[00:00:00] Speaker A: I want to be pulled on the sled. I want it like that's. I want to feel like I'm in the Iditarod.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Sam, I'll get you one of those waist belt leashes and a skateboard and I'll hook Amos up to it.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: He'll hook Amos and Isabelle, our dogs, who will literally like be like saved.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Us like $3,000 right there.
Welcome back. Welcome everybody to this week's live episode or this week's second live episode of the DCL Duo Podcast, brought to you by my Path Unwinding Travel and our friends at the DCL Magazine, WDW Magazine. If you have not gotten over to DCL Magazine to sign up, please do so love their their magazine. They did a special float test edition of a DCL magazine. It's going to be a special issue of WDW Magazine going forward, I think, but we'll know more here in a couple months, I suspect. And but if you want to get the issue that they did publish has a fabulous article from the DCL duo, head over to dcl-magazine.com right now to sign up and use code DCLDUO to get 10% off everything in the store over there at WDW Magazine, including magazine subscriptions to magazines like WDW Magazine, DLR Magazine, the float test edition of DCL Magazine calendars, and more. So Sam, we're always excited to have to have WDW DCL Magazine on board with us. So head over there, support them. Support them. Yes, we are doing a special Friday livestream to make up for the Monday livestream we missed two weeks ago. And just like a couple quick words here. We're still new to this platform so sorry to be a few minutes late, but I realized I had to reset up my computer and everything and I realized I had forgotten to plug my camera in and so I had to find a cord for that place to plug that in.
It took me a minute. And so we're here now, still working out the kings, still working out the kinks. I also wanted to let people know we have not released a podcast episode in going on two weeks. One just went live this evening and you will see kind of several going live over the next two weeks more than usual for our release schedule to get us caught back up and then we will fall back in to our regular rhythm. So do not worry, we have plenty of content from those two weeks.
We were just busy dealing with all kinds of technical issues on our end to get back up and running gear for the show. So that Stuff is coming. But, Sam, we have a fun live show tonight with a fun special guest. Do you want to introduce our guest and our showtime?
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Yes. Super excited to have Gina back. Hey, Gina.
[00:02:37] Speaker C: Hi. I'm so excited. This is my first time on your podcast.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: I know. Well, I mean, you were on for like a few minutes, like a week and a half ago, but then we got, you know, technical difficulties. So for those who weren't with us a couple Mondays ago, we had to completely cancel, unfortunately, because of the technical issues on our end. But we're super happy to be back. Of course, we're here with Gina. We're going to be talking about Alaska cruising on Disney Cruise Line.
Gina has done it twice, so she is, in my opinion, an Alaska expert. Alaska cruising expert.
Spoiler alert. She has booked her third Alaska cruise on DCL for next summer. And so we're going to talk tonight.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Sam, I need to pause you for a second. Our listeners are asking if you could please turn your mic down a bit. You are very, very loud.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: I'm sorry, guys. All right. Okay. Is this better?
[00:03:31] Speaker B: We'll find out. Keep going.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: All right, we'll find out. Let me know. Okay. I turned on the gain on my mic. Sorry, guys, I can't hear. I can't tell myself. But I appreciate the feedback. Again, we don't know with this platform how exactly how it works, but anyway, we are going to talk about Alaska tonight. We are going to do a dive into the ports and sort of Gina's favorite excursions. We're going to about the onboard experience. We're going to talk about Glacier Day, and we're going to try and answer as many questions as we can. So feel free to drop those questions into the chat and we will get to them when we get. When it seems like sort of the right place in the discussion. But we got to start with Gina. Gina is a hardcore Disney person, dvc, but really our favorite Disneyland expert because she lives right near Disneyland. But, Gina, why don't you tell people your Disney cruise line background? Because your Disney background is, like, forever long, so we wouldn't be able to cover it all.
[00:04:31] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's it. That's a long list. So the cruise line was really interesting. I actually started cruising in early 2000s on Royal, and my husband, who I was dating at the time, had gone on a Holland America Alaska cruise. And for his 40th birthday, he said he really wanted to go on a Disney cruise to Alaska because Alaska was his favorite. So that was my first. That was my first cruise. On Disney was Alaska. So then the rest of the cruises after that kind of pale in comparison. So I kind of did it backwards. I did Alaska first and fell in love with the Wonder and then did cruising on the Wonder in San Diego many times. And then doing the Wish out of Port Canaveral, doing the Dream out of Port Canaveral. And then with you guys, I did the magic to look out key.
So that's. Is that it? I think that's all of them. So I'm on number eight, I'm doing number nine this summer. And number 10 will be the Wish this summer.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: Awesome. And funny enough of all of your cruises, like I said, two of them, two of your Disney cruises are to Alaska, which is kind of amazing. I mean, most people like the repeats are Caribbean cruises. So let's start with that. Like, you obviously went on, went to Alaska. The last time you went, I know, was 2023. So we're talking year before last.
But why, why did you choose to go to Alaska for a second time and why now a third time? Like, what's so great about Alaska? Why? Okay, yeah, why is it, why is it everyone's bucket list cruise?
[00:06:11] Speaker C: Okay, first of all, the Caribbean. Everyone goes to the Caribbean. Every, every cruise line has their own island, has their own little niche thing. With Alaska, everybody goes on the same itinerary. But with Disney, you get the extra top notch service.
So for example, like I said, I did Royal before for the Caribbean and they just didn't take care of their people for Alaska. They took care of us. They know that this is an excursion heavy cruise. You're getting off at every port. There's also a lot of sea days. So you're really getting to know the cast members and you're really on the ship as a family. Because it's such a small ship. You see the same people over and over and you become friends quickly. In fact, on our first cruise, a little boy thought I was a child and he said, will you go? Will you come to my show at the end? I said, oh, honey, I'm an adult. I can't, I can't go. He's like, you just sign in. I said, babe, I'm an adult. I can't go with you on the on to the kids club. So that was very cute.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Gina, when you say they don't take care of, did you mean the guests or did you mean the crew?
[00:07:20] Speaker C: Royal Caribbean had a hard time with the excursions. Like they just were not organized. So when I got off the ship, they didn't have your little sticker, your Hercules sticker and follow, follow the people. Meet in the, meet in the Buena Vista Theater. It was just like you go out and you are kind of on your own to find the excursion. It wasn't well organized. And then we did Alaska and I said this is the best for excursions. This is the best. And then the picturesque beauty of Alaska is beyond compare. I think the only thing that would compare would be Hawaii. Honestly, with the beauty.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. Wow. Well that's, that's a big statement. I want to like dive into some of the, the topics I mentioned, which is, and you mentioned excursion. So like let's start, let's talk about these, the three ports. And then of course we got to talk about Glacier Day because everybody knows like Glacier Day on Disney is you're at six sea. It's a technically a sea day, but it is a day that everybody sort of thinks of as like, it's kind of like a port day because there's a lot going on to sea. And then there is the boat excursion if you decide to sign up for that and if you're, let's be honest, if your castaway club status is high enough for you to get on it because it's a limited excursion. But let, let's, let's dive into the ports. The, the main ports that Disney goes to are really three. Those, I mean there are, I know there's like one, four, like a fourth I think that they go to on some Itine.
But the main ones that they go to for most of their seven night cruises are. I'm not, I'm not going to say the order right, but Ketchikan, Skagway and Juneau. I actually think it's, I think it's Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan. I think I said it backwards.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: Maybe Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Okay, Skagway. Okay, so I got it. Still got it wrong. Okay, so tell, let's, let's talk Skagway first since that's usually we're gonna focus on those three ports because those, as I said, those are on their standard seven night itinerary. If you're on nine night itinerary or a five night itinerary, you might have a different stop or an extra.
