In this post, we (finally) recap our time aboard the Disney Wonder. An Alaskan cruise aboard the Disney Wonder is a bucket list item for many people, Disney fans or not. We lucked into a good rate that allowed us to check off this box a little earlier than we’d expected. It was a fantastic trip, and I’m excited to share with you how it went. So, without further ado (this post is only about 5 months late already), let’s talk about our Alaskan cruise aboard the Disney Wonder!

About This Post + Related Posts

This post recaps our 7-night Alaska cruise aboard the Disney Wonder. It starts way back at the beginning, with why we booked this cruise, before covering everything from booking the cruise, to picking activities and excursions, to our time onboard, to debarkation. As such, it’s a pretty long post.

Even at that, this specific post doesn’t cover everything. Throughout, we link to related posts about this trip. Originally, I’d hoped to have it all as a single post, but it proved to be too unwieldy. As a result, most of the linked posts are “quick guides,” meant to give you an idea of the basics of some topic—dining, kids’ clubs, character greetings, for example—in about 500 words. So if you see a “quick guide” linked, feel free to click over to it for a quick read and then come back to this post.

If you don’t want to wait until they pop up in this post, here’s a full list of the quick guides:

We also have a look at the ship in a deck-by-deck fashion that covers how to navigate on the Disney Wonder and where everything is located.

But this is where most of our talk about our experience ended up. If you’re looking to hear how our trip went, you’re in the right place. If you’re looking to see who we’d recommend this cruise for, you’re in the right place. So let’s get on with it.

Why We Booked This Cruise

If you’re new to Disney cruising, we have a Guide to Picking the Best Disney Cruise. That post talks through the different ships and itinerary options, for example.

Emily and I have been on a few Disney cruises before, but all on the same itinerary—the 3-night Bahamas cruise on the Disney Dream. And all without Zoe. A couple years back we were excited to finally get back to cruising when the Disney Wish was announced. We were booked on one of the first Wish cruises when the ship got delayed. Our Wish cruise was cancelled, and everyone booked on the cancelled cruises was offered a 50% discount on a future cruise departing by December 31, 2023.

I think it’s fair to say this was the biggest mea culpa I’ve from Disney that I’ve ever seen. The discount was applicable across all stateroom categories and cruise itineraries. We could have simply used the discount for a rescheduled Wish cruise, but we wanted to get a little more value out of the discount if we could, and the Disney Wonder Alaska cruise had been on our bucket list for a while.

Alaska cruises on the Disney Wonder are not cheap. The 7-night itineraries for 2024, for a family of 3, start at $4,196. But everyone says a verandah room is a must-do for an Alaska cruise (our thoughts on this shortly), so already you’re looking at closer to $10,000. Getting 50% off this cruise would be serious value.

Moreover, that savings is really nice for an Alaska cruise because you’re probably going to have huge expenses on excursions. Excursions were NOT covered by the 50% discount, but it’s nice to have some serious savings in the bank already before you start booking excursions.

The personal kicker for us was that we were able to find an itinerary shortly after Zoe turned 3 years old. Three is the minimum age for using the kids’ clubs—the Oceaneer Club and Oceaneer Lab at that age. Altogether it wound up being a nice balance of factors that came together to make this a good pick.

Our Alaska Disney Cruise Itinerary

As of this post, all the Disney Cruises that go to Alaska depart from and end at Vancouver, Canada. There are a few different itineraries, from 5 to 9 nights in length, visiting some combination of: Ketchikan, Glacier Viewing (Stikine Icecap), Juneau, Icy Strait Point, Sitka, Skagway, and Victoria (Canada).

We settled on the following itinerary:

Day 1 — Embark from Vancouver
Day 2 — Day at Sea
Day 3 — Glacier Viewing (Stikine Icecap)
Day 4 — Icy Strait Point
Day 5 — Juneau
Day 6 — Ketchikan
Day 7 — Day at Sea
Day 8 — Debark in Vancouver

As a bit of an aside, our itinerary actually changed after booking. Day 3 was originally a viewing of the Dawes Glacier before being changed to the broader “Stikine Icecap.” The ship wound up going to the South Sawyer Glacier. Best I can tell, this change was to give Disney more flexibility in exactly which glaciers they view, and it didn’t at all impact our experience.

As for picking your itinerary…I don’t want to get too into the weeds here because things like your personal schedule and pricing are going to be bigger factors than the specific itinerary. Basically, you want a balance of days at sea, ports that you’ll enjoy just walking around in, if you choose, and ports that offer excursions you want to do. If you have to see the Mendenhall Glacier, probably don’t pick an itinerary that skips Juneau, for example.

For us, we felt like two days at sea was a good number, and we expected to just enjoy walking around Ketchikan. This left us the three middle days for excursions.

Booking Our Disney Alaska Cruise

We book our cruises through our travel advisor, Lauren Quirk at Travel With Character LLC. I’ve written elsewhere about why I book Disney trips with a travel advisor, but it’s worth adding specifically for cruises that it’s nice to have help booking excursions and onboard activities.

With Lauren’s help we were able to settle on a Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah with a rack rate of $12,152.66. With our 50% discount, the total came to $6,076.33.

Was our verandah room on the Disney Alaska Cruise worth it?

We’ll discuss our room in more detail when recapping the cruise itself, but I’ll offer some thoughts on the “worth it” question first.

The downside to the discount we received is it makes the “is it worth it…” question a lot more complicated. Disney Cruise Line prices are higher than industry average, and I’m not enough of a cruise expert to opine here. I’ve taken four Disney Cruises. I’ll take more. It’s clear I think at least that Disney’s lowest prices are worth it.

With that context in mind, I’d say our Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah on this itinerary was definitely worth the $6,076.33 we paid. But I’d also say it was definitely not worth the $12,152.66 rack rate.

