Disney Cruise Alaska Review: Day 1 – Embarkation Day

Hello, and welcome to the second post of my Disney Cruise series.

In this post, I will cover what I learned about Embarkation Day.

We travel to Walt Disney World Resort pretty often, and whenever we go, I know exactly what we are going to do and how to do it. We are proud of our way of doing WDW and wouldn’t change it for the world! Even Disneyland is pretty much familiar to us now. But, the Disney Cruise Line? We had no idea what to expect, except a bunch of people telling us it was the best thing ever.

So, I needed to research what would happen during the cruise.

CHECKING IN ONLINE

One of the first things you’ll need to do when you book your cruise (if you don’t have one already) is to create your MyDisneyExperience account. This account will follow you everywhere, from park tickets, hotel reservations, cruises, etc. I think it’s nice that the people at Disney know your history with them because whenever you need something from them they can see all the times you’ve been their client and that helps them make recommendations to what you like, etc…

Anyway, on your MyDisneyExperience account, you’ll have the chance to check in online a few weeks before your cruise.

There were two things I had questions about that I wasn’t clear on when I checked in online.

1) You can pre-register your kids to be able to attend the kids’ clubs there, choosing their preferences. What I didn’t know was you still had to go to the clubs on the first day of the cruise to check on your preferences before your kids could attend the clubs. Also, the nice lady there gave them an additional lock for their bracelet. Yes, kids get bracelets, more on that below.


2) You must choose the time you will board the ship. As a first time cruiser, I had no idea what that meant. On the website, it said you wouldn’t be let on the ship earlier, but that turned out not to be true. Actually, I don’t think anyone even checked our time once we got there. I had read that most people arrive early to be able to spend a few extra hours on the ship and enjoy it to the fullest, but most of them will already be on the ship by noon. Everybody else, like us, seemed to just get there and follow the embarkation procedure and board without having to wait for your boarding time to be called. We chose a late boarding time because we were driving from Seattle, but it didn’t really seem to matter unless you want to be the first one there.

PORT ADVENTURES

A few months before your account will show you the available excursions you can book through Disney, their costs, and schedules. Once you book them, they will automatically be charged to your credit card.

Be advised that the excursions you book CANNOT be canceled once your vacation starts. You can exchange your experience with another (and be refunded if it’s of a lesser value), or you can put your tickets on a waiting list in case someone else wants your adventure – they will transfer the tickets and you’ll get your money back.

Also, you should be aware that these adventures, although most of excellent quality, are expensive. You can always book the same adventure for less if you do it outside of the Disney account.

One thing I didn’t like about the descriptions in the MyDisneyExperience regarding the excursions, is that they don’t really describe what you see in real life, so you may think they mean one thing, but they really mean another.

For example, we signed up for the Enhanced Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan because it said the Disney characters would be in the show and it turned out Goofy showed up for less than fifteen minutes to do an exercise program with the kids. That. Was. It. I would have directly booked the Lumberjack Show with them and experience the same show without having to do it with the Disney Cruise and it would have been just as great.

One last thing I’ll say about the Port Adventures is to beware the time the ship closes their restaurants. We found the Cabanas buffet closed at 2 p.m. every day, which meant that for some adventures if you didn’t make it on board the ship on time, you had to eat on the outside fast food shops. That, or find a place to eat in town (and pay extra for it).

CHECK-IN

It was an interesting adventure just to board the Disney Wonder. The port is in Vancouver, and since you’ll be traveling from Vancouver back into the U.S., then you need to go through immigration.

We arrived at the Port by bus (we reserved a Quick Shuttle), and it parked right under the cruise ship. Our luggage was tagged with the special Disney Wonder tags and we didn’t need to drag them all over the port. The Disney crew handled them from the shuttle to our rooms.

We made a quick stop in the restroom and then up an escalator to the Disney check-in. It was a big area with different lines depending on your status with Disney. We were first-time cruisers, but I saw another line for the Disney Vacation Club members or for those people who’ve been on cruises more than once.

The line takes you to a crew member who takes your boarding pass (with your reservation number), prints and gives you your Keys to the World, which is how Disney calls their keys (my husband finds that funny every time), they take your picture and they give you what I thought was a useless number to board (useless because we never had a need for it, we just walked straight on board).

