1st Alaska Cruise of 2022! Our Honeymoon Cruise 5/16/22 - 5/23/22 (Updated 7/14/22)

[Peanato1]

Thank you for writing this report! We sail in September and I am counting the days.

No problem! I know you'll have a great trip.

 

[Peanato1]

Enjoying everything so far. Embarkation Day sounded a little stressful with the testing and knowing where to go, which line to stand in.

Me and DH are the same as you, we prefer going to one of the restaurants on embarkation rather than Cabanas. Much more peaceful.

We are sailing in September to Alaska for the first time and cannot wait. Actually booked our excursions today as well, so looking forward to seeing which ones you guys did

It was a little stressful, but knowing it would be went a long way for our psyches. I hope you enjoy the rest of the report!

 

[Peanato1]

Thank you for sharing your experiences! I did have a quick question- how was the post-cruise Covid testing? We are supposed to fly home to the USA at 1:00 PM on the day we arrive back in port; was curious how organized and efficient the post-cruise testing was. We are thinking of changing our flights to the next day to avoid the stress. Any info on your experience would be greatly appreciated

It was much quicker and less stressful, but I wouldn't call it organized, lol. I'll get more into that process in that day's report. Vancouver's airport can get super crazy so I would recommend doing the express walk off if you're concerned about time. If your flight is from Canada to the US without a connection in Canada you'll have to clear customs and immigration in Vancouver and that alone took us over an hour.

 

[Peanato1]

Thank you for sharing your experience

Of course!

 

[Peanato1]

Following

Thank you!

 

[Peanato1]

We are on the July 4th sailing, so this is very helpful and I am loving reading along! Thank you!

Glad you're enjoying! Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Glad to hear it! Was the embarkation testing the same process as ours?

It was. The stress of it all was intense, but thankfully after about 20 minutes of constant refreshing of our screens, we were cleared and it was smooth sailing after that.

 

[TylerAggie]

Following! Just booked summer of 2023! Thanks for the report.

 

[HuskyGal]

Following to see how the weather held up for you! We are booked on the first Alaska cruise in May of 2023.

 

[grantclaire]

Thanks for your reports! We are sailing August 15.

 

[Peanato1]

Following! Just booked summer of 2023! Thanks for the report.

You're welcome

 

[Peanato1]

It was. The stress of it all was intense, but thankfully after about 20 minutes of constant refreshing of our screens, we were cleared and it was smooth sailing after that.

Ugh, I was hoping for everyone's sake that they would improve that.

 

[Peanato1]

Thanks for your reports! We are sailing August 15.

No problem!

 

[JohnathanS]

It was much quicker and less stressful, but I wouldn't call it organized, lol. I'll get more into that process in that day's report. Vancouver's airport can get super crazy so I would recommend doing the express walk off if you're concerned about time. If your flight is from Canada to the US without a connection in Canada you'll have to clear customs and immigration in Vancouver and that alone took us over an hour.

Thanks for the info, and thanks again for the trip report! It looks like we won't have to be tested to come back in the US now, but really enjoy your posts!

 

[sarahhchan]

I believe it was available as regional inspiration menu item. I don't remember which dining room however.

Thank you for replying!

 

[Peanato1]

Day 4 (5/17/22): Cruise Day 2 - Day at Sea

Hello everyone! Apologies for the delay, things have been a little nuts in the household but they're calming down.