So let's.
[00:09:26] Speaker C: Oh yeah, sorry. And then on the seven night Magic we are doing Icy straight point which is different from.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah, so that's. Yeah. Oh. Because you're signed up for the Magic for next year. So this will be that'll be your first time on the Magic in Alaska. Right? Okay. So for those. For those who are selling next year, we don't really know, you know, too much about what's going to be different on the Magic or if she's just going to kind of do the activities like the Wonder has been doing for years. But the Wonder, it's kind of, you know, pretty. Pretty standard. So let's. Let's start with Skagway.
What are, what are. Like, what was your favorite excursion that you've done in Skagway and what are kind of those things that people usually do in Skagway?
[00:10:10] Speaker C: Skagway is the Gold rush town.
So the second time we did the Yukon train up into the Yukon Territory and we did the Gold Rush history tour, which I really enjoyed. And then there's also the dog sledding. I did a ride training camp. I've been there and got to hold the puppy. That was super exciting. We did a mock sled ride on the. In the mud with the puppies. That was really fun.
There's the Red Onion Saloon where you see that one of the brothels from 1800s and how the girls made their money. And what I really liked about Skagway is they put on a show for us.
Even the characters that are part of the excursions are characters. So I forgot our gal's name. I want to say. Her name was like Penny Lane. And she wore like the get up from the 1800s and right before the Gold Rush, it was so cool. And then at the end when we crossed over into Canada, she's like, my name's not really Penny. It's really whatever, Andrea, whatever. And I'm from, you know, St. Louis. So it was really cool just to have that experience. So those were my. That was my Skagway. I think I did. I did like a three in one the second time because I did the Yu.
The gold rush area and the dog training facility.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: How is the dog training facility?
[00:11:25] Speaker C: It is the cutest thing because you first, you get the history so you get to learn about the dogs. They are so excited. This is their job. They love it. And I took a video and the dog was like rolling on the ground and. And like just rubbing her back. And the. The cast member said, oh, that. That's a call that I did a ride. Flat tire. So so cute. Like, they're just so cute.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: Now we have a question in the chat about ports and where the wonder tends to dock. And the question is specifically about Juno or is giving an example of Juno But I'm curious, for Skagway, does the Disney wonder dock at the same spot or has it docked at the same spot for the cruises you've been on? I think generally speaking, it does, but I know if there's more than one ship import that they can. There may be more. I know that some of the ports have more than one place to dock.
[00:12:19] Speaker C: Yeah. Especially for Juneau, the first time, we were a little bit closer than the second time. So the first time we were. We were still on, like, the south end, but we were the first ship in. And then the second time, we were, like the third ship in. So it just depends when we got there and how many ships were in port. And then on the other side of, like, the main port area, there was more ships. So I want to say Holland, America, Norwegian and Disney were on the left of the port, and then on the right was Princess. And I can't remember the other one, but there were a couple other ships on the right side.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: I just want to quickly. I want to put in a plug for those in the chat.
If you have favorite excursions, throw them in the chat, because we're getting ready to go to Alaska, and so I kind of want to hear those. So if you've done this itinerary or the Alaska itinerary before on Disney Cruise Line, like, what were your must do excursions? We'll. We'll share those throughout the show.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: Good point, Brian. Yeah.
[00:13:14] Speaker C: So Skagway is famous for the frogs.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Now for. For Skagway, Skagway and Ketchikan are smaller than Juneau. Right. Juneau is like sort of the big city. It's the capital. Yeah.
[00:13:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: And so it's a bigger port. I know Ketchikan is a decent sized port. I think of the three, Skagway is the smallest, is my impression. Is that right?
[00:13:39] Speaker C: Ketchikan's the smallest.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Skagway is the smallest. Okay.
[00:13:42] Speaker C: Yeah. Skagway's. Skagway is decent sized, I feel. And I feel like there were more ships. Maybe two ships could be there where you can. I think there was only one. Yeah.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Okay. Well. And Skagway, we hear tons about the train. That's the thing. Everybody's. And there's a couple of variations of the train. There's, like, the regular train, and then there's the steam train version, which is just you're on an older train that runs on steam, so you're not gonna have the gas smell, probably.
And I think it might be a slower train.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: There's there's also the adult only version of the train where you get to ride in like, I think like the back car that's all made up like a living room and there's drinks, cocktails.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Yeah, whatnot.
[00:14:19] Speaker C: We did. We did. I think we did. We did a three in one, but we ended up on the adult area of the train, I guess because we did have a little toast when we crossed over to Canada. That was the big. That's the big finale. You go to Canada and then you cross back over.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: You go to Canada.
[00:14:35] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: Nice, nice.
We have decent D.C. sorry, cruising. DCL family is saying, love the dogs, like camp in Skagway. And the White Pass train is also amazing. So.
Yeah, awesome. All right, well, let's. Let's jump over to the next port of call, which is Juneau. What are like the. What are the things you've done in Juneau? And if. And if there are things you haven't done that other people sort of tend to do, what are those things?
[00:15:07] Speaker C: So Juneau has the Mendenhall Glacier. So that was the two times we went.
We had to do Mendenhall Glacier. The first time we went, we did the whale watching part. So we did the whale watching. We saw some amazing feeding that I'd never seen before. The naturalist even let us stay an extra like three to five minutes, which they're like, this is amazing because they're doing the bubbling.
And we did the. And then from there we went to the glacier. We hiked through the area. We saw a bear, we saw salmon, we saw bald eagles. That was amazing. At the park. At the national park. And then the glacier itself is just.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: A bus ride too. Or was that a boat or. That was a bus ride. Okay, so bus ride to the glacier.
[00:15:51] Speaker C: A bus ride to the whale watching. And then from the whale watching, you get back on the bus and you go to the glacier, hike around there and then you get back on the bus. And I feel like we. I'm missing something because I know it's. I know for sure. We did the whale watching and the glacier. The second time we did like a float, and that was not as good. It was a float down to the glacier. And I didn't enjoy that as much as the whale watching portion.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: Oh, interesting. Okay.
[00:16:17] Speaker C: And they can change the order.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: I wanted to share a couple of the comments here too, now that we've got some comments coming in. So we've got Ed saying, for the train, you don't have to sit down. You can actually stand outside at the Ends of the terrain. Good tip.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: That's kind of cool.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: Good tip.
[00:16:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Brandon loved that.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: And then Carrie is saying, the big nugget excursion in Skagway is what we have booked this August. Carrie, I'm so curious when you're sailing in August, because that's when we're sailing. So it has the dogs, gold panning, a show, and a barbecue. Barbecue lunch. I saw a video, and it looks great. I think that's one we're doing. Sam. I'm not sure.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: We are not doing the dogs there. We are doing the one that is the train that goes to the gold panning place and then comes back and it's like a bus ride back. But I think the train there, then we get off, we go to the gold panning camp, and then we take a bus back, I believe. Yeah.
[00:17:06] Speaker C: And the dogs are really close to that, though. The dogs are really close to that area.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. There is a three in one like option. We are doing, like, the two. We're doing the two in one option because we're gonna go dog sledding in. In Juneau, which during the exception.
[00:17:22] Speaker C: Exceptional dog sledding.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So the.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: The other Ed has the. The Skagway, you know, have helicopter excursions to the glaciers that We're. We're. We're doing one of those. I'm curious to know if Gina has done one of those before.
Okay.
