A Disney Wonder... Vancouver, Alaska, Seattle and Mt. Rainier June/July 2020!

Cruise Day 6... Ketchikan 11:15-7:45 pm
This day is a late start to our day. I am sure the kids will be sleeping in after such an early day yesterday. Our tour today doesn't start until noon so they will have plenty of time to rest up. Scott and I will more than likely still be up bright and early (it's just our norm... I have a hard time sleeping in until 7 am!) and we will most likely do our coffee and breakfast at Cabanas and then just meander around the ship exploring and gazing at the scenery.
Ketchikan is our son's Christmas gift! He asked to go salmon fishing. Of course, I asked around the boards and found some reputable names-checked them out on Trip Advisor and decided to contact Captain Jerry with Fish Ketchikan and we booked a 4 hour private salmon fishing excursion.
Your Guide to Fishing In Ketchikan
Captain Jerry Meacham

Meet Captain Jerry
Guided charters for salmon and Halibut fish. Captain Jerry says “I guarantee we catch fish”.
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Our salmon fishing excursion ends around 4 pm so will will still have time to do a little exploring of Creek Street and Stedman-Thomas National Historic District. We will need a picture with the Ketchikan sign!

Stedman-Thomas Historic District

Black and white photo of a street lined with  shops with mountains in background.

Stedman Street in Ketchikan, circa 1910.

National Register of Historic Places

The Stedman-Thomas Historic District in Ketchikan, Alaska was a cultural melting pot for Asians and Pacific Islanders working in Alaska's fishing industry from the early 1900s to the 1940s. The historic district was one of the earliest neighborhoods in Ketchikan and played an important role in the economic history of the city and in the lives of the district's residents.​

We love to visit anything that falls under the National Park service. Not sure if we will have time to do anything else here but we sure do love to explore!
Of course, we will need to be sure we have enough time to clean up before dinner. That's why we are doing 2nd seating for this cruise!
 
Cruise Day 7... Sea Day
Funny how it makes me sad to write about the last day of our cruise and we didn't even actually get on the ship yet!
What am I most excited about today? Just soaking up the ambiance of the ship and the view as we sail back to Vancouver! We always love Sea Days! There is always something to do. We love catching movies in the Buena Vista Theater, chasing down some characters, shuffleboard, doing animation classes, watching movies on the deck while eating pizza and ice cream, sitting by a window sipping coffee, playing cards and just watching the scenery go by. There never seems to be enough time on a Sea day to get everything done. Of course, to end our cruise right we will take in our last Walt Disney theater production and enjoy our late dinner! Till we meet again always makes me sad. It means the end is very near! Thankfully, we still have 3 more nights of vacation after we get off the ship!

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We don't have another DCL cruise booked yet after this one. We do have a placeholder booked that we plan to use November 2021. We have sailed on the 3 night Very Merry time cruise right after Thanksgiving for the past 4 years but I want to take the kids to Universal this year instead! We will be certain to book a placeholder on this cruise that we can use on the new ship, Disney Wish. And if the plans change... that's OK, we can get the deposit refunded. ! Just never leave the ship without a placeholder!
 
Thanks for sharing your planning info, it has been very helpful! We were so close to the Stedman-Thomas Historical district last cruise and did not realize it, so have added that to the list of things to explore while in Ketchikan. And, we too got confirmed with Rum Runner in Juneau!

Enjoy your cruise!
 
Thanks for sharing your planning info, it has been very helpful! We were so close to the Stedman-Thomas Historical district last cruise and did not realize it, so have added that to the list of things to explore while in Ketchikan. And, we too got confirmed with Rum Runner in Juneau!

Enjoy your cruise!
So glad it is helpful! Planning is so much fun! I depend on the Dis so much for help with all of my trips Disney or not! It is time to repay the favor!
 


I was checking out binoculars for our trip. We still have the 2 pair from our very first trip to Alaska 20 years ago and they are perfect... small pocket sized, clear and easy to use. But now there are 4 of us and I wanted a pair that would work with my phone. I saw a recommendation on a fb Alaska cruise group that I belong to and decided to check into them a bit more thoroughly. I ended up looking at a few pair and ended up ordering a pair of Gosky binoculars. These are much bigger than the other two pair that we have but do have the phone mount that I want. Ordering them now will give me the time to play with them. They should be here in a few days thanks to Prime!

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Binoculars update: They have been returned.