I wanted to take a brief moment to discuss our stateroom 6142 which is an aft navigator's verandah room. On our previous cruises we typically stuck to oceanview rooms that were lower and midship. We decided to take a flier on this room as we had the 125% rebooking credit and a placeholder discount. It was of course every bit as well appointed and well attended to as you would expect and we would not hesitate to book the room again. It was convenient to the aft stairs and elevators and we never had trouble getting an elevator. There was one drawback which I will explain, but it did not detract from the overall experience: noise. We experienced 2 types of noise: ship noise and passenger noise. As for ship noise we were an aft stateroom so everything from the engines was exaggerated. It was most noticeable at high speeds and when pulling into port. The noise and rattling was actually enough to make one of the bedside lamp light switches rattle constantly which drove me a little nuts until we got used to it. Also, every once in a while a pipe in the wall behind the sink in the water closet side of the split bathroom would rattle louder than anything the ship produced. Wisnu explained to us that every once in a while the pump for hot water would gear up considerably and that's the noise we were hearing. All of this is just a part of cruising, especially on a somewhat older ship so we were fine rolling with the punches. Regarding passenger noise, this one I have a little less patience with and isn't specific to our stateroom, just a comment on etiquette. There was one group of people near us that was very loud in the hallways every time they passed our door. It didn't matter what time of day, everybody was going to hear their conversation. I know quarters are cramped and everyone's on top of each other, but it's not hard to at least attempt to keep it down. Another passenger nearby us I believe had the same thought process as one morning near the middle of the cruise, a woman actually came out of her stateroom around 9:00 AM to ask nicely (but still had to do it loudly to be heard by the group) for them to be please quieter in the hall as they had a child sleeping. The group completely disregarded her and one even shouted back at her that it was passed 8:30 so everyone should be awake anyway and it wasn't their fault her group was lazy. I don't think I need to call any additional attention to how rude this is and frankly if that's how you behave around other people, you don't deserve a place in polite society. Rant over.

I woke up this morning around 5:45 AM. I still had the last vestiges of jetlag but my wife seemed to have overcome it. Not wanting to wake her up, I got dressed and decided to use the walking track on Deck 4 to get in some exercise and take in the views. Today was the only day on the cruise we had what I would consider not great weather. It only rained off and on until early afternoon but it was cold and gray. Nonetheless, I loved the difference to what I normally see every day.



I went back to our room at about 8 and found my wife starting to wake up. We took our time getting ready for the day and grabbed breakfast in Cabanas. We grabbed breakfast in Cabanas most days as it was super convenient to our room. We then went down to the Walt Disney Theater for the first lecture of the cruise. They had brought an Alaska expert named Tom Hedekar on the cruise and he did 4 lectures on the cruise, of which we caught three. I loved them all and the only reason we didn't go to his last one on the last sea day is because we had another activity booked for this time. His first lecture was on the history of Skagway and the gold rush which was fascinating. I don't know if everybody felt the same way as the were a few sleepy people in the theater, but that could have been for any reason. The seas were rough that day. My wife who has never shown any signs of real sea sickness was not doing well. After the lecture we went to a nearby shop and got her some sea bands which worked like magic. Within an hour or two she was absolutely fine. After buying the sea bands my wife went back to the room to lie down and I went to a movie quotes trivia. The quotes were about 80% the same as a cruise we had recently been on so I did fairly well. The difference was there were a lot more people attending this trivia and needed to have more points available to set the groups apart, so they asked for the movie and the character/actor who said the quote. This thinned the herd considerably. I got 42 points out of a possible 50 and the winner I believe had 45. I went back to the room to check on my wife and she was doing much better. We finished watching Pirates which had gotten cut short the day before and grabbed lunch on the pool deck around 1. We were sitting near Daisy's De-lites and had the first big wildlife moment of the cruise. Someone from the bridge got on a speaker and said that whales had been spotted on the starboard side of the ship near the aft, which was exactly where we were! Sure enough, about 200' from the ship we saw a whale spouting and diving. I'm glad we were in the right spot! After lunch we went back downstairs and caught Tom Hedekar's next lecture on Alaska marine wildlife. This one was much better attended and people were also much more enthusiastic as it was less dry history-ish and more cute animals.

The next part of the day is when I would say the verandah was most worth having. We had left the open ocean and were entering the inside passage. We were on our verandah for probably 2-3 hours with binoculars we had brought just watching the gorgeous scenery go by. The captain made announcements whenever we were approaching something of note. At it's narrowest point, the channel was only a quarter of a mile wide, so we were so close to everything. This all was gorgeous and the pictures below won't really do it justice.





Continued in the next post due to picture limit.