This crew member also gives each child under 18 their magic band. I don’t believe our assigned crew member had much experience. We had several issues with our reservation.

1) My Key to the World showed my husband’s picture. My name was on the key and my picture was in the database, but it didn’t connect to my key. Three separate people tried to fix it during the cruise and only the last one was successful. It was a hassle. For example, if my husband checked out from the ship to go into a town, my card marked that I was already out and they didn’t want to let me out!

2) My son’s magic band was mixed up with my daughters. Basically, both magic bands read they belonged to my son. They fixed that before we boarded the ship on a computer (we, once more, had to stop and waste a few minutes to get them to fix a problem they had created).

3) My daughter’s magic band could open the cabin’s door, but my son’s magic band couldn’t. We never lined up at Guest Services to fix this problem. We decided it wasn’t that important.

After you get your Keys to the World, you need to hold it with your passport to go through immigration. It works just like the airport, you fill the information on a screen, you get a ticket and then you go see the immigration officer.

All through this, there is a path you just follow, with several crew members helping you along the way in case you don’t know where to go next.

When you’re done with immigration, you scan your Key to the World (which is when all the problems above showed up) and finally you get on the ship. A crew member there asks for your family name and they announce you. Although most people there are minding their own business, it does feel nice to be welcome into the boat like this.

LANYARDS

The first thing I notice was how MOST people on the ship wore a lanyard around their necks.

I don’t like lanyards because they hurt my neck, but the first hour I bend my Key to the World card. Not just that, my son lost his card right away.

They have several stores on board and they sell lots of lanyards. We got this one at the store on the ship and I paid $50 for three of these:

Now, if you don’t want to spend that much, there are options available on Amazon or other places. Just look around.

       

       

       

I found it very useful and never lost my key. Besides, when you leave the ship to explore the towns, you need to take your driver’s license (or an ID) to get back on board and it fit perfectly in the little pocket, too. I highly recommend it.

FIRST MEAL

It took us about an hour from the time we got off the shuttle bus until we stepped on the Disney Wonder. When we checked in, they told us our cabin would be ready at 1:30pm. We boarded at 1:30pm. The first thing we did was to go visit our cabin.

Our luggage wasn’t there yet, but we could see some bags already waiting outside some staterooms. Ours came soon after and we never felt like we needed them before they were there.

After we freshened up, we went up to Deck 9, which is where the buffet restaurant, Cabanas, is located. Tritons, the full-service restaurant, is open when they let you on the Disney Wonder, but it’s full unless you are one of the first people to board.

We later realized we weren’t fans of Tritons anyway and we preferred the buffet restaurant.

INTERNET

The Disney Wonder left the port at 4 p.m., which meant after our first meal, it was still static.

One of the first things we tried to do was connect to the ship’s WiFi.

For some reason, some of us could connect easily and some of us couldn’t. There is a desk where you can fo with connection issues and I had to go line up there.

REMEMBER TO DOWNLOAD THE DISNEY CRUISE APP BEFORE YOU BOARD THE SHIP.

My mom didn’t have it downloaded and we could never download it with her connectivity. We had to wait until we got to the second port, where the internet was stronger, to download it for her. By then, she missed our family messages and the activity schedule.

At first, I worried about the kids because they can’t create a MyDisneyExperience account if they are under the age of thirteen. Not to worry, once you connect to the cruise’s internet network, they don’t need an account. They will need a special number you’ll get from your own account to connect them.

Whatever you see on the app before the cruise is NOTHING like what you’ll see once you connect to their network. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to access it until you’re there.

There is NO free WiFi on the Disney Cruise. You have to pay for it.

You get a few MBs of data free when you sign into the WiFi, but you never know how much data your phone uses when it’s idle. You need to modify the settings on a LOT of things to stop them from leaking data. I didn’t think of it and ran out of my few free MBs in about an hour and I never used it for anything, the apps on my phone consumed it without my knowledge. It shows how much we depend on technology, right?

