Disney Cruise Alaska Review: Day 6 – Ketchikan, Alaska

Welcome to the seventh post on my special Disney Cruise series.

On this post, I will talk about my experiences during our sixth day and our visit to Ketchikan, Alaska.

I must start by saying that Ketchikan was my favorite port of call because it was small and easy to walk around. It was still filled with stores, some of which sold very expensive rocks, and it has one of the few visitor centers that actually charge to enter. I saw several people walk away once they found out they had to pay $5 when usually visitor centers have free admission and then often have a gift shop where they offer neat stuff to people to buy. Oh well, that’s how they do it down there.

LUMBERJACK SHOW

Our port adventure was The Enhanced Exclusive Lumberjack Show.


When we went to the Dollywood area in Tennessee, we went to a lumberjack show, so we knew what to expect. We chose the enhanced version because the crew member at the Port Adventures desk told us the Disney characters would appear.

We were sorely disappointed.

Our show wasn’t until noon, so we decided to walk around the town in the morning. We went back to the ship to rest and to drop off a few souvenirs we had purchased and then we went back out for the show.

This was the only port adventure where we didn’t need to gather and check-in on the ship prior to the experience. They had given us a map when we booked the adventure at the desk and we walked there. It was an easy, straight-forward walk, and we had spotted the place on our earlier walk around town, anyway.

The entrance to the building was from the back. The lady at the box office told us all Disney Cruise passengers had a special line on the back. There, they had a carp to line up under, which was great because it had just started to rain. When it was exactly noon, they let us in.

There was a concession stand when we entered, which sold a few snacks for $2 or $3 each. The announcer kept saying to go there before the show started because it would close. It took us about ten minutes to go in and find a seat before the show began.

In the meantime, we took a picture with a bear.

It rained all the time. It rained when the show started and they had us stretch (yep, stretch). Then they called Goofy out onto the stage where he led the kids who went to the front, to exercise some more. It was a bit dull, to tell the truth. Not only that, I know if those kids had known what they would be doing down there, they wouldn’t have gone.

Goofy exercised with them following the Go, You Chicken Fat, Go! program. They did this for a while. Poor kids. After that, Goofy was gone and no other Disney character showed up or interacted with the audience in any way.

Bummer.

The moral of this story is this: Do not book the Enhanced Lumberjack Show, the regular will suffice.

Fun Fact: We later took a picture on board the cruise with Goofy. He was dressed just like he was at the Lumberjack Show and he began to exercise like he’d done. It was nice.

The show was still fun and the lumberjacks were amazing. We laughed, we cheered, and we had a good time.


I think it’s one of the most popular things to do whenever you visit Ketchikan.

SALMON


Ketchikan is known for its lumber and salmon. When we went back to the ship for lunch, we met one of our servers from dinner at the buffet and she told us where to go to see salmon. Unfortunately, it was raining pretty hard by then and the ship was set to sail in less than two hours, so we decided not to go. If we’d known before, we could have included it in our morning walk. Oh well. Some other time.

We still bought salmon at one of the many salmon shops around town and we also bought a salmon souvenir (a bottle-opener magnet in the shape of a salmon with the words Alaska engraved on it).

SHOW, GAMES, AND DINNER


That evening we went to see a funny juggler before dinner, and then headed out to our least favorite restaurant, Tritons. 


Before dinner, we decided to go to one of the activities we’d seen before but hadn’t paid much attention to. We joined the You Want to be a Mouseketeer? show on Deck 4. It was pretty cool. They gave you a number before coming in and they chose one each time they had a round. The selected participant sat down next to a crew member where they asked them five Disney trivia questions.

No one ever lost in this game. If the contestant didn’t know the answer the crew members helped, the audience helped, or there was a choice to lower the number of multiple choice answers from four to two. We went there as a family and had the best time trying to answer the questions even if we weren’t the contestants.

We found out there that during the cruise, there were several activities like this and the winner gets a Mickey medal. Perhaps if we’d attended more of those activities we would’ve had a chance to win one of them. Something to look forward to for next time.

cheers!