Sailing Alaska With Disney Cruise Line – Part 2: Adventuring in Ports of Call

Hi, I’m Katie! Are you new here? I’m a travel advisor with The Magic’s Yours Travel! I send clients on vacations of all kinds all over the world but my specialty is Disney travel. Want to work together? Check out my website katievtravel.com to request a vacation quote or email me at katiev@themagicsyours.com with any questions. I’d love to make your vacation dreams a reality!

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In July 2017 I cruised with Disney Cruise Line to Alaska. This is part two of a two part series about this trip. In this blog I will cover everything I experiences while in the Alaskan port. the ship and the second post will cover everything about the ports we visited during this cruise. 

You can read part one here: Alaska With Disney Cruise Line – Part 1: Onboard

Itinerary:

We flew from Maryland to Vancouver where we stayed for three nights before boarding the Disney Wonder to embark on our 7-night cruise to Alaska. This was my first time visiting both Vancouver and Alaska. 

The cruise itinerary was:

Day 1 – Embark From Vancouver

Day 2 – At Sea

Day 3 – At Sea – Endicott Arm 

Day 4 – Skagway 

Day 5 – Juneau

Day 6 – Ketchikan 

Day 7 – At Sea

Day 8 – Disembark In Vancouver

The Basics

On any cruise the ports along your itinerary are a major part of deciding to take the cruise. For Alaska this is even more true.

When you arrive to a new port there will be a scheduled time for when you can start leave the ship and a scheduled time for “all aboard” when you need to be back on the ship. The amount of time in each port varies. 

Getting back to the ship on time is crucial. They are not going to wait for you if you are running late. Make sure to pay attention to the all aboard time before you disembark and allow yourself plenty to time to get back onboard. You do NOT want to be left behind and have to catch up with your ship. Which in Alaska can involve very expense flights or boat charters.

Excursions / Port Adventures – These are activities booked through Disney Cruise Line and are typically guided tours, or experiences.

Excursion options typically include all of the highlights of a given port. You will find ones geared to families, adults, those who want to take it slow, or those who want to do something really physical, animal experiences, historical experiences, and so much more. 

If you book on your own excursion with another tour company you could find a better price. However, if you book through the cruise line and something goes wrong that makes your tour group late to get back onboard the ship the cruise ship will wait for you or make sure you are taken care of at Disney’s expense. If that happens on a tour you booked yourself with an outside tour company you are out of luck. You also have the extra comfort of knowing that the cruise line has vetted these tours and deemed them enjoyable and safe for their passengers. 

Disney Exclusive Excursions – On some itineraries there are even excursions exclusive to Disney Cruise Line passengers and these sometimes include Disney characters joining you during your excursion. For example you can pan for gold in with Donald Duck.

My Experiences In Vancouver

My cruise started and ended in Vancouver. There were options to book port adventures on embarkation and debarkation days. We didn’t do that instead we arrived a few days early and had some time to explore Vancouver on our own. Here are some of the highlights.

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park – This is a very popular attraction and here you will find a large suspension bridge and a whole course of treetop walkways and bridges. The suspension bridge was a little nerve wracking but thrilling to walk across. The treetop walkway course was a lot of fun. The tress are so big and it feels a little magical to be up high up in them walking around. I would recommend this for anyone who is not afraid of heights. They offered a shuttle from around downtown Vancouver so we were able to use that to get to the park which was about 30 minutes away from the city.

Gastown – A historic district of the city where you will find lots of shopping and dining with Victorian atmosphere. This is home to the famous Steam Clock a historic grandfather clock that stands on a street corner and is powered by steam. 

Granville Island – We hopped a water taxi over to Granville Island. This shopping and dining district had a more commercial feel than Gastown but was quite endearing. The large Public Market has lots of food offerings, and there were tons of stores to explore. Plus there were lots of restaurants to choose from with many featuring seafood. 

Stanley Park – A fantastic place for a drive and even better for a bike ride which is what we did. The park is on a peninsula and you can bike the perimeter and get great views of the bay. Along the way you can stop and head into the forest full of huge trees or stop and see some totem polls. We did just that and it was a lot of fun. There were several options for bike rental in the area and our hotel actual offered the free use of bikes to it’s guests so we were able to bike right on over to the park as it was not too far away. The park also offers tours, horse drawn carriage rides, beaches, a small train, dining, and an aquarium. 

Vancouver Harbor –  Located right next to the Cruise Terminal, Canada Place, the harbor is a great place for a nice walk with waterfront views. Don’t miss the Olympic Cauldron left from the 2010 Winter Games. The views here are great of both the city and the harbor. 

Skagway

Our first stop was in the tiny town of Skagway where the ship pulled right up to the town and we could walk from the ship into the main part of town in about 5 minutes which was great. Before our planned excursion started we explored the main street area of the town which had the look of the old mining town it once was but is now full of shops for tourist. We saw everything that interested us in about an hour and a half. 

Next up was our Port Adventure, we received a paper with instructions in our room the night before telling us where to meet our group. We went back onboard and we met in the designated location on the ship. We were then walked off the ship to a very cute street car which was part one of our tour.

We did the White Pass Railroad & Skagway Street Car City Highlights (SW50) the street car drove us around the town and told us the history of Skagway as a gold rush town and what it is like to live there today as a community based around summer tourism. This took about a half hour after which we were dropped at the train station. At the train station we boarded a vintage rail car and set off on a 95-minute trip up the White Pass & Yukon Route an engineering wonder first built in the 1890’s this trip offers amazing views of the mountains and surrounding landscape. You can get a great view from your seat inside the train car but we spent most of the visit on the exterior platform between cars. It does get colder the higher up you go so be sure to wear layers and bring some gloves and a warm hat. This train ride was a big highlight of the whole trip and I must have taken a thousand photos. It was a real look into the Alaskan wilderness and it was amazing.