Disney offers a few data plans. They are EXPENSIVE. Not just that, they are SLOW. My husband had to take care of a few things regarding his business and was going crazy. He’d spent a couple of hours each time we got to a port to work. Whatever he consumed on the port wasn’t cheap and it wasn’t efficient. Especially because he needs to download big files most of the time.

As for my kids and I… we got a forced detox from electronics.

If you read my blog, then you know I’m a writer. You’d think this cruise was perfect to write, right? Unfortunately, no. My husband used my computer to work. Since he logged in into an account he created and kept a lot of things open there, I didn’t dare log out. I wouldn’t have that computer if not for his business, so I just forgot about writing and stuck to reading.

Here’s the book I read and finished:

KIDS CLUBS


My kids didn’t really like the Oceaneer Club.

I think the kids’ ages is something that must be considered when planning your trip.

My daughter was 12 years old at the time of the trip, which meant she could enter the Oceaneer’s Club/Lab (for kids 3 to 12) and also Edge (the club for tweens ages 12-14).

My son was 9 years old at the time of the trip (he would have been 10 in two months). I hear that Edge sometimes makes exceptions for siblings who are 10 years old. My son wasn’t ten years old yet. This difference meant they needed to go to Oceaneer’s Club/Lab if they wanted to go together. Well, it turns out they felt too old for it, but couldn’t go to the next club together.

What we did do, was to give them sign out privileges (which you can do since they’re 8 years old), to let them wander and explore the ship on their own.

This caused other problems. All they did was go on their own to watch movies and eat (and not vegetables, I need to point out).

Now, I’ve heard there are A LOT of kids who really enjoy going (and some who just have to go), but it wasn’t for my kids. Maybe one day, if we ever go back, they’ll be able to go to a club for older kids and they’ll like it more. In the meantime, it was a little disappointing.

I mentioned before how all kids own a magic band. They charge you for this magic band. The magic band is theirs to keep if they want or you can choose to return it at the end of the trip and get your money back. We returned it. We have a few Walt Disney World magic bands and they are forgotten or lost. We didn’t feel we needed this souvenir.

We got this paper when we returned them which to us was the perfect souvenir:

DEPARTURE

The ship is full of life by the time it’s time to leave the port. We all go to Deck 9 and 10 (the top and outside decks on the Wonder) for the farewell party. They gave us cardstock Mickey Mouse gloves to wave goodbye to everyone who isn’t lucky enough to go with us.

Deck 9 is filled with crew members asking us if we want something to drink. Note that everything they offer is for sale. If you want something that’s included you must get it yourself.

My husband bought the special 21-ounce beer mug they offer for $16 which he later used to refill during the trip. In the end, he took the glass mug home as a souvenir. Regular 16-ounce beer is about $8. You didn’t need to carry the heavy mug around, either. Once you were done, you asked any crew member and they gave you a green token in exchange for the mug. We could later use the token to get another 21oz drink for the price of a 16oz drink. If you were not at a bar or a restaurant, then they gave you a 21oz plastic mug.

During the wave-good-bye celebration, there’s music and the Disney characters come out and big Mickey Mouse hands pop out of deck 10 to help with the party. It’s pretty cool.

FIRST EXPLORATION

After that, you are free to begin exploring the ship and join in the scheduled activities. You don’t have a lot of time, though. At 6pm, your show/dining experience begins. If you chose first sitting, then you go to dinner at 6pm in your designated restaurant and then to a show. If you chose second sitting, then you go to the show first and then to dinner.

Here’s the first flyer, called Navigator, we got when we first checked-in. It includes the shows scheduled for your entire stay:

Our first show was a magician. He was funny and really good. We were really impressed. The kids loved him and they attended a special presentation he gave on card tricks the next day.

After the show, we always had about 45 minutes to freshen up before dinner. The dinner schedule was on the Key to the World:

On the key card, you can see your dinner time and your assigned table. The letters under that mean which restaurant you need to go to. TP was Tiana’s Place, TR stood for Triton’s and AP was my favorite, Animators Palate.

After dinner, we chose to sleep, but there were activities until 12am/1am each day for most ages!

Next week, I’ll talk about my experiences on the first day at sea!

Cheers!

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