[00:17:40] Speaker C: I have not. I did the float. I did the float down to the glacier, and then I did just the Mendenhall Glacier Park. The park.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So what we have booked in Juneau is our friend Chris Vorbeck, who has been on the show before, who's. Who's amazing and has done Alaska twice as well. Also big fan of Alaska.
He and his family did.
So there's two options for the helicopter to the glacier where you do the dog sledding on the glacier. Right. There's two options. One is the Mendenhall Glacier and one is the Norris Glacier. Both of those are out of Juneau.
We are doing the Norris Glacier out of Juneau. And the reason we chose that was.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Actually, I thought we were doing Mendenhall.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: No, we're doing the Norris Glacier. And we did that strategically because we weren't sure about. With the national park stuff going on, if Mendenhall was going to be open, and we heard that that was not going to be an issue at Norris, but it could be an issue at Mendenhall.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Turns out Mendenhall is.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: It is open.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: Is open on the day we're going to be there. Yeah.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: It is open for the season. It is not like it didn't end up being an issue, but when we were booking our excursions a couple of months ago, because our sailing is at the end of August, we were. That was a concern. And so because it was at the time where a lot of the national parks cuts were being made, and so we didn't know what to do about that. So that is the. At Juno and Skagway, there are options to do, like helicopters to dog sledding. And if you do one of those, you can. You dog sled on the glacier. If you go to the camp like Gina went to.
[00:19:23] Speaker C: It's the mud.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: It's in mud. It's in a dirt track. Right. It's not on.
[00:19:27] Speaker C: So fun.
Yeah.
These are the puppies.
The puppies. It's the puppies. It's not the real Iditarod dogs. These are just the puppies in training. But they're happy. They're happy.
[00:19:39] Speaker B: I gotta share a couple more comments here. So we've got.
We've got Jeff saying, in honor of this discussion, I'm drinking an Alaskan Amber right now.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: I'm drinking my Coke.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Appropriate.
[00:19:50] Speaker C: Drinking Diet Coke.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Ed's giving us some advice here, Sam. It says if you're doing a helicopter excursion in the glacier, have a backup excursion in mind. They frequently get canceled due to weather, fog, winds, et cetera. Good tip, Ed.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: Tell us what the backup is. Yes.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And then where was it? Joe was asking about the deluxe tour of Juno. I don't know if you know anything about that one, Gina.
[00:20:12] Speaker C: What is it? Tell me what it is. Tell me what it is and I can talk about it. Because I. I didn't do it, but people have done it. So what is the deluxe? What is in there? What is. What does it include?
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: And Joe, to your question. Yes, I think we're on the 25th departure for August. Does that sound right?
[00:20:29] Speaker A: We are August 25th. Correct. That's. That's our departure.
So I want to back up.
[00:20:38] Speaker C: I just want to speak about one more thing. In Juno, there are a lot of cast members in Juneau, so they'll go and they'll play games. There's a gaming store there. There's the dairy. Not the Dairy Queen. There's the Burger Queen there. And you can see a lot of cast members. Chip and Dale were like, you need to go to Dairy Queen. We go every time. So we. Not Dairy Queen, Burger Queen. So we went to the Burger Queen on their recommendation. It was a great burger. And then we went to the gaming store based on the recommendation of one of the cast members. So that. That's a fun. If you want to just be in the town and be with the people, that's a really great port to, like, be. Okay.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah, No, I was gonna say, are there other things to do just walking around port? You know, we kind of skipped that in Skagway, and. But let's. So let's.
Let's go back to Skagway. Are the kind of things that, like, are walkable to the port.
[00:21:28] Speaker C: The Red Onion Saloon. That was our first trip. We did the Red Onion Saloon. And you can walk there. You don't even have to have a reservation. You walk there, you pay, like, five bucks, and you take a little tour of the brothel. Very cool. There's also. I think there's a breakfast place there that's really good. In Skagway, the town itself is a gold rush town, so it's very cute. Very. They keep everything very period time.
[00:21:52] Speaker B: I've got to ask, what does a brothel tour involve exactly?
[00:21:58] Speaker A: They tell you about, well, the gold rush, Brian.
Gold rush.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Okay, but what's involved in this tour?
[00:22:06] Speaker C: They don't show the women. They just take you to where they were.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: Where they were. Listen, we did the underground tour in Seattle. Talks about the same thing, because Seattle was a gold rush town. Like, Seattle exists because of the gold rush on the west coast as well. And so when folks came here, there were not. They were only men for a time, and then they had to ship women out here. And then the brothel industry started out here in Seattle, too. That's the same in Alaska, so.
[00:22:39] Speaker C: And the women had to make a living, too. Stuck out there with nothing.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: All right, a couple more comments rolling in here.
Craig. I got to. I got to pull up my psych. Come on, son. Like, we live in Seattle. We're prepared for.
You know who we are. You know you're talking to.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: We got Gore Tex. Have Vortex. We'll travel.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And then Ed's sharing that Skagway has really great shopping with locally made jewelry. Don't tell Sam that.
And Joe is saying Glacier Gardens Rainforest. I think that's the backup plan that we should have, potentially. So.
[00:23:12] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:23:13] Speaker A: No, because that was Ed who was saying he had it back, not Joe. All right. Yeah. All right, well, let's. Oh, see, Ed says they talk about the lives of the women, how rough their lives were, and generally give you a little peek into their slice of life. See? Thank you, Ed.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Not suggesting it's I'm just like, what is the tour like? What is the tour portion? Not the educational discussion portion.
[00:23:34] Speaker C: So it's all. It's all period. Still the same period. So you see their little room. It was like a little room. And you can see where they did their business. And then the downstairs area. That was it. Y. I toured, too. I toured it. I also toured. When we get to Ketchikan, I toured in Ketchikan, too.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Tracy's also saying, check for dates of the Blueberry Festival in Catchikan. Sam doesn't like blueberries, so I'll be festivating on my. On my own.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. Well, let's. Okay, so let's jump back to. To Juneau. What kind of. Juno, obviously, is a much bigger town. You are pretty close to down the downtown area right when you're at the port.
So that's walkable, I think.
Tell us, like, what are some. Are there good places to go, you know, grab a bite to eat, shop for souvenirs, that sort of a thing?
[00:24:23] Speaker C: Definitely. Well, that is a total port town. So when. Once you get off the ship, you're immediately in the shops, in the beach, the. In the port town, and they have this huge mall. I couldn't believe how big it was. It had. And it had pizza. It had. It had pretty good pizza, too. It had some fish and chips. It had some other. There was like a. There's a saloon there also. It's called the Red Dog Saloon. It's there.
And that's really cool. They have, like, the old saloon doors. It's really Old west feeling down there. And then, like I said, we. We hiked further up and there's more shopping. And we hiked further up to the. To the gaming store and to the Burger Queen.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: That's the way. The Burger Queen.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Yes. It's like a Dairy Queen, but it's called the Burger Queen. She said that the cast members were telling her that's where they go.
[00:25:09] Speaker C: Yeah, it's locals. It's mostly locals.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And then, yeah, Ed is saying in the. In the chat, Tracy's Crab Shack is pretty famous, and we've heard of that. And we also heard, I believe you can order even, like, crab to ship home from Tracy's. And I mean, I know there are other places as well in the area, but you can. One of the things you can do from Alaska is order fish, because obviously you can't take it back on the ship with you, but you can order fish to be shipped to your house.
[00:25:37] Speaker B: Was it Doug I think Doug was telling us about Tracy's Crab Shack when we saw.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Yes, it was. It was Doug Parker from Cruise News Radio who was telling us, I believe, about Crab Shack. Yeah. Yeah.