We made use of our verandah. It provided for a few photo opportunities and “wow” moments. Plus Zoe was still napping at the time, so it was nice to be able to sit out there during nap time. Otherwise, we prefer to be in the rest of the ship. Zoe loved the kids’ clubs, we like the bars and walking the ship. I’d even just find cozy spots around the ship, sometimes with a view, to read. There’s just so much going on outside the room and off the ship that I couldn’t justify the $5000+ premium verandah rooms cost.

I have to say as a personal caveat that I’m simply not a “sit and be awe of good views” kind of person. I think you’ll easily find people who say “sitting on our balcony watching the Alaskan scenery go by was worth every penny.” But I much prefer to be out among the other people on the ship taking in the view.

View of the South Sawyer Glacier from our balcony

Booking Our Disney Alaska Cruise Excursions

With the cruise booked, the next step is booking your onboard activities and excursions. This is different from and usually earlier than check-in, which we’ll discuss later.

Disney Cruise Activity Booking Windows

Disney Cruise Line activities, including “specialty adult dining, Port Adventures, [and] spa services” open for booking 75 to 123 days before your cruise, depending on what level “Castaway Club” you are. Castaway Club is the Disney Cruise loyalty program. If this is your first Disney Cruise, you aren’t a Castaway Club member yet, and activities will open 75 days before your cruise.

Once you’ve sailed a single cruise, you become a Silver Member, and as you hit the required marks you can progress to Gold, Platinum, and Pearl.

Now, I want to point out that if you think you’re going to take multiple Disney Cruises in a lifetime, you should at least be open to some strategic thinking for your first one. Specifically, you might want to take a short cruise (usually Bahamas) before a longer one, like the Alaska cruise. (Even more specifically, you want to take it more than 90 days before the longer cruise.)

This serves two purposes. First, you’ll get to find out if cruising / Disney cruising is for you. Take a 3-night Caribbean trip over a weekend to see if this is something you’re into.

Second, once you take one cruise you’ll be Castaway Club Silver and at least a step ahead of the general public when it comes to booking activities. This may or may not be huge, but if you’re planning a one-in-a-lifetime Alaskan Cruise, every bit helps.

And again, I prefaced above—I’m not saying that just because you’re considering an Alaskan Cruise you should rush out and do some other Disney Cruise first. But if multiple cruises are clearly in the cards for you, it’ll make sense to pay attention to which order you take them in. (And, of course, it might make sense to do Alaska before some other cruise if that other one has higher demand, must-do activities for you.)

Disney Alaska Cruise Onboard Activities

Onboard activities can be some of the toughest things to mentally sort through when it comes to Disney cruises. There isn’t a well-organized, comprehensive listing of these. The DCL website has a listing here, and that’s where you should start.

Unfortunately, you’ll see that if you click into, for example, “Beverage Tastings” you’ll be taken to a list of different tastings, but no schedules / pricing etc.

To the best of my knowledge—and it’s something I hope changes or that you experience differently—you can’t even see the full schedule for bookable onboard activities until your booking window opens and you are paid in full.

Since some of the activities are quite popular, your booking day can be a pretty chaotic race to find and book things you’re interested in. For example, Royal Court Tea—a character / tea experience—sells out really quickly. Consulting with Google or the various forums might help you narrow down what day of the cruise it will be so that you can book it quickly when your time opens. (Again, is this all too much? I agree. Book with a travel advisor.)

You’ll also want to pay attention the the cancellation deadlines for any activities you were hoping for but didn’t get. You might see cancellations at any time, but particularly as that deadline nears, you’re more likely to see people change plans.

Spa treatments, adult dining (Palo on the Disney Wonder), and nursery services are also things you’ll be planning to book at this time.

Finally, there are onboard activities that are not bookable ahead of time. These are things like trivia or arts and crafts that don’t really fill up and that you’ll just see in the schedule on the app when you get onboard.

A Quick Aside About the Disney Cruise Line App (And Internet)

The Disney Cruise Line app basically has two modes—pre-cruise and during cruise. Before your cruise, the app basically functions the same as the Disney Cruise Line website, including options for managing your bookings.

Once onboard and connected to the onboard wifi, the app becomes the hub for any information you’ll need. You’ll find complete listings of all the days’ activities as soon as you’re onboard, along with hours for all the stores / theaters / restaurants, and so on. There’s also a messaging service available within the app while you’re onboard.

The app’s messaging service is complimentary. If you’d like to have internet access, though, you’ll need to pay for an internet package. Unfortunately, our trip was expected to be among the last ones before the Wonder upgraded to the newer internet hardware / software, so my internet experience isn’t worth writing about. (Suffice to say you shouldn’t expect to have internet outside of the ports unless you pay for it.)

Picking Our Alaska Excursions

Excursion options are available for browsing on the Disney Cruise Line website. Disney calls excursions “Port Adventures.” Some flexibility is going to be required, though, because specific availability will vary by cruise. If you’re concerned, this is yet another reason to consider working with an expert travel advisor on your cruise.

The biggest restriction for us picking our Port Adventures was Zoe’s age. At only 3, the options we could do together as a family were limited. We could have done separate excursions, but that’s just not really how we travel.

Browsing the Port Adventures can be tedious. I’m sure it’s something a travel advisor could help with, but honestly I think the variety is great enough that you should at least dedicate an evening to browsing everything to see what’s available. I recommend you start by filtering by “Ports of Call.” Make a list of ones you’re interested in each day and then start honing it into a schedule.

After reviewing the options, at the top of our list was whale watching. We attempted to see whales in Iceland, but the odds were not in our favor that trip. Juneau, Icy Strait Point, and Ketchikan all had whale watching options.

Second on our list was glacier viewing. Personally, I don’t think any of the three of us is too excited to see glaciers, but it’s also just sort of an “Alaska Cruise Must Do” item. Specifically, many of the Alaska itineraries (including ours) have a day dedicated specifically to glacier viewing. On this day, the cruise ship gets moderately close to a glacier, while there is a paid “Port” Adventure option to get on smaller boats and get closer.

