Alaskan cruise trip report - Day 9 - At Sea

At Sea

Oh bittersweet day! Even though we lost an hour, I still woke up again at 6:30 AM and felt great sadness that we would have to disembark the following day, but also happiness at another day spent enjoying the ship and scenery. On our first cruise, I genuinely wondered what people did on sea days. Then on our second cruise, I was nervous about having two but we had so much fun! For this one, I wasn’t sure about having three! I needn’t have worried. There are so many great things to do. I didn’t even get to do all the things I wanted to!

So it’s 6:30 AM and everyone is asleep. I quietly put on my running clothes and stumble up to deck four for another run. The weather is… yup, grey, drizzly, and foggy. The fog horn blows and I’m off for another nine laps around deck four. There are decidedly fewer people this day. I enjoy the little jaunt through the interior of the ship a the bow and stern. It’s always fun to see what the workers are up to. On my first run, the guys in yellow jumpsuits were getting hooked into harnesses to clean or repair something. Today those guys were out again preparing to do something, but there were also some guys in green moving around big sheets of plywood. Maybe something to prepare for the upcoming dry dock? I’ll never know.




After my run, I came back to the room to get showered and changed so we could all eat breakfast before our Frozen meet and greet at 9:30. Roger and Emmaline went to the Frozen meet and greet and I went up to deck 9 (for some reason I don’t recall now) and saw Goofy in his Alaska gear. Emmaline had really wanted to meet all the character in their special outfits and was sad she missed Daisy and Goofy. I sent Roger a message and got into line for Goofy. It turns out there really wasn’t a line so I hung out and chatted with Goofy’s handlers, one of whom was the lead character in the Golden Mickey’s (Ensign Benson). Emmaline finished her Frozen meet and came up and spent some time with Goofy. He was really great and it was a fun meet.

Then it was back to the room as we had decided to do some more laundry because clean clothes are easier to pack than dirty ones. Also, it’s nice to come home from a trip and have clothes at the ready and not have to do laundry right away. So we did laundry and started packing until 10:40 when we went to the Walt Disney Theatre for a showing of Pete’s Dragon. We were happy to be in the Walt Disney Theatre because I had found the Buena Vista Theatre (where they usually show movies) to be really cramped and, also, it doesn’t have cup holders in the arm rests.

I grabbed some sodas from deck nine (since the ones near the theatre come in cans and inexplicably cost money) and we bought a popcorn for Emmaline and I to share. The movie was fun, though there were some moments that were sort of tense for Emmaline, but she enjoyed it in the end. After the movie, we went up to Beach Blanket Buffet for lunch (since I had already scoped out the menu at Triton’s and didn’t see anything I wanted).

Back to our room, we ran into our stateroom host and he said he wanted to teach Emmaline how to make some towel animals. While Roger and started packing our suitcases, Satriawan showed Emmaline several animals.



At 2:00, Emmaline and I went to the Walt Disney Theatre to see Michael Holly perform. He does “physical comedy” which I thought Emmaline might like. He did some juggling and some other very random silly things. I think it was enjoyable and there were definitely some funny moments, but like the other variety acts, I wasn’t really blown away or anything. While Emmaline and I were at the show, Roger went for a run on deck four.

After the show at 3:00, I took Emmaline to the lobby atrium for a character dance party. I had really wanted to go to a Theme Park Innovations presentation in Wavebands (for adults) but Emmaline wanted me to stay with her so I did. At the end of the party, we ran into her friend Katie (from dinner) and the girls wanted to have ice cream. So I went with them up to deck nine to get ice cream.

I needed to get some more packing done, so I left Katie and Emmaline to their own devices. They said that they were going to go back to Katie’s room to play. I went back to our room to keep packing. Around 4:00 Emmaline came back and said that she was done playing with Katie, so at 4:15, I dropped her off at the Promenade Lounge to do “3D Crafts” while I continued packing.

Continuing the theme of having an absolutely jam-packed day, at 5:00 was the rehearsal for the talent show in Wavebands. Roger took Emmaline to do this, which was to be a piano performance of Sleeping Beauty Waltz. While they were there, I got ready for our dinner at Palo and then went to Wavebands to relieve Roger so he could come back to the room and get himself ready.

I should note that the talent show practice was at the same time as Friendship Rocks so she was unable to do that this time around, which was a shame. We gave her the option and she picked the talent show.

At 5:45 we took Emmaline to Animator’s Palate for dinner, where she would eat with our table mates, while Roger and I went to dinner at Palo. Months ago, when we had logged in to make our Palo reservation, we didn’t realize that the talent show would be at 7:30, so when we were seated for our 6:00 reservation, we explained to our server that we needed to be done by 7:30 to go to the talent show. She was very understanding and accommodating. Our meal moved at a nice pace but I never felt rushed or nervous about the time, so the timing worked out.

The timing didn’t work out so well for having Palo on the last night. Our reasoning was to skip the last night’s menu, which isn’t a favorite, but there were some problems with this. First was the scheduling I brought up with all the activities we were trying to cram in. Second, it made packing very tricky since we had to mostly pack before our reservation, but also leave room for bulky dress clothes. Finally, we were sad that there were no photographers in Palo for the last night. We had bought the photo package and really liked our Palo photo from last October on the Magic, but we were unable to get a follow up. We took a selfie instead.



I have to say, regarding the food in Palo, that I’m just not sure it is worth it. It’s nice for Roger and I to have a meal alone, but I’m just not convinced it’s worth the upcharge. The food is good, but it’s not amazing. I had some meals I liked better in the main dining rooms. The chocolate souffle was great, but certainly didn’t make up for the rest of the meal.

We left Palo at 7:30, raced back to the room and changed out of our fancy clothes before making our way to Wavebands. Meanwhile, Emmaline had already attended dinner in Animator’s Palate and Officer Pin Trading at 7:15, getting some great pins. The talent show was underway in Wavebands. We had arranged at the rehearsal for Emmaline to feature later in the program since we weren’t sure how long our Palo dinner would be.

The talent show was super cute and the kids all did a great job. Emmaline had fun playing her piece and being on the stage. Our table mates and the Jarretts both attended to watch Emmaline which was super sweet of them all (and a testament to the friendships we made during our seven days on board).




After the talent show, it was time for our final show in the Walt Disney Theatre: Disney Dreams. We saw this show in October on the Magic, but we still wanted to see it. It’s a really great show, probably my favorite of those we’ve seen on DCL. This version was slightly different than the one we saw on the Magic, missing a Frozen segment they had over on the Magic.

After the show, we went back to the room and tossed everything else we wouldn’t need for the rest of the night and the next morning into our suitcases before shoving them into the hallway just in time for the 10:00 deadline. At bedtime Emmaline cried and was very sad that we were leaving the next morning. I was sad, too. I could have stayed another week!

Click here for Day 10.