



Close to 12:30 we started heading out of the bay as the next cruise ship was heading in. I could have stayed there all day watching that glacier. What an experience! We headed to our neighbor’s stateroom on the aft of the ship with their huge verandah for some wine and cheese & crackers to watch us leave Hubbard behind.





The next ship was coming in. You can really see how big this glacier is with some perspective.





We enjoyed some of the scenery, waterfalls and snow on the way out of the bay.





DD got her picture with Pluto up on deck. All the lines were quite long for the characters up there.



At 1:00 PM, I went down to the laundry room to try to finish my laundry. Luckily, I was able to find a dryer and a washer. They never did fix the other dryer. Anyway, laundry started, we headed to Cabanas to get some lunch.

At 1:30 PM, DD went with DNM and DNC to the Princess Gathering.



At 2:45, DNJ and I went down to the Crown & Fin Pub for Movie Quotes Trivia. DH took care of getting my second load out of the dryer for me. He eventually joined us, but not before I chatted a few questions to him to answer for us! We didn’t do too well, 16 out of 25, but Jo makes it fun. At 4:30 DNC and I went with DD and DNM to see Tinker Bell.

We went down at 5:00 to get our picture taken in front of one of backdrop in the atrium. The Brace Boys were playing.



Dinner tonight was in Tiana’s Place but we had the Frozen menu. We noticed throughout all of our dinners that when Mari gave her recommendations from the menu, she would always say “Very, very, lovely”, so I borrowed it for my trip report title!











I forgot to take pictures of the dessert menu, but I ordered the Brownie off of the kid’s menu any.



Dinner service was a bit faster, but still not fast enough to be finished by 7:30 PM. DH, DNJ and I wanted to go play 80’s Music Trivia. DH decided he didn’t want dessert and went to get a table for us in the pub. DNJ and I finished dessert with just minutes to spare before the trivia game started.

We didn’t do very well, but again had a lot of fun.

The show tonight was “Frozen: The Musical Spectacular”, DD was very excited as she hasn’t seen it yet. We got good seats and DD enjoyed it very much.



Rather than go to watch “Match your Mate”, DD and I decided to play Disney Trivia with Dustyn at 10:15 in the D Lounge. We scored 21 out of 25.

We had an early day in Sitka tomorrow. Here was our towel animal.



What can I say about Hubbard Glacier except that it was phenomenal and exceeded all of my expectations! I was never so happy to see fog lift and the sun come out in my life. It was such an incredible feeling when the glacier would calve and the ice would fall into the water. It was a fantastic day aboard the Disney Wonder!


Next: We finally see bears!
 
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Close to 12:30 we started heading out of the bay as the next cruise ship was heading in. I could have stayed there all day watching that glacier. What an experience! We headed to our neighbor’s stateroom on the aft of the ship with their huge verandah for some wine and cheese & crackers to watch us leave Hubbard behind.

Oh my goodness, what a special bottle of wine! That is from my friend's winery in Woodinville, WA! We've enjoyed many bottles of Coalesce! (Not distributed to stores (yet!) - you have to know them, or know of them, to get it!)
 
Oh my goodness, what a special bottle of wine! That is from my friend's winery in Woodinville, WA! We've enjoyed many bottles of Coalesce! (Not distributed to stores (yet!) - you have to know them, or know of them, to get it!)
Our neighbors brought the wine on with us. 🍷 The bottles were left over from the wedding weekend before the cruise. What a small world! 😊

Here's a better picture.

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Hubbard Glacier looks amazing! Do you know if they offered the glacier explorer tour for that day? I loved that tour in Endicott arm and it would be so cool to do it at Hubbard, but I'm guessing it depends on the distance and availability of nearby tour boats to meet the Wonder and take guests to the glacier.
 
Day 11
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Sitka






We had no scheduled excursions today. Since we had been to Sitka before, we felt pretty confident getting ourselves around town. Our plan was to get a taxi to the Bear Fortress and back to town to explore.

I woke up about 6:45 AM. Either we were going really slowly or we were docked. We were on the opposite side of the dock from last time.







We went to Cabanas for breakfast and then took some pictures from the top deck before heading to the free shuttle bus to town.







Our first eagle sighting of the day.







We exited the ship on Deck 1 Aft at about 8:15 AM.



We made it pretty quickly on to a bus that let us out in front of the Sitka Historical Society a short 10 minutes later.

While we didn’t see an abundance of taxis, there was a shuttle that would take you to Fortress of the Bears and the Raptor Center for a fee. We had seen the Raptor Center, but the bus would bring us back to downtown Sitka. We purchased tickets for the 9:00 AM shuttle. We ran into a lot of cast members wanting to ride the shuttle. Unfortunately, some didn’t have tickets and had to catch the next shuttle, but they had very limited time to explore town. DH sat with Doug Jones, the naturalist onboard the Wonder. The bus driver gave us some information about Sitka and the various landmarks we were passing.

