Texans in Alaska--Leaving Tomorrow!

MissDaisyofTexas

DIS Veteran
Joined
Nov 24, 2007
My family of 5 is so excited to be on the final countdown to our Alaska cruise in June!

I have really enjoyed pouring over excursion reviews and trip reports from others. Huge thanks to the people who wrote detailed trip reports from the Alaska 2016 season, including @anricat, @Geomom, @lunarsongbird, @franandaj, @Malia78 and more!

This is us:
gaylord ice.jpg

My kids will be 6, 9 and 13 when we sail.

We live in McKinney, Texas (suburb of Dallas). We booked two connecting 9C porthole rooms on Deck 2 as soon as the cruise dates were open to book. I've been dreaming of this cruise for 6 years!

In the interest of time, since I will also be blogging about the cruise and it takes a long time to upload photos here, I'll be posting most of my trip report from my blog. You can read all the details of our plans in Vancouver and in the ports here:

Texans in Alaska Pre-trip Report

I'd love your feedback and comments! :)
 
Can't wait to read along! I'm so glad I was able to help. :) I read so many trip reports before our cruise as well and they were super helpful (and got me unbelievably excited) so I was more than happy to pay it forward.
 
Just read your pre-trip report and have some thoughts...
  • Day 1: 11am wheels down means you will be at your hotel by 1pm. Early June has daylight until 9:30PM!!!
  • Day 2: Also check out the historic mini-Railway when in Stanley Park. Pay attention to aquarium show times to get best value for when to arrive at the aquarium. How do you plan to get to the aquarium.... some may choose to combine the park trip with Hop On tours to explore the park and downtown core.
  • Day 4: Like the aquarium... check online at the website to see when the Grouse shows operate to get best value
  • Day 5: Smart choices for whale watches out of Steveston (Storybrooke). You avoid the rough waters for the whale watches departing from Vancouver.
For that mid-June trip.... A little congestion warning....
  • June 6 Def Leppard concert
  • June 9 Future: Nobody Safe Tour
 
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Just read your pre-trip report and have some thoughts...
  • Day 1: 11am wheels down means you will be at your hotel by 1pm. Early June has daylight until 9:30PM!!!
  • Day 2: Also check out the historic mini-Railway when in Stanley Park. Pay attention to aquarium show times to get best value for when to arrive at the aquarium. How do you plan to get to the aquarium.... some may choose to combine the park trip with Hop On tours to explore the park and downtown core.
  • Day 4: Like the aquarium... check online at the website to see when the Grouse shows operate to get best value
  • Day 5: Smart choices for whale watches out of Steveston (Storybrooke). You avoid the rough waters for the whale watches departing from Vancouver.
For that mid-June trip.... A little congestion warning....
  • June 6 Def Leppard concert
  • June 9 Future: Nobody Safe Tour

Thank you for your feedback, xlxo!

I like the idea of Capilano in the late afternoon/early evening. I'd love to get my younger two kids accustomed to the time zone change before the cruise.

I'm afraid the mini Railway will be closed on the day we are there. Maybe we can swing back by over the weekend. I was just planning to take a taxi to the aquarium so that we can spend time walking around the park.

Great tip for taking the whale watching cruise out of Steveston, I'll look into that.

Wish I could go to Def Leppard!

Thanks again.
 


Sounds like an amazing trip! My daughter and I did this in August 2015 and loved it (she was 9 at the time). We did several of the things you are planning on doing. We really enjoyed Stanley park and we stayed at the Hyatt too. It was an easy walk to catch the bus to the park and it was a short drive there. We ended up taking a taxi back because we had plans for that night and needed something quick to get back to the hotel. We also did the horse drawn carriage ride and it was a nice way to see a little bit of a lot of the park without walking a ton - that place is huge!! Make sure to talk to the staff - they were great and gave us some good tips on what to see in Vancouver. We ended up going to Steveston one day too - my daughter is a big Once Upon a Time fan and they film there and around town. Just FYI... a neat little town but a good 30-45 minutes from Downtown.

One thing we did that I was glad we did was pre purchase tickets for the aquarium. The lines to get in were really long when we got there and it was nice to skip them. We also did a behind the scenes tour with the sea otters which was awesome! It wasn't super expensive either.

We did the same tour in Skagway - love the sled dog puppy cuddles! We also were able to add the ziplining there as it is the same company. Absolutely amazing!

In Juneau we did a whale watching tour, did the Mt Roberts Tramway and still had time for lunch at Tracy's Crab shack. If you like crab don't miss it! In Ketchikan we did a helicopter tour and also had time for the lumberjack show. If you don't hit the one in Vancouver it is a fun time!

Have an amazing time. We loved our Alaska cruise!
 
Sounds like an amazing trip! My daughter and I did this in August 2015 and loved it (she was 9 at the time). We did several of the things you are planning on doing. We really enjoyed Stanley park and we stayed at the Hyatt too. It was an easy walk to catch the bus to the park and it was a short drive there. We ended up taking a taxi back because we had plans for that night and needed something quick to get back to the hotel. We also did the horse drawn carriage ride and it was a nice way to see a little bit of a lot of the park without walking a ton - that place is huge!! Make sure to talk to the staff - they were great and gave us some good tips on what to see in Vancouver. We ended up going to Steveston one day too - my daughter is a big Once Upon a Time fan and they film there and around town. Just FYI... a neat little town but a good 30-45 minutes from Downtown.

One thing we did that I was glad we did was pre purchase tickets for the aquarium. The lines to get in were really long when we got there and it was nice to skip them. We also did a behind the scenes tour with the sea otters which was awesome! It wasn't super expensive either.

We did the same tour in Skagway - love the sled dog puppy cuddles! We also were able to add the ziplining there as it is the same company. Absolutely amazing!

In Juneau we did a whale watching tour, did the Mt Roberts Tramway and still had time for lunch at Tracy's Crab shack. If you like crab don't miss it! In Ketchikan we did a helicopter tour and also had time for the lumberjack show. If you don't hit the one in Vancouver it is a fun time!

Have an amazing time. We loved our Alaska cruise!

So glad you enjoyed your cruise! Thanks for the tip about pre-purchasing the aquarium tickets. We will do that!
 


Reading along.

We travel a few weeks before you do and we are even doing some of the same excursions. I too am looking so forward for our trip!

Can't wait to read your full report!

Laura
 
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