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24 Feb 20, 07:56 PM |
#1
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Very Serious Dibber
Join Date: May 12
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O Can-aska - Day 7 - Skagway
O Can-aska - Day 7
Index Thursday 5th September 2019 - Skagway Today would be our first port of call this cruise – Skagway. The day started with breakfast in Cabanas, enjoying the view of Skagway. Of course Ollie had noodles for breakfast – We disembarked the ship straight after breakfast, via a quick stop in the Palo toilets – always less busy than the Cabanas toilets and a lot fancier. For example, where else would they make the hand towels look like a peacock? Worth climbing the one flight of stairs for! This morning we would be taking a journey on the White Pass scenic Railway, taking you to the summit of white pass. Disney offers this excursion, where the train will pick you up from the cruise dock. However, we booked directly with the railway, which meant we boarded the train at the station in town. This was a 10 minute walk and saved us about $20 each, so well worth it. We did check availability of the Skagway Street Car Tour, who had a representative at the dock. We tried to book in advance but were advised to check on the day, as the cruise lines gets priority booking. There was availability for that day, but it clashed with our train journey, which was a shame. Walking into Skagway was lovely. The town looked so quaint and almost from the past – add some background music and I could have believed I was in a theme park. And the ship looked beautiful against the back drop – Our tour was departing at 9am – we got there nice and early to make sure we got good seats. Luckily, our carriage was less than half full, which meant we had excellent views. One family spent almost the whole tour asleep! I think I woke them up at one point when I accidentally slammed the train door shut. We spent a large portion of the journey on the viewing platforms outside between carriages. No one else in our carriage wanted to spend time out there, so we spend a lot of time outside. This afforded us some amazing views, particularly when we were very high up. I’m normally a bit of a wimp, so was quite proud of myself how chilled I was outside! There was narration all the way up, but being outside we did miss a chunk of this. The views were beautiful and this was my favourite excursion of the holiday. We were lucky it was a really beautiful day which meant we could appreciate the stunning views – I imagine on a grey and drizzly day it wouldn’t have been the same. I took hundreds of photos during the trip, but I’ll just share a selection! Fortunately we weren’t going over this bridge - url=https://www.thedibb.co.uk/p/2iuUxTy][/url] After our journey, the train was doing a stop off at the dock, so we thought we’d get off here, have some lunch, and then go back into town to explore afterwards. We fancied lunch in the main dining room, it was really quiet in here which made for a chilled experience. Our server, Nica, was lovely. We saw her a few more times during the cruise and she always made an effort to chat with us. We made sure to put her name on our comment card at the end of the cruise. To start, we had the roasted red pepper arancini – with arriabbata sauce, parmiagana-reggiano and fried Italian parsley You can’t really go wrong with arancini. We also shared the Herb roasted chicken salad – marinated roasted chicken with baby spinach, poached pears, spicy pecans, brie and shallot-thyme vinaigrette It’s not often I rave about a salad, but this was excellent. I think because it was made up of lots of non-typical salad ingredients – I love brie and the pears were a nice touch. In fact, all the salads we had for lunches in the main dining room were really good. For mains, I had the ricotta gnocchi Quattro stagioni – gnocchi tossed in a light cream sauce with grilled artichokes, buffalo mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and olives I’ve only ever had gnocchi a handful of times and enjoyed this. Although I did pick out the olives! Ollie had the Fettucine pasta – with homemade meatballs in a rich Rome tomato sauce with basil and parmiagano-regiiano shavings Not his most memorable dish of the trip, but still nice. We must have been pretty hungry today as we also decided to get a burger on the side (making up for the poor effort on lunch yesterday)! The classic – 1/2lb angus beef served on a toasted sourdough bun with American Cheese, iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and red onions served with French fries. I was really impressed with this burger. It seemed a much better quality burger than those available on the pool deck (although I do like these too) and was really delicious. |
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24 Feb 20, 08:01 PM |
#2
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Thread Starter
Very Serious Dibber
Join Date: May 12
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For dessert (yes, we managed dessert too!) Ollie had the Warm Pina colada pudding – with coconut Florentine shards and coconut ice cream.