We arrived at the Fortress of the Bears.



The fortress rescues brown and black bears. Currently, no release of bears back into the wild in Alaska is allowed. Unfortunately, a lot of bears get killed if they are injured or become a nuisance. They repurposed part of the old pulp mill. The area is very small, they are currently building a new entrance building that will include ticket booths and gift shop as well as a formal entrance into the bear enclosures.

The area was packed by the time we got there, but a couple of tours left shortly after we arrived.

The bears loved playing in the water with the various types of enrichment. They also get fed fish and berries to promote hibernation.





















They also have some rescued black bears in an enclosure above the brown bears.







An eagle was visiting.



We were there for an hour, but you really only need 45 minutes to visit. We got back to the Historical Center and walked around.













We headed to the Bayside Pub for lunch around 11:00. DD and I split the halibut fish and chips.



To be continued . . .
 
Day 11 (Continued)

We walked downtown and did some shopping.





Mount Edgecombe, Sitka’s volcano, was shrouded in clouds.



We walked down to the Pioneer’s Home.













We caught the shuttle at around 12:45 PM back to the ship.





We promptly went up to deck 9 and I got some ice cream.



I took some pictures.







We sailed out of Sitka a little after 3 PM. We sailed right by Mt. Edgecombe, now out of its shroud.





We were back at Triton’s for dinner.







I had the Alaskan King Crab legs and Parmesan Encrusted Chicken.











I got the chocolate lava cake (ice cream came with it too) and DH had a Mickey Ice Cream bar.





The entertainment tonight in the Walt Disney Theater was Buckets n Boards.



They are couple of guys out of Branson, MO. They are hilarious and really good with the kids. They were really having a good time with the sign language interpreter and incorporated some of the signs for “cheeseburger” and “grandfather” into their show. They also put a well-placed video of a screaming goat that had the audience roaring with laughter.


After the show, DD and I went down to Azure to play Intuition with Jo. She gave us a letter and then we would have to name things she stated that started with that letter. It was a lot of fun.

After the game, the Walt Disney Stage Cast designed a show called “And the award goes to. . .” to showcase their talents.



Several of the cast members sang songs from various Disney Broadway shows and movies, including:

Beauty and the Beast – “Be Our Guest”

Newsies – “Something to Believe In”

Little Mermaid – Broadway

Tangled – “Mama Knows Best”

Hunchback of Notre Dame – “Out There”

Lady & The Tramp – “He’s a Tramp”

Aida

Hercules – “Where I Belong”

It was an incredible cast and they sang beautifully. The show was very entertaining.





After the show we called it a night. April surprise DD by putting Disney Princess sheets on her bed!



We were also told to move our clocks back one hour tonight as we would be entering British Columbia.

Our towel animal.



It was a very nice relaxing day in Sitka. It was nice to see something we hadn’t seen before and to walk around. It would be nice to come back and visit on our own someday.


Next: A whale of a good time!
 
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Caught back up with your report and your pictures are stunning! So many eagles! I need to book Alaska soon.

Jill in CO
 
Caught back up with your report and your pictures are stunning! So many eagles! I need to book Alaska soon.

Jill in CO
Thanks Jill! The eagles were amazing this trip and I was lucky to get some really good photos of them.
 
Day 12
Monday, July 15, 2019
Sea Day 2






We woke up to another beautiful day. Granted, we lost an hour of sleep. We had breakfast at Cabanas and then went back to the room to start packing. I didn’t want to wait til the last minute, especially since we had a port day before Vancouver.

I was a bit out of sorts and disappointed that we hadn’t seen as many whales from the ship as we did on our last Alaskan cruise. I really should have scheduled more whale watching excursions. Oh well.

Anyway, after packing a little, I went up to the Cove Café sitting area to give April a chance to clean our room for the day. Several people were there relaxing, reading and watching for whales. Of course, I didn’t bring my DSLR and only had my phone for pics. Finally, we started seeing some. They were a couple that spent the longest time just slapping their tails.







I could have stayed all day, but we had a Wine tasting to get to and I knew I needed to eat something. Everybody else was grabbing pizza at Pinocchio’s, so I grabbed some chicken fingers and sat at a table by the windows looking for more whales.

At 12:15, we headed down to the Cadillac Lounge for our tasting. We were the first ones to check in and got a table by a port window. Again, I wanted to be able to see whales. Craig was our host for the Wine & Chocolate Pairing tasting. He also hosted this tasting on our Panama Canal cruise and he is really very knowledgeable and informative.