I was very excited about these binoculars! I wanted a pair that had a phone attachment and honestly they were quite neat! I played with them for about 15 minutes and realized that I would need 3 hands to be able to steady them, focus them and take a picture. By the time I would snap the picture... I am sure that whatever it was that I was taking a picture of would be gone.
Here are some pics that I took with the phone/binoculars set up... just in case you want to see.

This is the a picture with my I phone completely zoomed in as far as it will go! You can't see any tree branches through the window. (birthday decorations are up for my son's b-day celebration)
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The picture below is with my iPhone completely zoomed in BUT attached to the binoculars. Now you can see those tree branches! Pretty cool right? They actually work just like I had hoped. They are just a bit inconvenient!
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They were nice for just around the house but in the end they were too big to carry to Alaska packing carry on only.

New plan: I think I will upgrade my phone to an I Phone 11 Pro this spring... and perhaps carry my SLR camera with zoom lens and filter to take distance pictures.
 
Air Canada has me baffled. While on an Alaska Cruise FB group tonight I saw that lots and LOTS of people were complaining about Air Canada making lots of changes today. I pulled up my email and found two emails from Air Canada this morning concerning our flight to Vancouver. One was an email letting me know that I was getting a refund for a seat. What???? I opened it and it was only for $20. Ok.. so at least they didn't cancel one of my seats. Then another email stated that they made a seat change to my 11 year old son's seat so now he is sitting in a row all by himself and not near us. Ok, so it's not the end of the world but really? You just change my 11 year old's seat to another row on the plane?
I tried to log on to my account with Air Canada but it just spins and spins and spins. The wait time for phone is currently 90 minutes! Obviously, they emailed a lot of people today! So I just wanted to check flight times and be sure there weren't any additional changes so I went through the motions of booking just one seat and found our flight. No time changes. Whew.
Then I thought that I would look at the seat selection just to check and make sure that if they changed the plane that the configuration was the same. That's when I got upset. All is the same AND my son's originally selected seat is open and available! Wait... there are only TWO other seats booked on our side and area of the plane! The plane is the same. The times are the same... and our original seat is unoccupied (as is 80% of the plane)! So WHY did they change my son's seat assignment? What did it get them? Were they bored today and thought they needed some phone calls? Oh boy.
I read some bad reviews about Air Canada. Others on the DIS told me they aren't any worse than any other airline. Right now... I would not recommend them. They better find an open seat for our son with our family! There are literally only 50 surrounding seats near us... I imagine it won't be that hard... if I can ever log in or get through on the phone! Oh... and the price of the flight is about $90 pp less right now! Grrrr. Right now Air Canada is NOT on my good side.
 


Air Canada update:
After a wait time of 93 minutes the voice on the other end of the phone was super friendly and helpful. Still baffled by the move a bit. So...the plane DID change and that is why they moved the seat. Apparently on the new plane the middle seat that was my son's became an end seat with only two seats in the row. The cost of that seat was $5 more to select so they moved him to another ...END seat in a different row and refunded us the seat selection fee of $20. Hmmm. The agent moved our son and my seat to the row in front of my daughter and husband and refunded all of our seat selection fees! In the end, we basically have the same seats as before ...just a different row AND they refunded us $90.
This super friendly, caring and helpful agent won me over and all is good again in the Air Canada flight to Vancouver world!
 
I checked on Grouse Mountain's site today and see the summer 2020 schedule is out for Breakfast with the Bears. Booking isn't available past February yet. I read that lots of people recommended this so I keep checking for the possibility of booking this for the day before our cruise.
But... It isn't available everyday in June including the dates that we are in Vancouver.
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Off the Ship Day... Stanley Park, Amtrak Cascades to Seattle
We are not in a hurry today to get off the ship which is not normal for us! Usually we grab an early breakfast at Cabanas before we get off the ship because we are in a hurry to get to Walt Disney World. But this time we have 2nd seating dining and are not in a hurry to get off the ship. We are planning on going to our dining room breakfast in the morning and taking in our last moments on the Disney Wonder.

Once we get off the ship we plan to leave our luggage at the port so we can go explore Stanley Park and enjoy a late lunch before boarding our train to Seattle. I found that West Coast Sightseeing will store our luggage for us at the port so we are hands free for the day.
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We are still debating exactly how we will explore Stanley Park... just casually walking around, rent some bikes or a tour? I saw there are a few bike companies have some cool tours! We do love a tour that includes lots of information. We really only have a few hours as we will want to be at the train station around 4 pm. And lunch? We will want to grab a late lunch before we pick up our bags so we will not want to stray too far.