Third was some sort of puppy / sled dog interaction. Zoe loves dogs, and sled dog interactions are often considered another “Must Do” item on an Alaska itinerary. Without going down a rabbit hole, I encourage you to do as much research as you feel necessary before booking any animal interactions anywhere in the world (that’s 100% not to say anything about this specific activity, it’s just a general travel suggestion).

We wound up settling on the following Port Adventures (prices per adult / Zoe):

Day 3 — Glacier Viewing — $299 / $199
Day 4 — Icy Strait Point — Whale and Marine Mammals Cruise (IS01) — $209 / $139
Day 5 — Juneau — Sled Dog Discovery and Musher's Camp (JU05) — $219 / $199

We opted not to do any excursions in Ketchikan. We felt the town offered enough to keep us busy, and since it was the end of the cruise we thought we’d appreciate not having the pressure of another activity. Overall this was the right decision, and Ketchikan day was probably my favorite day.

Alternatively to the Sled Dog Discovery and Musher's Camp, I considered one of the excursions that included a helicopter ride to Mendenhall Glacier and dog sledding on the glacier. Ultimately I decided this wasn’t the right time for Zoe’s first helicopter ride.

Our total excursions costs came to $1991. That was $727 for each adult and $537 for Zoe. I think it’s probably a mistake to nitpick these costs (but yea, that’s a big ‘nit’). The fact is that if we were backpacking through Alaska, we’d probably have better experiences at a lower price. But so what? We aren’t backpacking. We’re on a Disney Cruise. You sort of have to look at the trip as a whole and the costs as a whole.

You might decide that none of the excursions are worth the price, and I think you could still have a fantastic cruise experience. But given that there’s already a huge cost to getting to Alaska, and seeing as I don’t plan on roughing it there anytime soon, I’m open to paying a little more to experience these things. That is—as the saying goes—how they get ya.

Booking Third Party Excursions

Okay, fine. After that $$$ rant, it’s worth mentioning that on almost all cruises there is an alternative option—booking third party excursions. Excursions booked through your cruise line are almost always run by third parties anyways, the cruise line is just marketing them.

The risk in doing this is mostly that the third party has no relationship with your cruise line. That means any scheduling / customer service / pick-up, drop-off issues you have are going to be between you and the excursion company only.

Is this practically a huge problem? Probably not. After all, many of these companies are professionals who work with cruise passengers on a daily basis.

That said, this is definitely a case where we recommend—you guessed it!—working with a professional travel advisor. They know reputable tour providers from non-reputable ones, and if something goes wrong you’ll at least have someone you know and trust to help you sort it out.

Disney Cruise Online Check-In

As with booking activities, your online check-in day will vary based on Castaway Club status. The General Public Online Check-In date is 30 days before your cruise embarks. We’re Castaway Club Silver, so we were able to check in 33 days in advance.

Online Check-In is a whole process—submitting travel documents and photos, registering for the kids’ clubs, setting up your onboard account—but the most important part in our mind is your Port Arrival Time. This is the time that you are expected to be at port to get on the boat. In general, earlier is better because it means more time on the ship.

Getting to Vancouver

The easiest way to get to Vancouver for most people is to fly there. The airport, Vancouver International Airport (YVR), is well-serviced and well-connected to the city. We even got through customs and immigration incredibly quickly.

We flew American Airlines there, opting for Main Cabin Extra. Emily has reviewed Air Canada’s A321 business class and Air Canada’s 787 business class before, too.

Flying from Chicago, I sat in an “A” window seat, which I mention because we had awesome views of some mountains flying in (I think the far one is Rainier?):

Pre-Cruise Time In Vancouver

It’s generally not recommended that you fly into a port the same day your cruise leaves. This goes double for an international port, where unexpected flight issues are going to be a lot more difficult to quickly resolve. (Air Canada probably doesn’t just have another plane sitting at your airport in case yours gets delayed or breaks.)

Plus, Vancouver is a great city to spend a few days. We spent four nights in Vancouver before our cruise and found that to be a great amount of time to take in the city. On a return trip, we’d probably only stay two nights, though we think three or four is better for a first visit.

Day 1 - Embarkation

(Note: There’s a lot of new stuff to learn on Day 1. I’m not going to go in-depth on every topic as part of recapping this day. I spread the links to the quick guides throughout this post. So if you read something in Day 1 and think “wow he went right past that major thing quickly”, I hopefully cover it in more depth later or link to a quick guide sometime later.)

We were coming from the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, just a 10-minute walk from the cruise terminal. It was pretty great how conveniently placed the Vancouver cruise terminal was. At the end of our trip, our debarkation day also went quite smoothly, but let’s not jump to the end yet.

We’d booked a Port Arrival time of 11AM and arrived at the terminal at 10:30AM. There were few people around for boarding at this hour. We followed the signage plus the directions of the terminal staff and were through security / passport control / etc. in about 20 minutes with one hiccup—we still had our luggage.

Standard protocol is to tag your luggage (they mail you the tags ahead of time) and drop it off with cruise staff somewhere in this process before boarding. It then gets put on the ship and left outside your room, allowing you to navigate the ship luggage-free for the first few hours while staterooms are inaccessible and still being prepared (the cruise has only a few hours turnaround, remember).

Ironically, I think the reason we wound up with all our luggage stuck with us is that we’re pretty efficient travelers. We didn’t have a ton of bags (and nothing bigger than a carry on), so it isn’t as if someone at the port would think to say something. We also got through all the steps pretty quickly, obviously too quickly to pay attention to what was going on. I imagine if we’d had some bigger bags and struggled to get through security, someone would have at least nodded in the right direction.

Boarding was delayed, which I would have minded less except that we looked relatively clownish trying to navigate our bags while we sat around waiting. Boarding started at about 11:40AM, and our group was called around 12:15PM.

Staterooms aren’t ready at that time, but we knew exactly where we were heading—Cabanas for lunch.