Our beverages and chocolate were set out for us. We had a rose champagne, a red wine, a port and a whiskey.









I am proud to say that I finished each glass and all of the chocolate!



Anybody ever notice the doors, even they are smiling!



It was a very enjoyable hour.




While we were at the tasting DD took DNM to Jack Jack’s Diaper Dash!



They also participated in the Character Dance Party. They had a blast!




Then DD went and got herself her last latte of the cruise. This time she got Pascal.



After the tasting, we all went to our neighbor’s stateroom since they had the huge verandah on the aft of the ship and continued to watch whales and other wildlife for a few hours and enjoying more wine.



The whales were having a “whale of a good time” way off in the distance slapping their fins and tails and even breaching.





We also had dolphins swim by.







We saw birds



And puffins.



I believe we even saw an albatross.



In the middle of whale watching, DD and I went down to Disney Tunes Trivia at 3:00 PM. We didn’t win, but had fun.

Dinner was back in Animator’s Palate tonight. It was the drawing show night, so we all were given our drawing paper and a marker.









I had a High Tide for my drink.



I had the White Cheddar and Broccolini Soup and Chicken Schnitzel.



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Dessert.







I don’t have a picture, but I had the Celebration Cake.


To be continued. . .
 
Day 12 (Continued)

The main show tonight was Broadway Stars Set Sail with Kara Lindsay from “Newsies” and “Wicked”, and Kevin Massey from “Tarzan.” They also happen to be married and expecting their first baby in November. They were very cute as they sang songs from their shows and told us their story.





After the main show, DD and I went to play The Feud with Jo in Azure. Our side won and we had a great time playing!





If you know Jo, you know that she and Natalie are very good friends. During the game, Natalie came on stage and very quietly came behind Jo and surprised the living you know what out of her and then ran off the stage. Jo must have jumped 3 feet and then proceeded to chase Natalie out into the corridor. She came back breathless and stated “I think I killed her!” It was very funny.



The adult show tonight was Bucket N Boards. They were great and again had fun with the sign language interpreter. They played recorders with their noses and played a song on their guitar and ukulele. They sang so fast, they tested to make sure the sign language interpreter kept up. She did! They were hilarious.




It was time to call it a night.



I was so glad to finally saw whales from the ship. We definitely got lucky on this day. Everybody was amazed at how many whales were seen slapping tails and breaching.


Next: A treasure found!
 
Orcas!! So jealous! I saw a ton of Humpbacks in Monterrey Bay last year but the orcas were elusive!

Jill in CO
 
Really enjoying your trip report - Alaska is also on my bucket list. Looks like you all did some great port adventures. Glad that you got to see the whales, how cute is that puffin!
 
So glad that you got some whale sightings today! They made up for their lack of visibility earlier in the cruise. :thumbsup2

Yeah, I just need more patience! 😉 It was a great day though!

Orcas!! So jealous! I saw a ton of Humpbacks in Monterrey Bay last year but the orcas were elusive!

Jill in CO

Unfortunately, no Orcas, just Humpbacks. Those were black and white dolphins. I didn't see any Orcas this trip and was sad about it. 😞

Really enjoying your trip report - Alaska is also on my bucket list. Looks like you all did some great port adventures. Glad that you got to see the whales, how cute is that puffin!

Thanks for reading!
 
Day 13
Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Victoria





When I woke up this morning, we were still moving. But it was shaping up to be an absolutely beautiful sunny day!





So this is where we went last night.





Today we were stopping in Victoria, British Columbia. I had been to Victoria before but DD and DH have not. I visited the Butchart Gardens before and DD and DH had no interest with such a short time in port, so we had no plans other than to walk around and explore.

We were up relatively early to get breakfast at Cabanas. DD and I were planning to go to Kara Lindsay’s and Kevin Massey’s Q & A session at 9:30 AM. After breakfast I finished packing as much as I could before the Q&A.

At the Q&A, they sang a few more songs and answered some questions. It was very nice.



Afterwards, we were able to meet them and get some pictures autographed and a picture. (DD has since become a big Newsies fan!)



At 11:00 AM we met our neighbors and headed off the ship. Again, we were on Deck 3 Midship. Rather than take the complimentary shuttle, we opted to walk to Fisherman’s Wharf for some lunch. It was an absolutely gorgeous day!









So you don’t get lost.

by Wendy, on Flickr



We walked through some small neighborhoods.

Wendy, on Flickr

We walked by the Coast Guard.



We then walked through a park.







Along with shops and restaurants, they also have many house boats here.

We found a place to get some halibut fish and chips.







Then we walked around the wharf a bit.

2















We then left the wharf to head to Downtown Victoria.





To be continued. . .
 

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