When the train arrived in Fraser, British Columbia, Canada we hopped off and got onto a minibus which drove us back to the train station in town. On the way we got some more info about the area from the driver and made a few stops for photos. One of the stops was at the “Welcome to Alaska” sign which was a great photo-op. Back at the station we visited the gift shop and then walked back to the ship which took about five minutes. 

I would recommend this excursion highly, really any of the excursions that include the train ride as there were a few different ways you could ride the train. But if you have issues with heights this might not be for you. The train is basically on the side of the mountain. If you are doing a one way train ride make sure to ask when you board which side of the trail will have the views if you plan to sit for the majority of the ride. 

Juneau

In Juneau we were able to walk off the ship onto the doc but then had to grab a shuttle bus for a 10 minute drive into a transportation hub for the city. Juneau was by far the largest of the three and most resembled a small city to me. We did not have a Port Adventure booked for Juneau but had planned to visit the Mendenhall Glacier on our own. The cruise ship shuttle deposited us at a transportation hub and visitor center area where we are able to get a ticket for a shuttle bus to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center.

Once we arrived after about a 20 minute ride we were dropped right in the parking lot of the glacier visitors center. From there we walked over to the short path that would take us to the glacier. The pathways here were paved and easy to navigate. You were able to get right up to the water to view the glacier. It was very cool to see a glacier so close! You could feel the temperature dropping the closer you got. There were park rangers around who could answer your questions. There was also a waterfall near the glacier. When we were done we turned around and went to the visitors center and explored some of the modest exhibits they had and a small gift shop. 

We then hopped back on the bus and went back into the center of Juneau where we walked around and saw some shops and grabbed a very basic lunch at a tourist restaurant themed to the Alaskan wilderness, the Red Dog Saloon. Then we made our way back to the ship. 

I enjoyed seeing the glacier a lot and getting there on our own saved some money and was not difficult. If an excursion is not in the budget I would recommend visiting the glacier on your own. But it you want to get closer of a more in-depth look at the glacier or simply maximum ease of travel look into a Port Adventure.

Ketchikan

This was another port were we could just walk right off the ship and into the center of town. In size and scope Ketchikan was between Skagway and Juneau. Instead of being an entire tourist town like Skagway, Ketchikan had just a portion that was themed to its historic roots that catered to tourists, Creek Street. This area was fun to explore and provided us about an hours worth of fun after our excursion.

For our Port Adventure in Ketchikan we went to the Rainforest Sanctuary and Totem Park (KE11). After meeting in or designated spot on the ship we took a tour bus about a half hour to the Hoth Rainforest where our guide met us. We then took a slow and not very long walk through the rainforest with frequent stops for the guide to tell us about what we were seeing. The end of the walk is on a raised walkway in a large open space where you can see lots of bald eagles in their natural habitat. 

Then you enter the Raptor Center where you can see bald eagles and other birds of prey who are being rehabilitated. You were able to get pretty close to them here and that was really great. We also were able to walk through an old saw mill that is now used for totem carving where we saw two artists creating a totem poll. 

I enjoyed seeing all of the components of this tour but the walk through the rainforest I had hoped was going to be more of a hike not a stroll on a path with lots of stops. If you want a slowed paced peek at the rainforest then I think this would be a good pick for you. But I would not pick this tour again for me. I would go with one of the Port Adventures that went further into the rainforest or an alternative adventure. 

Weather & Packing

Weather in the summer in southern Alaska is really hit or miss. We had a relatively dry week with only one day where it rained for most of the day. But you could just as easily get a week with a lot of rain. The temperatures were in the low 70’s during the sunniest days into the low 40s at night. But the only time I was outside at night was on the top deck and that means extra wind chill. Layers were key when packing and dressing. Bringing gloves and a warm hat around with you was a must. Waterproof shoes and a rain jacket with a hood are must packs in my opinion. If possible a higher-end waterproof jacket is a great investment for this trip and life. I ended up with one from The North Face. For shoes I recommend waterproof hiking boots and waterproof socks even if you don’t plan on really hiking.

Overall

My favorite of the three Alaskan ports was Skagway, the train experience was fantastic and the whole look of the town is what I imagined a small Alaskan town to be. 

Vancouver was a great port to have started at with a lot of options for things to do, you could take a trip to just Vancouver alone and have a great time. 

I liked booking Port Adventures through the cruise line because it did give me peace of mind that we would not miss the ship and that we were in good hands. However I did not find it challenging to be on our own in Jueanu. If I cruised Alaska again I would be comfortable going either way. 

Overall as a destination I really enjoyed Alaska. The scenery is one of a kind and so different from other U.S. travel destinations. Cruising to Alaska was certainly the easiest way to see different parts of Alaska. It also makes traveling with kids or a larger group much simpler.

The one downside was that we didn’t get a ton of time to explore further into Alaska. If I were to visit again as a second trip I would think about doing a land stay coupled with a cruise. Several cruise lines offer that type of itinerary as a land and sea package. 

My top suggestion is to really dive deep into what you want to do at each port and have a plan before your cruise then book those excursions early.

Read about the onboard experience here: Alaska With Disney Cruise Line – Part 1: Onboard

That was our Disney Alaska cruise! I hope you found this interesting and informative. Considering a cruise? I’m a travel advisor and would love to work with you! Check out my website katievtravel.com to request a vacation quote or email me at katiev@themagicsyours.com with any questions. I’d love to make your vacations dreams a reality!