All right, well, let's jump to talking about Ketchikan.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: Actually, I want to. I want to ask Gina a question. Pause for a second.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: So, like, Alaska feels like a place where you might actually. You know, you mentioned the burger place where you might actually want to have lunch off the ship to experience some of the local food. I mean, don't get me wrong, there are other places. We did that in Norway, but it just feels like one of those cruises, you know, where you want to experience something local, like the crab or the salmon or whatever it is.
Did you find a lot of people doing that, like, kind of getting into town for a lunch or something like that?
[00:26:24] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. For the most part, when people got off the ship, they were gone the whole day. They weren't. This was a definite different itinerary because people got off every single day. No one was on the ship in the ports, except for the cast members, because everyone was off just going to the saloon, even to grab a drink, just to experience the town.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: What's the pool deck like?
Like in Norway?
[00:26:47] Speaker C: The pool.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Okay, yeah. Because in Norway, it was pretty empty. But, I mean, I. Alaska. Like, I went to Alaska one summer, and we packed, like, we were going someplace cold to go fishing, and we showed up, and it was like 85 to 90 degrees. So, like. Oh, I would say.
Okay, all right. I mean, you're on the water, so maybe it's a little bit better. We were. We were on land, but. Okay, all right. Good to know.
[00:27:10] Speaker C: Even on land, even in Ketchikan, it was still the hot. It was. It was warm. I had to take my layers off, but it was the warm. The high was, like, 68. So.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and remember, Disney does heat their pools to, like, a nice, like, 85 degrees. So you can get in the pool. The pool will be warm. The problem is you don't want to get out of that pool because you're freezing. You're freezing. Yeah. So we got a great comment from Ed that I want to read, which is if you go at the end. End of the season, which is. I mean, end of August or all of September, because obviously they're still doing Alaska cruises a few weeks into September. Juneau's, where you want to do your shopping for clothing with Alaska on it. Lots of shops with discounts. 50 to 75% off. Yeah, yeah. And we're going to get to talking about what the packing as well. Because I know Sean is saying in the. In the chat layers and that is as Gina pointed out.
But we'll get to that. I want to talk ports a little bit more and then we'll get to, you know, packing and we'll talk. As I said, we'll talk. We got to talk about Glacier Day as well. So, Ketchikan, what is it that you've done in Ketchikan and what are the kind of typical things that people tend to do in Ketchikan?
[00:28:25] Speaker C: For Ketchikan, we did the brothel tour. We walked through the whole town. This whole section is like the brothel section. So we went to Dolly's house. I remember her. I took a picture of it. We'd saw all the famous homes. And then we did a canoe hike, clam bake. It was really fun.
I got to feel like we were living off the land for that two hours or whatever. And it was just like the canoes at Disneyland where the adults are rowing and the kids are just sitting there. So it's very Disneyland esque and the water was nice and it wasn't fall in there or anything. So we did that. So those are the two things I've done when I was there.
And there's lots of totem poles there.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: I was really.
[00:29:06] Speaker C: I was really shocked.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: You got some great pictures with the totems.
One thing I know is really big in Ketchikan as well is that Lumberjack show. Like a ton of people do the Lumberjack show. And there is always a Lumberjack show that Disney offers that is like the DCL exclusive one where I believe it's Goofy, but I think it maybe can vary. But one of the. Oh, it's Donald. Okay. At least one of the characters is at the Lumberjack show. And you can, you know, there might be opportunity for pictures and sort of is kind of involved in the show. It's only one, I believe, of the shows that day because there's multiple shows at different times during the day. And you can book them through Disney.
You can also book outside of Disney. You can book the same lumberjack show, but you can't book the one that will have the character that is an exclusive DCL and we've heard really good things.
I will say.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: So is it Donald from the ship then? He's gone over?
[00:30:07] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah, it's a Donald, but he's wearing a different costume. He's wearing his lumberjack.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: Why did we not sign up for this again, Sam, because you know who my number one character is.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: I know, but. Okay, so I will say I think.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: You'Re hiding things from me. I think you're hiding things from me to get the excursions you want.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: Listen, this is. Listen, we were talking about this live on the show. How can I be hiding.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Oh, Carrie's saying it was goofy at the lumberjack show, so maybe they changed up the character.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I had heard. Think this past year it was goofy, but I think it can change. Yeah, I think it has changed from time to time. But yeah, I heard this year. I saw the pictures and there was goofy. But so the. The thing I've heard is that that lumberjack show is a little bit overpriced. Even though people say good things about it, they enjoy it. And I've also heard that if you're in Vancouver before or after your cruise, that there is a great lumberjack show, like right outside of Vancouver.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: But not with Goofy or Donald. Not with Goofy.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: Goofy or Donald. But it is. But I have heard you can get a great lumberjack show in, you know, in Canada and big.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: You can go to Chuck E. Cheese.
[00:31:14] Speaker C: But you can't see the country bear Jamboree Jack show. Have you seen any lumberjack show ever? I think. I think that's part of the thing. We had a big wood industry here in California, so we kind of avoided the lumberjack show because we have lots of lumberjack.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: I've seen them. I've seen one on tv, but I haven't actually seen one in person.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: Yeah, Joe's giving me the scoop here. KE41 at 3:45pm thank you, Joe. I will be signing off.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: Okay. We have to look to see if we can make it though, because we are going right now. We're booked to go see the bears.
So one of the excursions that they have.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: Yeah, which is actually being mentioned by Laura. Laura said we did an excursion where we saw bears in the wild, saw eagles in a wildlife sanctuary. It was awesome.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: So that's the leaf book.
[00:31:57] Speaker C: Do know.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Yeah. So we've booked a bear excursion. The one that we've booked is only available, I believe in August and September or like late August into September, because that's the. I think that the bear season, like where you're more likely to see bear sightings.
And Nathan is obsessed with bears. It's his. Bears are his favorite animal. He brings his teddy bear. I mean, for anyone who has seen pictures of us from various vacations on the Internet, like he usually has or often has a Bear with him. And so we. And we just have to do the bear excursion. So if we could do both, we could do both.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: You're forgetting to mention, I am also a big fan of bears, so.
[00:32:42] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: True. Brian. Brian is also.
Nathan is. Yes.
[00:32:46] Speaker B: Well, Donald bears. I could, I could give or take Goofy, but, but, but.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And Jennifer is jumping in with the. The. The Vancouver lumberjack show. It's the, It's Grouse Mountain is the lumberjack show that's near Vancouver. Thank you. J.
Remember the name of it, but I've heard. Yeah, I've heard good things about that as well. And Tracy is saying the reason we can't go to the lumberjack show is because Donald has it out for me. And Donald is still mad at me for calling him old back on the magic.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: So, yeah, I want to. I wanted to call up these before we lose sight of him here too, because we've heard about these before.
There was. Oh, well, Laura saying, glad to tune in. She's. She's done it on hal, but she can't wait to. To go on dcl. So, yes, you will love it. We hope.
Everyone we've talked to loves.
So we're hoping to love it and would bet you would love it. Ed is also mentioning this excursion that we've heard about before, which is a Bering Sea fisherman. So we've actually heard about a version of this that actually involved, like, dinner with one of the deadliest catch captains. And I saw this excursion in our booking window, and so this sounds interesting.