Our Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah

As previously noted, we had a Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah. As part of booking, you can pick a room, and we picked a room on Deck 6, midship. (Here’s our deck-by-deck breakdown of the Disney Wonder.)

Since we were sailing just after Zoe’s birthday, our travel advisor, Lauren, surprised us with a room decoration package. (Thanks Lauren!)

You can basically break the room into five parts. There are:

two bathroom rooms (sink + toilet, sink + shower)
a space with a queen bed
a curtain-separated space with a couch that converts to a twin bed, a TV, and a desk
and a verandah.

There’s also a bunk bed that can come down from the ceiling above the twin bed, but we didn’t use that.

I don’t have a ton of commentary about the room. Overall it was fine, and I can’t recall feeling significantly better or worse about the rooms we’d previously stayed in on the Disney Dream. The biggest issue for us was simply that Zoe had the twin bed, which meant we could only access the verandah during naps by walking past the sleeping toddler. (Also, there was a bed rail provided, per a request we made at some point.)

I didn’t spend too much time browsing the TV lineup, but it wasn’t too deep. There were all-day cartoons available. Otherwise, with up to two theaters plus Funnel Vision playing movies at any time, you’re unlikely to need the TV for entertainment.

There was a short period in the middle of the trip where our toilet didn’t flush. Then after a few minutes it flushed for all the times we’d pressed the button in a panic. I don’t know much about cruise ships, but I vaguely recall this issue on the Disney Dream once, too.

As mentioned above, I’d heard a lot that a verandah is a “must have” for the Alaska cruise, and I just didn’t feel that way. The idea is basically that, specifically for the first day at sea and the Glacier Viewing day, the views around the ship are absolutely stunning. I don’t much care for a view, but I made sure to take a moment to soak these in. Having a verandah means more private, unobstructed views.

Maybe we had a less crowded ship, or maybe we’re just more inclined to walk around the ship at our leisure. But I felt that I had plenty good views from the decks of the ship, and I generally preferred being outside of the room to being in it.

Emily is a little more measured and says she’s at least glad we did it once, but she probably wouldn’t pay for the verandah a second time. For most people, an Alaska cruise is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and to that end the verandah could go a long way to making a “perfect” time. But the flip side is that if the verandah prices keep you from cruising, or push you toward a different cruise line, I think you’re probably putting way too much stock in that amenity. It was a “nice to have,” not a “must have.”

After some time in the room, we headed to check out the kids’ clubs. The first day starts with Open House hours in the clubs. This means you won’t be leaving your little ones alone in the clubs at this time. Instead, it’s a chance for you to all get acquainted with the clubs. If you don’t have kids, you’re also welcome in the kids clubs during Open House. Zoe was instantly smitten with the clubs.

At 4PM is the mandatory assembly drill. This is a tedious, but important safety drill. It’s required for everyone on board. But it’s followed at 4:30PM by something much more fun…

The big thing on embarkation day is Mickey’s Sail-A-Wave Deck Party! This is a 10-15 minute show on Deck 9 featuring your favorite characters and aiming to get you hyped for the cruise. It’s a “can’t miss” insofar as you’ll have plenty of time to take in the ship later, so might as well see this one-time performance while you can.

With our 5:45PM dinner seating coming up, I had just enough time to squeeze in a run. I ran on the treadmills of the ship 6 of the 7 days and generally found the fitness center to be pleasant. When the ship is moving it can be a bit trippy because the treadmills aren’t oriented perfectly forward.

Deck 4 also has a “running track.” It’s something like 0.3 miles and always prone to people who don’t know how to handle a shared run/walk space like that. Your GPS will also be worse than useless when the ship is moving. (FWIW, I’ve run the deck of the Disney Dream before and it ruined all my ‘Personal Bests’ in my running apps.) It’s also an outside space subject to the elements. A 0.3 mile loop means lots of turns, which means lots of opportunities to slip. Personally, I’d maybe run on Deck 4 in the morning when crowds are nonexistent, but I actually just stuck to the treadmills all trip.

We were able to squeeze in two character greetings—Mickey and Goofy—before dinner. Coming into the cruise we didn’t realize how much Zoe would love meeting the characters. They’d had some interested at Disney World and Disneyland before, but on the cruise meeting characters really became the thing we needed to do. I’ll cover these a bit more later.

Dinner on night one was a lot. We were scheduled for Triton’s, one of the three included table service restaurants. Zoe hadn’t napped all day. Plus we’d had all the excitement of experiencing the ship. And now it was time to meet our dining staff and find a way to stay seated for a relatively long dinner. Let’s just say we got through it. A Mickey Bar (complimentary) helped.

Besides your scheduled dinner rotation (more on this later), there’s the option for adults only to dine at Palo. Palo requires an advance reservation and costs extra. Palo also has a brunch option, if you don’t want to mess with your dinner schedule. Personally I’d maybe do both in the future since on a 7-night cruise you’re dining in each rotational restaurant at least twice.

Our customary practice for travel nights, particularly on Disney trips, is to alternate who goes out and who stays with Zoe and does bedtime. As the cruise went on, we started letting Zoe stay up later and later, but one this first day—a long day with no nap—we had no interest in trying a late night.

I spent the evening at Crown & Fin, the pub-themed bar onboard. I mostly stuck to Alaskan Brewing Company beers. While I just sat around the read, there was plenty going on around the ship until about midnight, including: character greetings, multiple trivia activities, movies in Buena Vista Theatre and on Funnel Vision, “Disney on Broadway” music, dueling pianos, jazz, and activities in the kids clubs.

Day 2 - Day at Sea

Day 2 is a full day at sea and one of the more scenic days of the cruise. But our first stop of the day was the Laundry Room. There are three laundry rooms on the Disney Wonder, on Decks 2, 6, and 7 midship. Each has around 5 washing machine and 5 dryers. It cost $3 to wash, $3 to dry, and $1 for detergent. There was a kiosk in the laundry room that allowed you to charge these items back to your stateroom.