I love a bread pudding, but I’m not a coconut fan (unless it’s in a cocktail of course). The bite I did have was good, but a bit coconut-y for my taste. I went for the Chocolate ring-ading sundae – dulce de leche and chocolate ice cream with caramel sauce, chocolate chips and whipped cream I love that the chocolate in the top had Mickey on! I really enjoyed our sit down lunch experience and we made plans to do a few more this cruise. After our lunch, we headed back out into Skagway. The weather was beautiful outside, sunny with blue skies. I think it was around 19 degrees, which was higher than expected in Alaska. We definitely didn’t need as many layers as this morning. We got really lucky with our week in Alaska, with cast members telling us we had picked the best week all season. The week before and after had been grey and drizzly. I’m not sure the White Pass Railway would have been as good with grey skies and poor visibility, so we did feel very fortunate. Our first stop was the Train Shoppe to pick up a few souvenirs. We also popped into the restrooms here – probably something to do with the many coke zeros I had at lunch. For some reason, this sign amused me. Ollie picked up a White Pass Railway hat – it was actually from 2017, but at $1.99 was a bargain! The hats for the current year were around the $10 mark. We spent a fair bit of time just wandering in and out of stores and enjoying the atmosphere in beautiful Skagway. We went in a lot of the souvenir shops where Ollie tired on various Alaska tshirts, but he hadn’t found ‘the one’ yet. We went into the photography store, where Ollie was delighted that there were lots of bear photos! He fell in love with one, but felt it was a bit pricey for a photograph. After lots of deliberating, involving leaving and revisiting the shop a few times, I eventually said I would get him the photo for Christmas! We also bumped into our tablemates in here who were buying a few pictures. We passed on this one… We managed to find a magnet that would cover all of our Alaska ports (and some extras) for $2.99 plus tax. We did end up popping back to the White Pass Train Shoppe, where I bought my Dad the same hat as Ollie. We also bought a cuddly bear each for our niece and nephew - $3.99 each instead of the usual $5.99. I also couldn’t resist a Christmas ornament for $3.99. Our last purchase was in the liquor store where we picked up a bottle of sparkling wine ($11.99) and a six pack of cider ($9.99) to take back on board. On our way back we saw these. We’re not really sure what they were, but there were lots of them and they looked odd – We must have spent a good 3 and a half hours back in the town and really enjoyed our time there. Tonight’s show in the Walt Disney theatre was the Lion King movie. We’d already seen this when it came out in the cinema (very realistic computer animation, almost identical to the original movie) and didn’t feel the need to see it on board. We weren’t back on board until well after the film had started anyway. Instead, I had a well earned nap and got presentable for dinner. Tonight was the restaurant I had most been looking forward to – Tiana’s Place. They’ve done a lovely job with the restaurant and the server outfits were just like the film. The menus were just like the film as well. The setup of the tables were lovely. To start, we both had the Louisiana hot crab dip – with toasted croutons. I felt I had to go with the most authentic option! Also, look how pretty those plates are! We both then had Country green lentil soup – with paprika, chorizo sausage and vegetable. I think we were both swayed because it had chorizo in, but it wasn’t that exciting really. For mains, we both went for the New York sirloin steak – with truffle-layered potatoes, honey parsnips and buttered spinach with a pepper sauce on the side Lots of same choices tonight! I hadn’t had a steak yet, so this was overdue. I really enjoyed this – on our last cruise we noticed that they’ve finally worked out how to do non well-done steaks! This was cooked a lovely medium. Because one main is never enough on a cruise, we shared a Baked filet of bering sea halibut – served with creamed potatoes, sautéed fennel and a light dill cream sauce on the side. This was very light and a nice contrast to the steak. This was one of the Alaskan regional inspirations form the menu, which was a lot better than the other options we tried so far. For dessert, we shared a Banoffee cream pie – caramel toffee base topped with bananas and an abundance of whipped cream and a Baked Alaska – sponge loaf layered with chocolate, strawberry and vanilla ice cream covered with burnt meringue. Ollie is always unimpressed with the Baked Alaska, but surely you have to have this on an Alaskan cruise! Tiana came around during the