So Ed's saying it was a deadliest catch boat that was converted into a tourist boat. It was the one that got wiped out by a rogue wave in season one. So there you go. Thank you for sharing that, Ed. I'm not sure I want to go on the boat that was wiped out, though. I don't know how I feel about that.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
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[00:35:06] Speaker A: So, yeah, so there's a. But, you know, there are some excursions that are only offered some of the time and there are some excursions only offered certain seasons. Right. So it's one of those things where we're trying to talk about what's going to hit the most number of people. But there are some things that are, you know, either, you know, come on to the Disney schedule and then drop off for whatever reason or that are just depending upon the time of year.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: We set up a four year excursions can easily cost more than your cruise if you're not careful.
[00:35:33] Speaker A: Yeah, so one of the things, one of the things to point out, like the glacier excursion is a great example, but if you decide to do one of any of the ones that include a helicopter or a seaplane, I mean you're easily talking between 700 to $1,000 per person.
And if you, yes. And if you are a larger person, they may actually have a, an additional charge meaning if you're over a certain weight amount, you can still go on the excursion. But they will make you pay like one and a half or so. You know, there's like some sort of, I was looking at some websites for different excursions when we're trying to decide Disney excursions, non Disney excursions. And they all have like weight limits, but if you are over that weight limit, you can still go up to a certain other weight limit. But again you have to, you have to pay more. So just one of those things to note, Carrie is saying in the chat. Grouse Mountain has bears too. So you can see a lumberjack show, bears, bird, a bird show and a tram up the mountain. So I think we're gonna have to go. Yeah, I think it does have a restaurant, Brian.
[00:36:36] Speaker B: So we could, so we could just foreseeably knock out about three of our excursions at Grouse Mountain and then just hang out in our royal Disney suite for the cruise. There you go.
[00:36:45] Speaker C: We've got to get out. Out.
[00:36:46] Speaker A: No, we're gonna go out but we're gonna talk about Glacier day next. But before we get there, Ketchikan, I hear, is, like, very much a town that's kind of built for the cruise industry. Is that fair to say, Gina?
[00:36:58] Speaker C: Yes, definitely. It is very tour. It's very touristy, I have to say, but it's really nice because you can. You walk right off. You're right in the town. They're very heavy on the native American side, which I love. I love knowing about the. The indigenous people of Alaska. So that was awesome. And there's a lot of history. The day that we were there, there was a. There was a lot of history about the indigenous people. I think it was during the month of June. It was indigenous people month for that. For Ketchikan.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: Fantastic.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: So some folks are also pointing out another downside of the helicopter tours.
Ed saying, for helicopter tours, there's no guarantee on where you sit. They will seat you according to your weight balance to the balance of the helicopter. And Sean saying, having to tell my excursion provider my weight when booking the helicopter, humbling experience.
So I've actually flown on small planes where they make you, like, put your weight down, and then they balance you out the cabin, so.
[00:37:51] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: Yes, true. But you know what?
I'm. We're gonna do it, and part of it is about the helicopter ride, but part of it is about the destination, right? Because we are gonna land on pet puppies.
[00:38:06] Speaker B: That's all she wants to do.
[00:38:07] Speaker A: They're not even puppies. They're the dogs. I want to be. I want to be pulled on the sled. I want it, like, that's. I want to feel like I'm in the Iditarod.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: I'll get you those waist belt leashes and a skateboard, and I'll hook Amos up to it.
[00:38:22] Speaker A: Amos and Isabelle, our dogs, who will.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: Literally, like, be like, saved us, like, $3,000 right there.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: And I will be severely injured if we do that. So I just want to put that out there. My dogs are not well trained. They are. Yeah. All right.
Yeah, we got all of these places. For those of you have been watching these, you get. Get decent length port days. So even with an excursion, you may have time to walk around the port. So make sure you take advantage, you know, because these are some really great ports, you know, and a lot of these ports really rely on tourist dollars. And so make sure you spend some time off the ship and maybe, you know, buy some food, buy some souvenirs.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Visit Diamonds International.
I think they have Diamonds International.
[00:39:14] Speaker C: In Juneau they do. But definitely to like the indigenous people Totem Pole place where I went. It was great.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: Yeah, sure.
[00:39:21] Speaker B: I'm all about supporting local businesses who are important and I do not shop at times.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: Yeah, we don't stop at Diamonds International. Well, we got to talk about Glacier Day because so Glacier Day, as I mentioned at the top of the show, it is not technically a port day, but it's kind of like a port day because there is an optional excursion if you are booking.
If you are on an Alaska sailing and you are a brand new cruiser. I'm not saying you have no chance of getting the glacier excursion, which is a boat excursion, but it is going to be harder, especially if you are sailing in prime season. And when I say prime season, I'm talking the month of July is like the most busy for Alaska. And then early August, late June, early August, those are probably the, the sort of shoulder of that most busy part of the year. So if you're going, you're a first time cruiser, there's a good chance you won't be able to get on that the glacier boat excursion. But never fear, you have wonderful views of the glacier from the decks or from the balconies on glacier day. But Gina, tell us what the glacier day excursion is.
[00:40:31] Speaker C: Okay, so the excursion is amazing. You go into this boat, it's probably, I want to say it's like 100ft. It's a pretty small boat. And you get in and they take you right up as close as you can. The natural, as close as the naturalist will let you to the glacier. We did Tracy Arm and Endicott glaciers. So I've got to see two different glaciers and you can hear the calving. You can watch them as the ice falls into the water. I have chills just thinking about watching the ice float by your boat. You can buy a drink and they take the glacier ice and put it in your drink. It's the coolest thing. So that is amazing.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: I think is what they call it.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: I did see a warning about drinking fresh glacier melt, like something about prehistoric bacteria and microbes because it inadvertently revived some sort of illness. But I'm sure it's fine. I'm sure it's fine.
[00:41:28] Speaker A: I'm sure it's fine.
[00:41:30] Speaker C: It's still here.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: Is it ice and bourbon? Then you're good because the alcohol will kill whatever.
[00:41:36] Speaker C: The alcohol just kills it. But that was so super cool. And if you don't do that on glacier day because the first time we didn't. I didn't even know it was a thing the first time. We were so. You are so close, and that ship does a 180. It does a 360. You can't believe it. You're like, we're in this.
In this bay, and we are so close, and you can still. You can't hear the calving, but you can see it. You can see the ice floating by, even because. Because you're in the Inside Passage. There's land on both sides, so that's really cool. You can watch the waterfalls as you're going up. It's just that it's breathtaking. Just the scenic route.
[00:42:11] Speaker B: It's funny that it feels close to you because we've seen the pictures looking back from the glacier for the people who, like, take the Zodiac out, and the ship looks small, so it's like a parallax, paradox, whatever you call it. Yeah, yeah, right.
[00:42:25] Speaker C: Because we feel so big in this boat and we're doing these 360s. I was like, this is the best thing. I've never done this before. And this captain, he's awesome.
[00:42:34] Speaker B: Yes, Jeff, I do know about the Andromeda strain. I've watched the movie and read the book. So there you go.
[00:42:40] Speaker A: We got it.
[00:42:41] Speaker B: I want to highlight a couple comments here. Ed was saying Ketchikan also has the salmon ladder on the rocks in the port. You can also sometimes spot families of otter there. I do wonder if anyone has any experience. Like, I'm actually, like, as a souvenir, I'm actually hoping to, like, get to, like, a cannery or something like that and have them, you know, send back down some, you know, Alaska fish and stuff. We did that when I was a kid, when I went fishing up in Alaska. We were able to trade our stuff and have, like, smoked halibut and stuff sent home. And that was just great to have. So I'm curious if anyone has any experience with that or if you saw that Gina smoked salmon.