We did laundry twice (mostly because of my running clothes and Emily and Zoe’s swimsuits). Notifications are supposed to come through the app when your washer/dryer finishes. We had some luck with this but it wasn’t perfect. The kiosks in the laundry rooms also tell you how many available machines there are in the other laundry rooms. Finally, there is laundry service available onboard ($$$), but we were fine using the machines.

We switched up our breakfast plans and tried Triton’s today. Triton’s serves table service breakfast and lunch daily. It’s a smaller menu than the substantial Cabanas buffet, but with a few items you won’t find at Cabanas (in case you can’t tell, I didn’t take a picture of the menu, sorry). As expected, this just wasn’t for us. We much preferred the quick and plentiful options at Cabanas to get our day started.

After breakfast I swung by Cove Cafe to pick us up some cold brew. Cove Cafe is the specialty coffee shop onboard. Drip coffee is free (but available in spots other than cove, like Cabanas and the beverage station outside Cabanas), but anything else—specialty lattes ($5.75), cold brew ($4)—costs extra. There are also complimentary pastries.

Cove is technically right inside the adults only section of the ship. While I think you’d probably be asked not to let kids lounge there, I frequently saw people stopping in to make a quick purchase with kids in tow.

While I was getting the coffee, Emily and Zoe were in line for Minnie. She was greeting in her standard cruise outfit (Captain Minnie) today.

Next, we headed to French Quarter Lounge for “Family Crafts.” This was a mask-making activity that Zoe had a lot of fun with. French Quarter Lounge also operates a combo bar/cafe. I found it had much better cafe vibes so would usually get coffee and beignets when I visited.

Zoe picked to go to the pool quickly before lunch. family-friendly Frozen was playing on Funnel Vision.

For lunch, I cobbled together options from some of the smaller quick service restaurants onboard. Besides Cabanas, there are three smaller quick service options, all on Deck 9.

Read Our Quick Guide to Quick Service on the Disney Wonder

After lunch we stopped at one of Zoe’s favorite spots on the ship—Eye Scream, the soft serve station. This is another complimentary offering. Chocolate and vanilla were available daily, plus there was a daily changing flavor.

By midday, the scenery was starting to look gorgeous. We split the time in the room while Zoe napped, and then Zoe went to the Oceaneer Club while we walked around the ship and took in the sights (and some beers). Here are a few photos:

Dinner tonight was at Animator’s Palate. And—surprise, surprise—it’s with the same staff we had the previous night! That’s how rotational dining works!

Read Our Quick Guide to Rotational Dining on the Disney Wonder

Night 2 also included the debut of the feature entertainment on the ship. Night 2’s show was the Golden Mickeys. The other two feature shows were “Frozen, A Musical Spectacular,” and “Disney Dreams—An Enchanted Classic.”

We wound up skipping all of these. They’re heralded as fantastic shows, so you might consider them “must-do.” They didn’t fit well into Zoe’s schedule, and neither of us felt like doing them without Zoe.

As I mentioned above, we alternated nights out. I won’t detail every night (in part because I don’t have notes about all of them), but they’d usually include a stop at a bar, strolling around the ship, and activities like trivia, listening to musical performances, or watching a movie in one of the theaters (we both watched Haunted Mansion, for example).

Day 3 - Glacier Explorer Day

Day 3 is an interesting day. It’s technically not a “day at sea”, but the ship doesn’t actually dock at a port, and there’s only one excursion—Glacier Explorer. If you’re not doing Glacier Explorer, you’ll be aboard the ship all day. It’s an incredibly scenic day and, conditions permitting, the ship gets close enough to a glacier for some good views.

Besides the excursion, this day had one other huge highlight—the debut of Mickey and Minnie in their Alaska outfits! Mickey’s greeting was set for 9AM on Deck 10 (outside), and Minnie at 9:30AM. We were in line for Mickey 20-30 minutes early, and the line for Minnie, on the opposite side of Deck 10, was closed by 9:10AM.

Mickey and Minnie greeted four times this day. The first three times were outside and these were the only times the entire trip they greeted outside. They did wear the Alaska outfits inside for some greetings later on. We met Alaska Minnie on her last day, Day 6, Ketchikan Day.

Glacier Explorer Excursion

For our itinerary, there were two times for the Glacier Explorer excursion, an early time and a late time. If you have the earlier time, you’ll transfer from the Wonder to a smaller boat that goes ahead of the Wonder to visit the glacier. Then once the Wonder catches up you get back on the Wonder. At that point, the people with the later time get on the smaller boats. The Wonder heads back while they do their glacier viewing, and the excursion boats catch up with the Wonder at the end of their time.

At 2:30PM, we gathered at the Walt Disney Theater to start our excursion. After some brief introduction, we were on the boat at 2:52PM.

Seeing the glacier from closer up was cool, but my favorite part by far was the perspective we got on the Disney Wonder. The scenery was great, and it was just really cool to see the ship like that.

We were in the area of the South Sawyer Glacier for about 30 minutes. Then we left and went to the North Sawyer Glacier. The Wonder didn’t itself visit the North Sawyer Glacier, though to be fair the South Sawyer Glacier is more fun to look at.

The excursion boat was comfortable. A guide provided some information about the glaciers for much of the tours. There were free donut holes and hot chocolate. I paid $7 for a beer, and Zoe got a free can of water. You could also use a cup of glacier ice for your beverage. They accepted card and cash, but you cannot charge back to your room (the tour is run by a third party, remember).

Back aboard the Wonder at about 5:20PM, we opted for a quick service dinner. Zoe had done really well on the excursion and really deserved some time in the Oceaneer Club rather than having to go straight from the excursion to a 90 minute meal.