meal and had a chat. I had read that Louis normally made an appearance, but he didn’t on our cruise. I did think that his long tail wouldn’t really be practical in a restaurant. The Crawfish Crooners also did a set – we were one of the furthest tables from the stage so couldn’t fully appreciate it, which was a shame. Our server we had at lunch unfortunately dropped a large tray full of dishes during the meal when she bumped into another server. I’m always amazed how full those trays are – they must be so heavy and I’m surprised more accidents don’t happen when lots of servers are moving around the restaurant at once. This was completely not her fault and we were a bit worried about her getting in trouble. Like a pro she carried on straight away. Our servers came over and asked if we were ok as we were a nearby table, but we were absolutely fine. When this happened, a lady at the table next to use decided to stand up and clap. Her clapping was really slow and seemed to go on forever – obviously no one joined in as she was so incredibly rude. Even her family looked mortified. The servers work so hard and I couldn’t believe the rudeness of this woman. After dinner, Woody was just finishing up in the Atrium and Jessie was about to come out, with a short queue. We waited to meet her and she was great fun! We took a brief stroll around deck 4 to help our food go down. We declined the adult entertainment tonight – it was 80s flashback which is a bit before our time. Instead, we headed back to the stateroom where this guy was waiting for us. Day 8 - Juneau
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Florida: August 2013, August 2015 (with Bahamian cruise - Disney Dream), September 2018 (with Caribbean cruise - Disney Fantasy) Cruises : Mediterranean - Disney Magic, August 2016, Alaska - Disney Wonder, September 2019 Edited at 09:24 PM. |
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25 Feb 20, 04:08 PM |
#3
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Apprentice Imagineer
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You seem to have done so much in just a day! I actually had to check that there wasn’t two days in there!
Stunning scenery again thank you so much for taking the time to share.
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Dreams are forever - Tinkerbell |
27 Feb 20, 08:18 PM |
#4
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Imagineer
Join Date: Jan 05
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We loved the White Pass rail trip, lots of snow when we were there with lovely blue skies above
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2 Mar 20, 09:08 PM |
#5
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Thread Starter
Very Serious Dibber
Join Date: May 12
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I think we just ate lots, so it seemed like lots of days! Thanks for reading
White Pass was my favourite excursion of the trip. Thanks for reading |
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25 Mar 20, 01:43 PM |
#6
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Imagineer
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more fantastic photos
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Sue June 1996 & 1998 - DLP Camp Davy Crockett August 2000, Oct 2002, Sept 2008 & Sept 2016- DLP Offsite June 2001, August 2003,2007 &Sept 2010 - WDW Offsite June 2005 - DLP Davy Crockett Ranch |
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1 Apr 20, 08:25 PM |
#7
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Thread Starter
Very Serious Dibber
Join Date: May 12
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21 Apr 20, 12:45 AM |
#8
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VIP Dibber
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Another great day with so many fab photos
That train ride looks as if your really got to capture a flavour of the incredible scenery too. PS I did giggle at the toilet sign too That's for sharing all those photos
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I'm a Great British Mickey Waffle Podcast presenter. Hope you are a Listener Going out in a Blaze of Glory- Our Summer of Sorcery 2019 - COMPLETE! 4 Weeks, from The Yacht Club for 10 nights onto much more Florida fun too All of our previous Trip reports and escapades can be read here. |
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28 Apr 20, 07:23 PM |
#9
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Thread Starter
Very Serious Dibber
Join Date: May 12
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I did get a bit snap happy today, I have hundreds from the White Pass Railway alone. With stunning views, you can't help but take lots of photos
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