And then Sean's just saying if he doesn't get to meet Coda the bear on glacier day, he will cry ugly tears.
[00:43:21] Speaker A: So I was going to talk about that. So one of the things we got to talk about is character experiences before we get to the meet and greets. Koda the bear is a character that only comes out from what I hear on glacier day, and it's kind of random appearances. It's not necessarily going to be on the schedule. So I've heard that from a lot of folks. So. So if you're out on deck on glacier day, you will have a chance of seeing Coda the Bear. If you are not out on deck, meeting up on the, you know, the pool deck, you will not. But there's a lot of stuff going on on the pool deck that day. Gina, why don't you tell us about what Glacier Day looks like on the ship?
[00:44:03] Speaker C: Okay. Glacier Day is pretty crazy because everyone is going towards. Towards the bow of the ship or towards the stern. It depends on which side's open. Sometimes they open the bow or they open the stern mostly. So you go and you could be on the port stern as close as you can. And it's raining, so you have to wear your poncho because I wore wrong shoes and I got all soaked. I had to go change. That was the first time. So you have to wear your poncho. You have to wear appropriate shoes so you can stay out there. It is freezing cold. It is windy. My hat blew off. People are huddling together. You don't know.
And then there's just. It's a really. You get to really get community. It's really community at this. On this day. And then Donald, every couple hours, Donald is dressed up in his gear. And you can go visit Donald. That's for Brian. You can visit the other characters as well. And they're. They're in their Alaska gear.
The thing that I really enjoyed about Alaska, though, was you would just see the character walk up to you. So you're out on deck, and Goofy would come up and I just took a photo and that was it. It was just the two of us were there. I got a photo with Goofy, or I think it was the three of us. I think Brandon was in that photo. I have that photo with Mickey. He's just hanging out in his gear. And I'm like, oh, okay, let's do a photo. So the lines aren't the same as they are when you go anywhere else.
I really enjoy that.
[00:45:23] Speaker B: I'm curious. You've got one person asking that they have Palo brunch at 10 o' clock on Glacier Day. Do you think we'll miss a ton of it?
[00:45:32] Speaker C: Depends what you want to do. If you want to be outside with the elements you're missing, if you don't want to be outside and freeze and change your shoes and do the whole thing. But just know that if you're not dressed appropriately, you don't want to be outside.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: Is the whole day kind of just.
Is the whole day packed? Gina? Like, is it.
[00:45:49] Speaker C: No, no, no.
[00:45:50] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: No, no. Well. And you might not get to the glacier until later in the day, too. So just here's the thing. It very much depends on which route your captain is deciding to take. And you won't know that ahead of time.
Know really what glacier they're going to get close to. To Gina's point. She went to one glacier one time. She went to a different glacier a different time. Right. Like, and that depends on the seas conditions and the weather conditions. Right. And so the captain is going to make a, you know, day of or day before decision, and that will impact what time you get to the glacier. So you may not even be like at the glacier, but there still will be characters out on the deck for pictures. So they do have, in addition to what Gene is talking about, where the characters are walking around there, set times for character meet and greets. On Glacier Day, out on the deck, they'll be like, Minnie will be on one side, Mickey will be on the other side. Then it'll be Donald and then it'll be Daisy. Right. And so like, you can literally jump from line to line now. There will be lines. I have. That's what I've heard.
[00:46:52] Speaker C: Yeah. There are lines for that. Specific timings. That's why you want to be out there. Yeah.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: And you're. And it's because a lot of people want. Want not just the picture, because you can get pictures with the characters in their Alaska outfits at other times. It's a picture. Right. It's a picture with the background.
[00:47:09] Speaker B: Carrie's asking Gina, are the lines any shorter later in the day? It's. It's from what I'm. For what it sounds like.
Maybe, but also. But also do the characters. Yeah, you're not gonna have a glacier and do the characters come back out?
[00:47:22] Speaker A: You may or may not, right?
[00:47:23] Speaker C: Yeah, it depends. It depends on the demand. Because Donald came out twice because the line was super long for him. That's. I mean, I. Donald in his lumberjack gear, I guess, is the thing. Is the thing. So he came out twice. Yeah, he came out twice. And I think Mickey came out twice and everyone else was just a one time.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: Well, and it's hard to know in advance because they, like I said, based on when they will time these things for. Based on when you're going to be at the glacier. So it might be earlier in the. The day. It might be midday, it might be a little bit later. Right. It's not going to be like super early in the morning, like 7am but it's also not going to be 4 in the afternoon.
[00:48:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Ed's saying you'll know you will have a glacier time slot. Could be in the morning or in the afternoon. You can tell by when the glacier boats run. The first ones leave before the ship gets to the glacier.
So if you see the glacier boats running, which is one of the excursions you can do, then you'll know you're getting towards the glacier. Joe has a great. Oh, go ahead. No, no, no, go ahead.
[00:48:21] Speaker C: Oh, here's what I did. Here's what I did. Not the first time, the second time. Here's what I did. I sat kind of in, like, on deck.
What is it? Where the COVID bar is? I sat near the COVID Bar and I kind of just sat and watched. You kind of just sit there and you watch, and you sit there for the whole day and just watch.
[00:48:39] Speaker A: And then, I believe. Yeah.
[00:48:42] Speaker C: And you're just. You're getting closer and closer, and you have your blankets and you're just watching. You're drinking your coffee and you're just watching. Because that's a day of just. Just watching the scenery go by. Because all of a sudden the boats start coming, but then the huge iceberg, like the huge pieces of blocks of ice start floating and the seals start jumping. You're like, oh, we're getting there. That's how you know is by sitting out there and watching the scenery change.
[00:49:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And we are in the last glacier boat time slot of the day for our sailing. So for that's the end of August, it's a 3:15. And so from what I've heard, we will be at the glaciers, but we will be leav the glaciers when we get back on. Right. So, like, our glacier excursion will be sort of the end of the time at the glacier, but there should be character pictures and whatnot going on before that. So I'm. I'm not worried so much about missing the character experiences because I think they'll have them for the better part of the day. Yeah.
[00:49:43] Speaker B: Joe. Actually, first, I just got to send a shout out to our friend Christopher Paul, who's on here asking how awesome is Lorcana? Lorcana is very awesome. Thank you for watching.
Joe's asking. The picture package worth it? I think if there's a cruise where it would be worth it, it would be Alaska. Yeah. I'm curious, though. Have you sailed Gina, since they made the shift over to the new photographers, and I'm wondering if they're like, yeah, sometimes they're sending them out on excursions.
[00:50:08] Speaker A: Sailed on the Wonder out of San Diego.
[00:50:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:50:11] Speaker B: But on Alaska, I'm wondering. Yeah, yeah.
[00:50:13] Speaker C: Oh, no, I haven't. 2023 is my last Alaska cruise. So I won't know. And you'll know before me.
[00:50:18] Speaker B: I mean. Yeah, I'm kind of curious if they're sending the photographers out on like the glacier boat or something like that these days.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: Oh, sometimes, yeah, they sometimes send them out on excursion. Yeah.
And I think the DCL Lumberjack show they do as well.
[00:50:33] Speaker C: They've always been there.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And so there are, there are.
I would say it's not a guarantee that you'll have a DCL photographer at your excursion, but there are some. The ones that are sort of the very. The most subscribed excursions. Yeah, the DCL exclusive ones. Of course, those ones maybe with your own camera, they will take photos with your own camera with characters. But generally speaking, it is way easier to just let them take the photo with their stuff and then you sign onto the app and you can download your photos that day if you have the unlimited picture package booked. If you have one of the other picture packages booked, you're going to have to choose your 20 photos or your 30 photos or something like that. And so you aren't really going to be able to sort of download as you go because you're going to want to see all your photos before you decide which ones you're going to purchase. But I would say as a general matter, if you are going to take a decent number of family photos, and I don't just mean on glacier day, but like photos down in the atrium, photos with the backdrops, photos at dinner, I tend to think that the photo package is. Is well worth it.