Day 4 - Icy Strait Point

Finally, a real port! Day 4 was at Icy Strait Point. For starters, Icy Strait Point is a privately managed port. It is not a town. There is a town, Hoonah, that is accessible by bus or walking path from Icy Strait Point, but we didn’t make it there. (Note: Hoonah is different from the Hoonah Cannery, which is a part of Icy Strait Point.)

As much research as I did about Icy Strait Point ahead of time, I was still a little confused about it. I’ll do my best to explain how things are set up here, but suffice to say once you get there, it’s a very manageable area.

Icy Strait Point has essentially four parts. We were docked at Ocean Landing. A short walk across a bridge from the ship took us to one of the two hubs of the port. There was a big building with a cafe and some excursion meeting points. Since we’d booked an excursion, we were able to get our “all access” wristbands here, too. These ostensibly included a few things, but the only value we got from them was access to the paid “Skyglider” gondola.

A few minutes walk from Ocean Landing is the Hoonah Cannery. This is a cannery museum, a few restaurants, and lots of stores.

From Ocean Landing, you can take a free “Transporter” (GREEN) gondola to Wilderness Landing. To be clear there are two gondolas at Icy Strait Point. The free “Transporter” gondola takes you between Ocean Landing and Wilderness Landing. Ships can dock at either of these two spots, so it makes sense that there’s free transport between them. The other gondola is a paid “Skyglider” gondola between Wilderness Landing and Sky Peak

There’s also a 10 minute walking path between Ocean Landing and Wilderness Landing. Wilderness Landing is the hub for some excursions. There’s also a store and a few small food / beverage options, though none were open when we were around.

As I mentioned above, Wilderness Landing is also where you can catch the paid “Skyglider” gondola to Sky Peak. If you book basically any excursion for this day, it will include access to this gondola.

This is also the only way to get to Sky Peak—there’s no walking path between Wilderness Landing and Sky Peak. Without an excursion booked, it costs $50 for an adult and is definitely not worth that. We opted to head straight to Sky Peak and then work our way down to Hoonah Cannery.

Sky Peak has a few view points and is the departure point for a few excursions. It’s also home to the zipline, a popular excursion at Icy Strait Point. If you’re not booked on something up there, there’s also a mile-ish trail. However, when we were visiting there were issues with bears.

This necessitated only traveling in groups, with a guide. There also seems to have been a specific bear incident while we were waiting, because delays mounted. I grew impatient and left after about 45 minutes of waiting, but Emily and Zoe stuck with it. Emily said she liked the trail and everyone else seemed to enjoy it, too.

I took the Skyglider back to Wilderness Landing and then the walking path to Ocean Landing. After a little bit of time we reunited and explored the Hoonah Cannery area together.

There were a few restaurants, with the Crab House being the most popular. The donut stand, Lil’ Gen’s Donuts, also had a huge line. There’s also a ton of shopping, along with some museum displays on the history of the cannery.

We spent about four hours total on Icy Strait Point before returning to the ship for lunch (no good vegetarian options in the very crowded restaurants). I really would have liked to have made it to Hoonah, but it was too much of a hike and we had an afternoon excursion.

Zoe’s favorite part of Icy Strait Point was definitely the rock beach.

Whale and Marine Mammals Cruise

Our excursion this afternoon was the Whale and Marine Mammals Cruise. It cost $209 per adult and $139 for Zoe. Unlike some of the excursions that meet inside the Icy Strait Point buildings, ours departed right from the cruise dock, opposite the cruise ship (“Tour Dock C”). We arrived just before 1:45PM, and the 2PM tour departed on time.

At just over 3 years old, Zoe has for a while been able to get through a day without a nap. But this is something that ebbs and flows, or at least some napless days are better than others. This was not a good one.

The main goal of the viewing is usually to see whales, but you might catch some other animals on the way, like sea lions:

The actual animal viewing was 30-45 minutes away, and Zoe did not want to sit still or behave during that time. Eventually we resigned to trying to get a nap in during the excursion. This worked, but left me with a napping Zoe during the actual viewing part of the excursion:

That’s literally me saying “stop coming back here to check on us and just go watch the whales.” Of course I’d prefer that Zoe and I be outside watching the whales too. I think Zoe would have enjoyed it more than me, honestly. I at least had a view through the window, but Zoe slept the whole time.

Meanwhile, Emily had some great views. We spent over an hour in the area with the whales before heading back to the ship.

Back on the ship, we had time to squeeze in greetings with Donald and Pluto before dinner at Tiana’s.

Day 5 - Juneau

Finally, a real town! Day 5 was Juneau day. You can tell from the photo from our balcony that we were docked relatively far from the main part of the city. We were at “AJ Dock,” about a 15 minute walk from the main part of the town. We didn’t walk there, because we were starting the day with an excursion.

The highlight of Juneau for many people will be the Mendenhall Glacier. If you’re taking an Alaska Cruise that stops in Juneau, you’re going to want to consider the options for visiting Mendenhall Glacier. We opted to skip it, not for any particular reason. Instead, we went on the Sled Dog Discovery and Musher’s Camp.

Sled Dog Discovery and Musher’s Camp

Not at all regarding this specific excursion (bold, italics—I cannot emphasize that enough), but I think in general people should do some background research and consider the ethics of any animal interaction they’re considering.

Obviously you might assume excursions that partner with major cruise lines have been vetted to some degree, but that says nothing about what you’re personally comfortable with. This isn’t a platform for any more of that discussion, so I’m just going to get on with describing our experience.

Our excursion met in Azure (one of the bars, often used as meeting points) at 8:15AM, and by 8:30AM we were boarding the shuttle to the camp, which took about 30 minutes.

The first part of the excursion involved the dogs pulling us around in this cart, along with the opportunity to meet some of the individual dogs. Some weren’t comfortable meeting strangers, so we were told not to engage with them.

Zoe absolutely adores dogs and, spending a lot of time walking around the city, has a basic understanding of how to properly meet new dogs.