Around 3:45 or so we will pick up our bags and grab a cab to the train station for our 5:45 pm train to Seattle. We really wanted to take the train as part of the travel experience. We have done the train from Fairbanks to Alaska twice before, enjoyed the train from Venice to Rome and have also Amtraked from Philly to Orlando once. We enjoy the train and we are hoping for good weather so that we can see all that this train journey has to offer!

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We booked business class tickets and will arrive at the King Street Station after 10 pm.

We booked the Embassy Suites by Hilton Seattle Downtown Pioneer Square for the night. It's location is super convenient to the train station! It was a bit pricey (price for our date is not reflected in the screenshot below) for the 1 night but who wants to make their way to a hotel that late at night? Just across the street from the train station sounds wonderful! Check out is at 11 am the next morning and after this full day we just may enjoy our room until this late hour in the am... or maybe we will head out early to explore Seattle for the day before heading to Rainier late this afternoon.

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I love vacations! If I could drop everything and afford to go away every weekend...I WOULD! This morning I booked 7 nights at our favorite DVC resort... Animal Kingdom Villas Jambo House! We thought about heading down to the World to hit up a Not So Scary Christmas Party event but the early August dates don't fit into my dd's summer marching band schedule... so I just had to find some dates that work!
After all..planning is half the fun!
 
Seattle Day... it's a short one
I wish that we had more to spend in Seattle! Our trip is set specifically around my husband's vacation time at work. We were originally going to spend an extra night in Seattle to give us a full day to explore the city. However, life happens and we were told that our DD's high school band trip would be a Bowl game over the winter holiday break and DH, Scott, would need to take his extra personal days at this time so that we can join her. BUT... of course, we have to wait until mid February to be sure that enough marching band participants sign up for the trip and it is a GO. Scott had to choose vacations last November and his personal days needed to be in by January 1 so we decided to use just one P day for our summer trip and use his remaining 2 for the winter break. (I booked a DVC room for this same time just in case the band trip falls through...no risk if I have to cancel.)

Anyway... back to Seattle! We will be arriving late on the train from Vancouver and staying at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Seattle Downtown Pioneer Square for the night. It is literally just across the street from the train station so it is super convenient. Still, we will be heading to bed late. Check out is at 11 am and with our two kids who love to sleep in...I am not expecting to get out and explore much before that time. If we do get out earlier... yeah! but I'm not expecting it.Our children are both Asian, dd adopted from China and ds adopted from Taiwan, so our first stop will be lunch in the Chinatown International District. We will stroll through the area and check out a few sites looking at menus along the way. Hopefully, we will be able to just pop in somewhere and grab some lunch and then pick up a bubble tea. I saw some recommendations for Mike's Noodle House... It's a hole in the wall and cash only.


Location & Hours
Map
Located in:
Atlas Apartment Building
418 Maynard Ave S
Seattle, WA 98104
b/t Jackson St & King St
Chinatown, Chinatown International District

Also saw some recommendations for Harbor City Restaurant...
Visit Us:
707 South King Street
Seattle, WA 98104

After visiting Chinatown (or before if we get out of the hotel before check out time!) we will check out the Klondike Gold Rush-National Historic Park Visitor Center. Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is located in the historic Cadillac Hotel building. Look for the Cadillac Hotel sign on South Jackson Street. The Visitor Center contains interactive exhibits and displays about the Klondike Gold Rush. Free video presentations are shown in the park's theater. We won't spend much time here... but It's a historic park and I can't miss one so close to me!

Finally, we will head to downtown to check out Pike Place Market, the Original Starbucks, *Beecher's Handmade Cheese shop (see below for info), *Three Girls Bakery (see below for info) looks good too to grab some sandwiches to go for later and some cookies and pastries, and grab some pictures with the Space Needle! Literally... we just may be eating our way around Seattle! We will have about 5 hours before we will head to the downtown Seattle Alamo location to pick up our rental, grab our bags and head out for the 2 1/2- 3 hour drive to Mt. Rainier!

We will just be content with whatever we can fit in during our short visit to Seattle... and know that we will need to return again in the future to fully experience everything this city has to offer.