I would say when, when we first started sailing, we didn't. No, I know we. I know what you're going to say. I'm going to say this. We get it for free because we're Pearl. So, yes, I know that it's definitely.
[00:51:55] Speaker B: Worth it if you don't have to pay.
[00:51:57] Speaker A: But even, even before we started getting it free, we started buying the photo package because it was the only picture, family photos we would end up getting. And most of them are from dinner or me going around and taking pictures with characters.
[00:52:12] Speaker B: And now they're not really even family photos. They're just photos of you and me. Because Nathan's at the edge.
[00:52:17] Speaker A: Yes, Nathan's at the edge, except dinner and dinner. He will go in if we get in a photo, but otherwise he's at the edge. And then Brian and I are taking photos and I'm taking. Taking character photos.
[00:52:26] Speaker B: Gina.
[00:52:27] Speaker A: I would say in general, yes.
[00:52:29] Speaker B: I kind of want to round us out with.
I got three questions. First question, dining on the ship, especially dinner in Norway.
Okay, well. Okay. We can't cover it all, Sam. We got 10 minutes left for the show.
[00:52:44] Speaker A: I know.
[00:52:45] Speaker B: Dining on board the ship in Norway, it was advantageous to have the later dining because you, you were really off the ship the whole day. Was that your experience in Alaska? Alaska.
[00:52:54] Speaker C: I only booked second seating for Alaska. I just, I prefer second seating anyway. But it gave us a lot of time to get back, shower, go to the show if you wanted to. You didn't have to. There's a lot of salmon, by the way, so I would just get salmon all over the place. They have barbecue salmon for lunch one day. They have the salmon, smoked salmon in the morning, they have the salmon, poached salmon at night. There was. I had salmon seven days in a row. Breakfast, lunch at dinner.
[00:53:20] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:53:20] Speaker C: So anyway, so definitely.
[00:53:23] Speaker A: Did you have one of those.
What is it? The, like, like with hollandaise? What is that? The eggs Benedict that has the salmon on it?
[00:53:32] Speaker C: I did all. I did all the salmon dishes available.
[00:53:35] Speaker B: So let, let's, let's, let's do Sam's question. Packing tips. Tips for packing. And we actually had a question earlier in the show that I know you may not be able to answer, Gina, but I want to put it out to the community, which is someone was asking about binoculars for kids to bring on board.
And I've got two pairs of binoculars I'm bringing, and I've got, like, a telescope kind of thing that, that we can use with our phone to, like, take photos of the wildlife off the ship. But, like, Gina, what are your tips for packing? And anyone out there listening? If you've got a tip for recommendation for binoculars, throw them up on our Facebook site and we'll. We'll put it. Put it up over there.
[00:54:11] Speaker C: You do need binoculars. You do need a waterproof thing for your phone, because on that float, the phone fell into the water and then it's drip dry. So if you have your phone case that's waterproof, bring that. It's raining all the time, so you want to make sure you're waterproof. And with the canoe, everything gets wet, so you're wet a lot, so always. So definitely packing tips. Vests, jackets, hoodies, beanies, regular T shirts, flannels.
I wore boot. I had boots for that for the day that we were out at the glacier. And then my regular sneakers. So there's a ton of things you need to pack. I Had an extra bag because I had the extra coats. I had a pink coat so I could always find me. That was my thing. Pink. So you can always see me wherever I am. And then I had. And then I had a couple of beanies because one blew off. So you have to have a backup beanie. And then it's sunny, so you have to have the beanie with the brim.
So I had a few beanie.
[00:55:11] Speaker B: I've never heard of a brim beanie. A brim.
Was it a brim Backup beanie? That's what we need to know.
Saying the theme of the day. Layers, layers, layers.
[00:55:21] Speaker A: So I do think your point about an extra pair of shoes is good. Whether that's like, you have, like, a pair of hiking boots and a pair of sneakers. I have heard that people don't. People are much more casual. Like, they don't tend to, like, dress. Dress up for dinner. Like, you might see people changing in a Caribbean cruise. You might. People change into sundresses for dinner. I hear in Alaska that's really not common. Like, for people to dress up for dinner, they're really just in, like, jeans or leggings or whatever. Right. Like, because whatever they were wearing out for the day or I mean, maybe they changed into a clean pair, but they're not. People are not tend to be dressed up for dinner. And sundresses are obviously gonna work.
[00:56:02] Speaker C: I wore a lot. Yeah, I wore a lot of sweatshirts, shirts, a lot of jeans.
Yeah, Yeah, A lot of sweatshirts. All my photos are of me in a sweatshirt. I wore a Star wars sweatshirt. Star wars, you know, whatever. Star wars sweatshirt this day. Mickey Mouse sweatshirt this night. So, yeah.
[00:56:17] Speaker A: Nice. We've got a recommendation for binoculars. In the chat, Brian and Jeff is also saying waterproof shoes. I have a recommendation for waterproof shoes, which is. I have a pair of on cloud.
[00:56:27] Speaker B: I was just typing that. I was literally just typing that.
[00:56:31] Speaker A: I have a great pair of on cloud sneakers that are waterproof sneakers. Right? So, I mean, obviously if my. They're. They're not tall. So if my foot were to go into, like, a huge body of water, then my foot's getting wet. But they're great for walking around in, like, the rain. And I'm not a big fan of hiking boots because I don't wear hiking boots enough to get to really break them in. But my on clouds are probably what I will bring.
[00:56:55] Speaker B: I wear them.
[00:56:57] Speaker A: Bring an extra pair of sneakers just in case.
[00:56:59] Speaker B: I wear them all the time in Seattle and we get tons of Rain here and my feet are toasty. Generous.
[00:57:02] Speaker A: Yes. I wear them a lot in here. Yes, you keep your toes warm. Yeah.
[00:57:06] Speaker B: So Gina, I want to wanted to ask what's your biggest tip for a first time Alaska sailor? Like, what's the one thing you learned the first time you did it that is like just standard now for you if you're going to go to Alaska?
[00:57:20] Speaker C: Okay. So every time we go, I pack enough clothes, I pack enough backups, I'm prepared for the wet and just warm. I always buy the blanket. I always make sure I feel like I'm never warm enough with a blanket.
Blanket. So I always buy the blanket from the white sales every day, 8pm rolls around, like, I gotta get that blanket, the extra blanket. So I always buy the extra blanket because I'm always colder than I think.
[00:57:48] Speaker A: That's a great tip. I have heard the blankets that they have on deck. So normally obviously on deck they just have pool towels. Well, in Alaska they will have these blankets, but they're like a thin blanket and so I've heard they're not particularly warm.
And so. But if you've got a, you know, a throw blanket that you bought either the onboard PAC package that for the Alaska, you know, season or you bought the one in the gift shop, I've heard a lot of folks will take those up to deck with them and wrap themselves in that. Or if your kid has like, I don't know, a favorite Minecraft blanket like ours does, we might bring that along with us for this trip.
[00:58:24] Speaker B: He might need something a little warmer than that. That blanket is getting a little warm.
[00:58:27] Speaker C: It needs to be thicker. Yeah, yeah, it needs to be. It needs to be thick.