After that was a Q&A with a musher. It was interesting to learn about the challenges of the races, conditions, financing, and training a team of dogs.

After that was the chance to meet some puppies. They were very small and very adorable. For many (us included), this was the “it” factor that prompted us to book the excursion. It sort of winds up being $199 for Zoe and $219 for each adult so Zoe can cuddle with a puppy for a few minutes, but learning about sled dog racing is also a pretty quintessential Alaska cruise experience.

There were also some older puppies nearby who were not quite trained. You could visit their fence but there weren’t one-on-one interactions with them. And yes, they nipped at little fingers that went through the fence.

There was complimentary cocoa, along with tea and coffee.

Exploring Juneau

In total we spent about 90 minutes at the camp. On the way back to the ship, the shuttle made a stop in the heart of Juneau, dropping us off at about 10:50AM. Walking around town a bit we popped into Concept Cafe, a fun spot with coffee, video games, and snacks from a variety of Asian countries.

There’s plenty of shopping to be done, both “touristy/cruise” shopping and things like a fun toy store and a used bookstore.

There are also plenty of small cafes and restaurants. We opted for a quick crepe from a stand at Gunakadeit Park. There were several small eateries here.

After lunch we popped into Red Dog Saloon. The “world famous” Red Dog Saloon is probably the most famous saloon in Juneau, and it’s a really fun spot. I’d call it a must-do so long as you don’t have an excursion that takes up your whole day.

Kids are welcome, and they have root beer on tap (which Zoe loved).

After yesterday, we had no intention of skipping the nap today, so we headed back to the ship. With Zoe walking, we made the “15-minute walk” in about 20 minutes.

After the nap we had time to meet Daisy and Minnie before dinner.

After dinner, since Zoe had napped late, we were able to stay up a bit as a family. There was a silent dance party in Azure, which Zoe absolutely loved. We were the last ones to leave.

I spent the night relaxing in the French Quarter Lounge with coffee and a beignet.

Day 6 - Ketchikan

Ketchikan is the last port on this itinerary. As noted above, we opted to keep this day clear just to enjoy the town at our leisure. I think the biggest “must do” here is the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show. On a return trip to Ketchikan, we’d definitely try and see this, but we felt okay missing it this time around.

Ketchikan ashore time wan’t until 11:15AM, which meant we had most of the morning to fill. We started with laundry and breakfast at Cabanas, before an 8:30AM family coloring time in D Lounge. It’s a small thing, but I’m appreciative of the fact that there were family activities as early as 8:30AM.

Afterward there were open house hours at the Oceaneer Club. Donald Duck made an appearance as part of a “pajama party.”

Zoe loved seeing Donald, and then on our way out we ran into Cinderella!

We walked around the ship a bit before being let ashore a little early around 11AM.

There are a few buses in Ketchikan, including a free shuttle that will take you to some of the major points of interest. This is where we caught the shuttle. Our first stop was the Totem Heritage Center (not to be confused with the more popular but farther Totem Bight State Historical Park).

We enjoyed the Totem Heritage Center. It wasn’t huge, but it was a good spot to spend about 30 minutes. We waited 8 minutes for the bus and it was only a 6-minute bus ride away. It’s the endpoint for the bus service, so on our way out we asked a waiting bus driver when he’d depart and found out we had time for a quick visit to the nearby playground (because, with a toddler, of course you fly from New York to Chicago to Vancouver and board a ship to Alaska to go to a playground).

We headed to lunch at 108 Taphouse and Burger Bar. They had Impossible Burgers and this was, by far, our favorite meal of the entire trip. It’s a really popular restaurant and not big, so I had to wait at the bar for a table while Emily and Zoe visited the nearby shops.

After lunch we went to Historic Creek Street. It’s a beautiful boardwalk with an interesting history. Nowadays its mostly just small shops, but it’s really cute and definitely a must-do.

From Creek Street it was a short walk to the Tongass Historical Museum. This was a pretty standard historical museum, but it was high quality, with lots of cool items and a fossil display.

As you’d expect, there’s plenty of shopping near the docks, too. We went back to the ship around 3PM so Zoe could nap and I could run.

This was overall a low-stress, uneventful day, but it was also a great way to start to wrap up our trip. I learned later that we lucked into this weather. Ketchikan is generally quite rainy. While rain would have put a damper on some of our walking, overall I think I’d still plan to do something similar on future visits (but with the lumberjack show, probably). It’s a pleasant city to walk around.

There was a nice photo op onboard:

Dinner was at Animator’s Palate (our second visit, having skipped the second of three scheduled meals there). The activity for the night was drawing a cartoon character. At the end of the night all the characters made appearances on the screens / walls around the restaurant. It was a fun bit.

In the quick guide about rotational dining, I mention that the long mealtimes can be a bit of a burden. Today, for example, I had to hop out a few minutes early to go get in line to meet Minnie. This was her last appearance in her Alaska outfit and we didn’t want to miss out.

days 7 and 8 - Day at Sea and Debarkation

I’m combining these last two days because (1) there isn’t a ton to say about our last day at sea and (2) the most important things that happen on day 7 related to debarkation on day 8.

Day 7 is the last full day aboard the ship, a day at sea. By this point, you’ve probably done just about everything on the ship that you wanted to do. It might be a good day to save something like a meal at Palo for so you have that to look forward to.

After breakfast at Cabanas, we took advantage of open house hours at Edge and Vibe, the kids’ clubs for older kids. Zoe had fun playing some of the arcade games, and I played some Mario Kart.

Besides just enjoying the ship, there are a few key errands you might want to run on this day.

First, I booked my placeholder reservation. This is the opportunity to save some money on a future Disney Cruise.

The Placeholder Reservation is only bookable onboard. It requires a $250 refundable deposit, and you’ll get 10% off the cruise you opt to apply the deposit to (subject to blockout dates, boo). I had some issues doing this in the app (I think unique to me, a problem with my card or something), but was able to get it taken care of with a simple visit to guest services. (As an aside, if you have any Guest Services issues, handle them early on Day 7 to avoid lines later in the day.)