 

[Peanato1]

Day 4 (5/17/22): Cruise Day 2 - Day at Sea Continued

Tonight was formal night so we got dressed up and headed up to watch the Golden Mickeys at 6:15. The cruise was nowhere near full so seating was plentiful. We had seen this show on our very first cruise which was on the Dream and it did not play on the cruise we had just taken 2 weeks prior on the Dream, so it was nice to see again. Afterward we took advantage for the only chance of free booze on this cruise and went to the Captain's reception. It was nice milling around and speaking to the officers while everyone was dressed up. We took advantage of the time to get a picture of the chandelier in the atrium. After whiling away some time and heading over to the French Quarter themed bar right by Tiana's place, it was time for dinner at Tiana's place.



We had already eaten here for lunch on embarkation day, but we were super excited for dinner here. Tonight wasn't the night with the full show, but our waiter let us know that Tiana and Louis would be coming out to take pictures. My wife had a silent freak out about this as Tiana is her favorite, hopped immediately out of her chair, and practically ran up to the stage to be the first in line for a picture. I've never seen her move this fast and it was lucky that no small children were in her way because they would have landed flat on their back!



After getting the picture, we went back to our seats and ordered. Again, not a banner night for food photos, but I will show all I can. My wife had the cream of spinach soup (pictured below), and the vegetable turnover (pictured below). I had the cheddar cheese and bacon tartlet, and both the turkey and sirloin steak (wanted the turkey but the sides from the steak dish so had to get both). The desserts here were a mixed bag. I had the flourless chocolate cake (pictured below) which was delicious and my wife got the berry financier which was just alright. We also got the root beer creme (pictured below). Our waiter's eyebrows raised darn near off his head when we ordered this which didn't bode super well, but it sounded interesting. Andrew was right, it tasted kind of like nothing. The texture however was super weird in a kind of fun way. It was pretty inoffensive in your mouth, but was super fun to just poke, which we proceeded to do for about 2 minutes, laughing at how weird it was the whole time. We were just being dorks, so take from that what you will.



Next up we had booked the whiskey tasting that was taking place at Cove Cafe. I will give another shout out to our service team here. We like to take our time over dinner and usually are out of there around 9:45. The tasting was at 9:30, so we let them know we needed to be a little quicker and they were right on top of it. We left dinner at about 9:20 and went up to Cove Cafe. We really enjoyed the experience, even if we didn't enjoy all of the whiskeys we tried. I can't remember the name of the woman who ran the tasting but she was from Thailand and extremely knowledgeable about all the whiskeys. We tried 4: Suntory whisky toki from Japan (nice taste but extremely burny), Glenmorangie single malt scotch (smokey, not for us), Yellowstone bourbon (really nice, we enjoy bourbon at home), and Whistlepig rye (super smooth, best of the night). They also brought up some super expensive bottles to show us such as Royal Salute scotch and Poppy Van Winkles Family Reserve bourbon, but were not offered these as they sold for anywhere between $250 and $600 an ounce on the ship (understandable why they didn't give these out at a $25 tasting). This wrapped up at about 10:00.



The whiskey was making itself known in our blood alcohol content so we decided to cut our losses and call it a night as the ship was still moving quite a bit and didn't want to chance anyone falling down, lol. We made it safely back to our room and found our towel animal for the night and a note that maintenance would be performed in our area throughout the cruise. I appreciated the note, but we didn't hear or see anything throughout the rest of the cruise, so it must have been minor.



Next up, Dawes Glacier Day!

 

[TinkLoverSam]

We were just down the hall from you in 6111, 6112 and 6113. My husband and dad also went to that whiskey tasting, I’m pretty sure they had a good time as well.

 

[greensombrero]

Enjoying your report!

When we were on the aft of the Wonder in Oct we also noticed a lot of engine noise and vibration. It is extra bad when they have all the engines running. I have to wonder if it has always been that way or just a consequence of the ship’s age though you’d never realize how old it is with how well they maintain things in general. The engine noise was kind of annoying but also kind of fun I thought. Reminded me I wasn’t in a normal hotel room at night.

I look forward to continuing to hear about your adventure!

 

[Principessa1284]

Hi! Love your report so far- we are going in July 11. Could I bother you with a few questions?
- do you happen to know what shows where which nights?
- same for dining..? (Trying to book a Palo but don’t want to go on a night with a dinner show!)
- did you have to wear masks anywhere on the ship?
- do you know if the locker rooms and rainforest room in the spa were open again? Or the laundry rooms?

TIA!!