[00:58:30] Speaker B: All right, last. Oh, actually this is a good question. Jennifer's asking, what months have you typically sailed?
[00:58:37] Speaker C: I've done June, end of June and I've done August.
[00:58:42] Speaker B: Which did you prefer?
[00:58:44] Speaker C: August was better.
[00:58:45] Speaker B: August was better. Okay.
[00:58:46] Speaker C: August was better. Yeah.
[00:58:47] Speaker B: All right, so my last question, Gina, would you sail Alaska again? Like, I mean, you've sailed to Alaska. She's got it booked.
[00:58:54] Speaker C: No, I'm booked on the magic. So yes, the answer is yes.
[00:58:58] Speaker B: I was fiddling with the thing over here. Okay, so that's. Okay. So the answer is Rosanna sounding yes. So let me ask a different question. Would you ever consider sailing to Alaska? Not on Disney Cruise Line.
[00:59:09] Speaker A: I mean, your husband has.
[00:59:11] Speaker C: Because my husband did it and he said this was so much better than the Holland America.
[00:59:16] Speaker B: All right, You've got celebrity, you've got Norwegian.
[00:59:20] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean there are a Lot of options.
[00:59:22] Speaker B: Princess is the OG of Alaska sailing.
[00:59:25] Speaker C: Yes, the OG And Princess is always there. Princess is always, always there.
[00:59:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:59:29] Speaker C: So I could do a Princess cruise on there, but I just love that. What I do love is I love the exclusivity of their, of their excursions. I also like their organization.
Like I said, you get your Hercules sticker, you go to Buena Vista Theater, you walk together as a group, and then you're not lost. And I wear my pink coat so you can find me out in the, out in the water.
[00:59:50] Speaker B: All right, truly, last question. This one's coming from a listener. What, sorry? What made August better than June? Chris wants to know. Christopher?
[00:59:58] Speaker A: Paul.
[00:59:59] Speaker C: Oh, it was the animals. So in June, we didn't see as much of the whales as we had in August. And the, the, the bubbling and how many, how many bubble nets. The naturals said in August they have never seen this kind of feeding like they did In August of 2021, I think, or 2020, whatever year. No, not 2018. Something like that.
[01:00:22] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:00:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:00:23] Speaker A: Awesome.
[01:00:24] Speaker B: Well, as Joe said, seems like this can go on for a few hours. It absolutely could, if for no other reason than we love talking to Gina. She's a friend of ours and so it's great to talk to Gina about anything. So it could. It very well could.
I'm going to put a call out again. If you've got tips, tricks of your own, like head over to our Facebook group, throw them in the comments for this, this show, Sam and I will be watching with great interest since we have our own cruise coming up. If there's must pack items that you, you know, we didn't talk about on the show. I'd love to, I'd love to hear about those.
Interest to me, I'll also say is, you know, what cameras did you take to get those great wildlife shots from the ship? I'd love to. Just love to know what you're packing there. But Gina, I just.
[01:01:03] Speaker A: Well, and we've got this great in the comments, waterproof shoes and binoculars recommendation that we obviously can't read every comment. But for those who are wondering, there's some really good ones in there as well.
[01:01:13] Speaker B: I want to thank Gina first and foremost for returning after just an absolute abject failure of a live stream Monday, two weeks ago. But thank you for coming back for taking the time. I know people were really interested in hearing more about Alaska and we can't wait to share our own experience with, with everyone out there when we get back.
[01:01:33] Speaker A: For now.
[01:01:34] Speaker B: Go ahead, Sam.
[01:01:35] Speaker A: I was gonna Say, what's next?
[01:01:37] Speaker B: I was gonna say what's next?
[01:01:37] Speaker A: I know. Our next, our next episode is on this coming Monday with our friends Tracy and Michael talking about the treasure. We're also gonna, you know, give a little nod to the fathers for Father's Day since, you know, our, our very own producer and host with the most is a dad and celebrating Father's Day this Sunday.
[01:01:56] Speaker B: Oh, did the paternity come back?
[01:02:00] Speaker A: Anyway, yeah, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern. So we will be back this coming Monday and then a week from now. Stay tuned because we will be talking about Alaska again with the fabulous podcaster and influencer Carly Wiesel who reports on all things theme parks of cross Disney and universe.
[01:02:24] Speaker B: I, I want to, I, we just reached out to Carly to confirm. She, she did, you know, so she should be here on Monday, two weeks. So we're, we're, we're really excited to have her on.
[01:02:33] Speaker A: Super excited.
[01:02:34] Speaker B: Fingers crossed everything's lined up and her schedule hasn't changed. So yes, if she, if she, if it hasn't, we can't wait to see her. So, yeah.
[01:02:40] Speaker A: Yes. And I gotta tell you that Ed is saying love the my DVC points and dc, I'll do a crossover. So for those who don't know, Gina is producer, sometimes host, host, sometimes guests on MyDVC Points podcast, which are of course, Chad was one of our good friends as well. And that's actually how we met Gina originally. So we've known now Gina for years since, since before we started the podcast. And yeah, yeah. So thank you so much everyone for watching. We very much appreciate all of you who are watching live and of course any of you who are, you know, watching after the fact or listening on the podcast you channels, make sure to come and check out our YouTube channel and make sure to like and subscribe on YouTube and don't forget those five stars on Apple podcasts. But thank you all so very much.
[01:03:28] Speaker B: And hold on, hold on. I just want to put out, there we are four, five star reviews away from 500 reviews.
[01:03:35] Speaker C: Four.
[01:03:36] Speaker B: We only need four. So like help us out. Help us out. All right, four.
[01:03:40] Speaker C: Do it. All right, can I delete mine and do it again? Because I can't.
[01:03:44] Speaker B: That does not help us. If you have already left a review, you can't leave another one. So don't do that. That, so don't do that. If you haven't left us a review just four away. Help us out. Help us out. So, yes, all right with that. Thank you, Gina. Thank you everyone. Out there for watching.
Thank you for all those listening after the fact and we will see you again on Monday. Thanks everybody Monday.
[01:04:06] Speaker A: Bye Bye.
[01:04:12] Speaker D: Well thanks everyone out there for listening this week. We're really really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact twice a week we publish shows so be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us alive, we have a live show now every week Monday nights, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern over on YouTube.com DCLDUO so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want to help support the show. Be sure to hit those five stars on Apple Podcast and if you to listen, leave us a written review. A five star written review. We will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor, My Path Unwinding Travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to mypathunwinding.com forward/dclduo or email them at dclduomypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. If you've got questions or you'd like to connect with us, the best way to do that is to head over to DCLDuo.com it's got links to all of our things. Full catalog of the podcast episodes including a searchable catalog for the podcast, links off to our vlog, a link to our Etsy store where we sell some fun fan inspired magnets. Link to our Patreon. If you'd like to help directly support the show each and every month, just head over to the website or patreon.com DCLDUO Also, as a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here, at least on a few blog articles that we've written. So DCLDUO.com is the best way to connect with us. You can also of course email
[email protected] or reach out to us on our voicemail line at 402-413-5590. That's 402-413-5590. The DCL Duo podcast is not affiliated with Disney Cruise Line, the Disney Company, or the Disney Family of theme parks. The views expressed on the show are solely those of the individuals on the podcast and in no way reflective views of the Disney Company or Disney Cruise Line. If you have questions about a Disney Cruise or Disney Vacation, please contact the great folks over at MyPath unwinding travel or Disney directly or your own travel agent. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL duo.
[01:06:14] Speaker B: Good night.
[01:06:22] Speaker A: SA.