Second, I swung by Shutters, the onboard photography shop. I hadn’t preordered photos because I don’t usually meet tons of characters. Turns out meeting characters was Zoe’s absolute favorite thing this trip, so I wound up spending $350 for the digital package of all our photos. Shutters is typically set to be open on debarkation morning, too, but there’s rarely any reason to wait until then to decide on your photo package (and there will be lines).

Third, I went to the main stores onboard, Mickey’s Mainsail and White Caps. I’d visited a few times during the course of the cruise, but now it was time to make any final purchases. These two stores some overlap, but basically I’d say White Caps is like the Grand Floridian gift shop and Mickey’s Mainsail is like the Pop Century gift shop. Either way, just go to both. Here’s a gallery of some merchandise:

There was a character dance party we were able to catch just before Zoe’s nap:

Now, some debarkation information. Most of the need-to-know about debarkation can be found in the app. However, there’s also a video looping on one of the TV channels that you’ll be reminded to watch several times.

On the last night of your cruise, you’ll get two things dropped off at your room—luggage tags and gratuity envelopes.

Let’s start with the gratuity envelopes. On Disney Cruise Line, you’re expected to tip your server, head server, assistant server, and stateroom host. And by “expected”, I mean that as a default, the tips will be billed to your stateroom. It’s a fixed per-person amount. For this cruise, for three of us, it came to $99.75 for our server, $78.75 for our assistant server, $26.25 for our head server, and $99.75 for our stateroom host. That’s a total of $304.50. This amounts to $14.50 per person, per night, as per Disney Cruise Line guidelines.

You can pre-pay these via the Disney Cruise Line website before your trip. Or they will be added to your stateroom bill. If you’d like to change the amount you can do so at the Guest Services desk.

Surely you’re wondering why you’re provided envelopes for gratuities that are charged to your room. Well, alongside the gratuity envelopes is a tearable sheet with strips of paper outlining the tip amounts. If you want to give these in the envelopes to the designated people, you can. If you want to provide extra cash in the envelopes, you can.

You’ll see your server team at breakfast on debarkation day, but you’ll probably either try and track down your host during the evening or just leave the envelope in the room.

Now, the luggage tags. The luggage tags are character-themed and correspond to when you’ll get off the ship. You put the luggage tags on your larger bags and leave them outside your room the last night of your cruise (I think the deadline was 10PM). The Cast Members will take the bags from the hallway and store them. You won’t see them again until you’re off the ship. After that, you’ve just got whatever items you’ve kept with you for the last evening and debarkation morning.

Debarkation morning itself is pretty simple—you’ll leave your room, eat breakfast, and get off the ship. Breakfast is table service in the same restaurant where you had your last dinner. You’ll be served by your usual team. Alternatively, I understand Cabanas is usually open, too. I also believe Cove Cafe is open.

Other than that, the only other activity available onboard is Shutters, the photography shop. Hopefully you already purchased your photo package, but if you didn’t, you can usually do so on debarkation morning (I say “usually” because why take the chance of something going wrong?). Nothing else is available debarkation morning—no pools, no shopping, no theaters, etc.

After breakfast, you’ll wait for your group to be called. I think they make ship-wide announcements, but we watched the screens in D Lounge (the spot we found best for waiting at that point). So, here’s what the screen showed when guests with Ariel or Chip & Dale could debark:

When your group is called, your store bags are taken off the ship. You’ll exit the ship and encounter a huge room filled with bags. Find the section corresponding to your luggage tags, then find your bags and exit.

Alternatively, you can just skip the luggage storage altogether. Don’t use the luggage tags and don’t leave any bags in the hallway, and you can just debark immediately after the ship has cleared customs. This was sometime before 8AM on our debarkation day.

We were called around 8:30AM and off the ship at 8:37AM. It took us a few minutes to find our bags (AirTags helped), and we were on our way out at 8:43AM.

As I’ve noted before, the Vancouver cruise terminal has a great location. There’s a Fairmont hotel right across the street. We were staying at the Fairmont at the airport, but that was only an 11-minute walk to the train station plus a 30-minute train ride.

And so our journey came to an end!

Alaskan Cruise on the Disney Wonder — Closing Thoughts

Overall, our Alaskan cruise on the Disney Wonder was exactly what I’d been led to expect—a stunning, fantastically fun, bucket-list-worthy, once-in-a-lifetime (maybe) type of cruise. Would I recommend it? Definitely!

Coming into the cruise, my biggest “concern” was properly balancing our time on and off the ship. Excursions come at a price, but they’re also sort of what the whole trip is about. At the same time, you’re paying a premium for a Disney cruise, and I didn’t want Zoe to miss out on the kids clubs or character greetings.

In the end I think we did a good job balancing things. By Day 7 we felt like we’d done everything we wanted on the ship, but we weren’t bored. The Wonder is one of Disney’s smallest ships, but it isn’t too small for this trip.

Zoe was certainly never bored—the pool, the activities, and the kids clubs were more than enough for a week. In fact, Zoe had such a good time the entire week that I’m actually quite nervous for our upcoming 3-night trip on the Disney Wish. Only three nights?! It almost feels cruel.

The lowlight of the experience was definitely the food and dining. Again, this is partly a product of our dietary choices (vegetarian), but also a product of the limited hours for the restaurants. I think its inexcusable that (1) Cabanas lunch didn’t start until 11:45AM most days and (2) Cabanas isn’t open for dinner. Yea, you’re supposed to do rotational dining, but—as detailed in our quick guide to rotational dining—that isn’t a perfect option, dietary choices aside. It’s just telling that our best meal the entire trip was a burger restaurant in Ketchikan.

But we’ll look back and remember the highlights. Our hearts melting when Zoe met those dogs and puppies. Successful whale watching. Stunning scenery. And So. Many. Characters.