*Beecher's Handmade Cheese Shop

Pike Place Market
1600 Pike Place, Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 956-1964
Store & Cafe
Everyday: 9 AM - 6 PM

*Three Girls Bakery
1514 Pike Pl Stall #1, Seattle, Washington 98101, United States
(206) 622-1045
Hours
Bread Window: 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily
Lunch Counter: 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily
 
Seattle to Paradise Inn Mt. Rainier
After we pick up our car at the Alamo Downtown Seattle we will be on our way to the Paradise Inn at Mt. Rainier!
It will be about 4:30-5 pm or so when we leave Seattle to head to the Inn and it looks like traffic will be heavy. I just used Google maps for directions and it tells me 2 and 1/2 hours. I expect more with traffic. We will be sure to just relax and enjoy the drive.
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I also found this route ... so we will just have to see where the Waze app takes us. Does anyone have a suggestion for the best route?
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I also looked up sunrise and sunset times for our days at Rainier and it looks like a 9 pm sunset. We would like to arrive by dark and then enjoy our night at the hotel so we can enjoy a very full day of exploring the next day. Sunrise is about 5:30:sunny:
 
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Paradise Inn at Mt. Rainier
We are spending two nights at this historic NP Paradise Inn that was built in 1916. It has recently been updated but still remains historic and thought to be one of the great lodges of the West. I have already told you about our love for National Parks so this was a MUST for our stay! No TV... ... no phones...No Cell service...just trails in the shadow of The Mountain that are pure paradise! Of course, we are hoping that over the course of 2 days we will be able to catch a glimpse of Rainier towering above this lovely inn. WE know it will be crowded during the summer months but we will be arriving late so we are hoping the crowd will have dissipated.
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We have 2 nights booked in an Annex room with a bathroom... many of their room share bathrooms so I made sure to book one with our own. I can't wait to try the restaurant at the Inn. It doesn't always get glowing reviews but it IS part of the experience so of course we will eating there!

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Rain or shine we will be using our one full day at Mt. Rainier National Park to do some hikes and check out the Reflection Lakes. I'll have to take a look at some of the longer hiking trails but we can start with the easy and short Nisqually Vista Trail!
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We truly do not have enough time to fully explore this park as we will need to check out super early in the morning for the 3 hour drive back to the airport for our 12:30 pm flight. But staying 2 nights allows us the full day in the park. Work totally gets in the way of vacations!
 
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Our DCL Alaska cruise is officially paid in full! Disney Wonder here we come!
...And now we are watching every YouTube video on our TV that we can!
 
It's the final countdown to online Check in! I have my list of bookings that I can't wait to make ready... I just have to wait till 12 am to book them! Hoping to book the Dawes Glacier excursion, Palo Brunch, Disney Character breakfast (my daughter actually asked for this!) and the Princess and Frozen gatherings (beacuse I LOVE the characters!)
 
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Today was booking day! What did I stay up until midnight to book?
Day 2... at sea... VIP Character breakfast @ 8:30 am and a mixology class
Day 3... Dawes Glacier Day... Palo Brunch @ 10 am and the Dawes Glacier Excursion @ 3 pm
Day 7... at sea... Princess Gathering at 9:15 am and the Frozen Gathering @ 9:45 am, a Chocolate and liquor tasting (I think @ 12:30 pm ) and a mojito tasting (@ 2 pm)

We have been watching so many vlogs on You Tube! It sure is making us super exited for Alaska on the Wonder!
 
Enjoying seeing your planning process. We're heading to Alaska next summer and can't wait! I've already been planning and researching away!
 
Enjoying seeing your planning process. We're heading to Alaska next summer and can't wait! I've already been planning and researching away!
So glad you like it! Planning is so much fun! I actually go a little crazy! I admit it! I love the whole research aspect of it (I am a librarian/media specialist) !
we’ve been to Vancouver and Alaska twice before so we are trying to plan different excursions and the trip to Rainier!
I already have 2021 booked too... Time to plan that one out next!
 
So glad you like it! Planning is so much fun! I actually go a little crazy! I admit it! I love the whole research aspect of it (I am a librarian/media specialist) !
we’ve been to Vancouver and Alaska twice before so we are trying to plan different excursions and the trip to Rainier!
I already have 2021 booked too... Time to plan that one out next!

I just realized I have so much to plan for this summer's vacation and I'm totally focused on next summers. And somehow we always seem to have a Disney World trip a few months before or after our cruises. My husband made me swear we'd take a year off from Disney and he's regretting it now. But this summer we're going to Gatlinburg, which we've never visited, and I am looking forward to vacationing with some friends and seeing somewhere new! (Plus, we like National Parks too so we can check another one off our list!)

ETA: I have family in Vancouver so spent a lot of time there growing up, but it's been ages since I did anything touristy so I'm hoping to combine time with family we rarely see and time with family...quite the delicate balance!
 

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