Disney Cruise Alaska Review: Day 2 – At Sea

Welcome to the third post our of my special Disney cruise series.

Today I will go over our first day at sea (briefly). I expect this won’t be a very long post.

As I mentioned in earlier posts, you should download the Disney Cruise app before you sail. Once you connect to the DCL Guest network, a whole new world will open for you. Before the cruise, the app will show a cute Disney countdown to your cruise and your reservation details, but once you board and get connected you can see deck plans, restaurant menus, detailed scheduled activities, the weather for the day (and a little bit about the town you visit when you are in a port), and even access to a messenger feature that replaces your text messaging (and includes cute Disney emojis, too!)

I didn’t take screenshots of the app in action, but I found some here.

While at sea, you are basically trapped in the boat, so all that’s left to do is explore and join in some of the activities.

THEATERS

The Disney Wonder has three screens where showing movies is possible.

The Walt Disney Theater is the biggest of them all, it could accommodate half the passengers. It’s also the one where you’ll go for the shows. Before the shows, they play a few movies, usually new releases. When we were there they played Captain Marvel, Aladdin, and Avengers: Endgame on this big screen. The theater is nice, the seats are comfortable, and you have good leg space. This theater was my favorite.

The Buena Vista Theater is a smaller theater, but still pretty good sized. It’s made to look like a real movie theater, but the seats are smaller and you don’t have a lot of leg space. I wasn’t a fan of that. The screen is also a bit smaller than the one in the Walt Disney Theater. This theater had the most showings and it included the movies they showed in the big theater, plus some others (like Ralph Breaks the Internet or Dumbo, for example).

Finally, there’s Funnel Vision. It took me a while to understand what funnel vision was, but it’s the screen that’s on the outside deck (9), next to the kids’ pool. They showed a few movies there, too. Not the latest releases, but movies like Frozen, Tinkerbell or Finding Nemo were played there at times. Most of the day the screen shows the ocean part that the screen is covering as you sail.

The are concession stands outside the Walt Disney and Buena Vista Theaters. Everything there is for sale. Outside the Walt Disney Theater, they sell alcohol. In both concession stands, they sell popcorn and can soda (you can always go to Deck 9 to get a soda from the fountain for free). I don’t remember what the popcorn buckets were (I didn’t go to buy them, my husband did), but I believe they were $7 and the refills cost $1.50. They told us we could use them for refills at WDW or Disneyland parks, too, so we got two (one for each kid) and refilled them almost every day. Still, I wish they offered popcorn for free. It was a bit of a bummer.

The popcorn bucket

Out where the Funnel Vision is there are a lot of places to get food around the pools. There’s a pizza place, burgers, hot-dogs, soups, sandwiches, and more. You don’t really need popcorn.

ONBOARD ACTIVITIES

There were many activities on the boat while we were at sea (and also when we docked). There were activities only for kids (which took place at the clubs), for families, and for adults only.

Most family activities took place in the promenade lounge, which was always TOO full. A lot of times I wanted to go to one of those activities and… guess what? It was full! Sometimes people sat on the floor, that’s how full it was.

Whenever choosing an activity, I’d look at where the activity was before going.

Activities were fun, but not extra special. It could be to draw a character, fold napkins or towels, make crafts (like flair or puppets), coloring, scavenger hunts, or trivia games (some in the form of a tv show where you could be chosen as a contestant or remain as a part of the live audience).

Then there were the characters. Characters would appear in designated places throughout the day. They were mostly there for about 15 minutes only. They also seemed to change outfits depending on the day.

Here’s a list of the ones I saw:
-Mickey
-Minnie
-Donald
-Daisy
-Goofy
-Pluto
-Max
-Spiderman
-Thor
-Stitch
-Some princesses (Ariel, Cinderella, Tiana, Belle)

Donald looking fancy on formal day.

It looked like you had to have a ticket reservation to meet the princesses together (Cinderella, Ariel, Belle, Tiana), this didn’t happen with the rest of the characters.

WANDERING ON THE DISNEY CRUISE


On my first day at sea, I decided to wander the Disney Cruise. My husband had to work on the first day and the kids wondered about together, so I was left to wonder on my own. I walked by the different bars they have, explored the pool area on Deck 9 and 10, discovered the location of the Bibidi Bobidi Boutique, and even walked the running track on Deck 4. I enjoyed the track and took some pictures or the aft and bow.

Running track

View from the running track.

Loved this cup, but didn’t get it, unfortunately. I took a picture to remember it!

Elephant. Courtesy of Maurice, our Stateroon Host.

cheers!