Alaska: Chapter 5

After a brief pause (which I shall explain later) I continue with my Alaskan Adventure. 

Our next day we were at Icy Strait Point. 

Now I need you to know that I am not outdoorsy. Nature holds very little appeal to me. It's why I picked an Alaskan cruise. I could see Alaska. Visit Alaska. And not exactly do much in Alaska. 

As such, this was a pretty chill day for me and Husband. Though the day started with Churro Waffles. Which are my favorite! 

C went whale watching with my dad early and he saw a whole pod of Orcas. 

M went with my brother to a ropes course and zip line thing. (Not the giant zip line.) I don't have any pictures of that though because... brothers. Lol. 

I did get off the ship briefly to take a picture of the Orca statue. This is M and my dad waving from their balcony to us!

And C wanted to stand in the Pacific. 

That evening was Rapunzel night. Which is a family favorite! 

As luck would have it, we ate dinner in Rapunzel's Royal Table for the second time and then went to see the Tangled Broadway Style show. 

If you aren't aware, different from other cruise lines, Disney offers rotational dining for dinner. Everyone on board is assigned a table number at their dinner time, (5:45 or 8:15) And you stay at that same table number with the same servers as you rotate through the 3 dining rooms. There is not currently an evening buffet option. (Which makes sense because the dining teams are in the dining rooms and how the heck did they staff that before?) 

Your server team gets to know you really well. If you order a Sprite the first night, one magically appears for you the next Etc. 

It was a nice chill day! 

Alaska: Chapter 4

After Glacier Day was Skagway! 

We went to the top and front of deck 10 to look at the town from the dock. It's cute. 

We all had an excursion planned for mid-morning. 

We took a streetcar tour through the town. 

I am not a nature girl. But Alaska IS wilderness, so I used this outhouse, which basically means I went camping. 

All 8 of us. 

We were told it was a rare day to be able to see this mountain. Apparently most of the time it's foggy. It was nice, like 70, but so windy. 

After our tour of the town, most of us went back to the ship for lunch. Then just my little family of 4 went back out to town, and we walked around. 

It was nice to know if we moved to Skagway (we would never) that we could still keep our bank.

We went to the grocery store, and this was the "Costco" section. 

Then because it was Sunday we went to church. This was a moment of panic for me. I had emailed ahead because I wanted to confirm Mass times. And Fr. Joseph told me there wasn't a Mass that day because of the priests' retreat in Anchorage. 

Which makes total sense to me now, since from Skagway it's a 6 hour ferry ride to Juneau and a plane ride from there. No way he could do a 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm Mass in Skagway and be there in time. 

I had asked if there was a communion service and heard back when I checked my email in Skagway that Dc. Vincent would in fact have one. 

It was very tiny and simple. And Jesus was there. 

We were truly about an hour early. And that was okay. My heart needed it. Remember, I was missing my Babcia. Funny enough, we were only alone for about 8 minutes. 

There was a moment where the kids and I sang "We Remember" together, and it honestly might be my favorite part of the vacation. A reminder that to the ends of the Earth the Lord loves us and my family will praise Him at all times. 

The Communion service was nice. And truly packed. It was beautiful to see. Then I made the kids stand in the street to get a view of them with the town AND ship. (It's in the middle in the background.)

There was no lack of sweets on this trip, but we bought some Huckleberry cheesecake to share from a local dessert place because fresh huckleberries and the radio was playing one of my favorite praise songs when we went in the shop. Felt like a sign. 

Everyone liked the Huckleberry Cheesecake. 

I took a picture and sent it to my bestie. She loves a National Park. I do not. But this one worked for me. 

You could barely read this but it explains how Skagway literally means "Windy Place" and oh my gosh. So true. 

Back on ship, we did a photo palooza because I was adamant about getting my money's worth on the photo package. 

Completely unedited... check out my hair... proving how windy it was! 

I am so glad we've been to Skagway! 

Alaska: Chapter 3

The next day was GLACIER DAY! 

And I was very excited. 

My dad really wanted to go to the sit-down breakfast. So we joined him. I regret it. It was SO SLOW, and I didn't want a leisurely breakfast. As such, we were scrambling to get into the Mickey line. 

See Glacier Day is the day when you can see the Disney characters, on deck with the cool backgrounds of Alaska, in their Alaskan outfits. 

Mickey's line was long. And it was the only day it was a little chilly. But you'll see the weather was PERFECT. No clouds. Windy as all get-out. (Kinda a theme for Alaska, actually.) But lovely. C ended up going to get his winter coat while we waited in line. 

His was the ONLY winter coat I packed because I genuinely wasn't worried about the other three of us. I knew we'd be fine. Everyone says "light layers" for Alaska packing, and I would agree that's true. If you're someone who is constantly cold, pack warmer. For us, that's C. Even in the hottest part of the summer, the kid likes sweatshirts and 72 blankets while he sleeps. **72 might be an exaggeration, but it's a lot of blankets.**

I mean M and Minnie look like they're on a photoshopped background, don't they?! But that was the actual reality. It was that gorgeous. M LOVES her Alaskan Minnie ears. 

Glacier Day is also when it's the Frozen Night! 

On Alaskan Disney Cruises, there is no Pirate Night, just Frozen. Good thing I love Frozen. There was a special dinner menu with Sven's Carrot Soup which is my favorite!! 

But mostly we just took pictures of the nature. These are completely unedited and from my phone now! 

This was also the first day we won! Please note the medallion on M! 

Later that night we had room service Mickey Bars. Because why wouldn't we? 

I didn't love the slow start to my glacier day but we made the most of it for sure!