Trip log, day nine. Victoria, Canada.
9-Night Alaskan Cruise on Disney Wonder
July 23, 2024

Guests Ashore: 11:00 am Guests Onboard: 6:00 pm
Personal Navigator – Day 9

Our final full day started with a gorgeous sunrise view on deck 4 while the Disney Wonder was still sailing towards today’s port of call, Victoria. Emily said the gym finally picked up again after several mornings of just a handful of guests.

Our arrival time into Victoria was late, so we essentially had a sea day in the morning. The sunrise was a great way to start the day before I settled into what has become my morning office location. Sailing on the West Coast is great when your daily life operates on East Coast time, just means waking up based on ship’s time.

Today’s morning activity in the French Quarter Lounge was another 3D paper craft. This time, it was the ship which is easier to cut out and glue together than that Donald Duck bowling pin from earlier in the sailing.

We rescheduled our shuffle board tournament for today and headed out on the starboard side which was perfect because it was in the sun and also the side ship was approaching the pier.

Our inaugural DCL Blog Cruise Shuffleboard tournament was set up with teams of 2 with 3 rounds. Highest score moved onto the next round until there was a winner. Competitive shuffleboard is exciting and something we will continue to do on future group cruises. Congrats to Sean and Jerome, our winning team!

At noon sharp, we went to lunch at Cabanas as we were now on the clock. We were all booked an official Disney Cruise Line port adventure, Malahat Skywalk & Victoria Highlights (VT17) with a scheduled meet in the Walt Disney Theatre at 12:30. 

The Malahat Skywalk & Victoria Highlights (VT17) port adventure is priced at $149.00 (ages 10 and up), $119.00 (ages 3 to 9), and free for (ages 0 to 2) with the following description at the time of sailing:

Discover the beauty of Victoria while you visit Malahat Skywalk and take in the sweeping views!

Slide down the spiral slide or traverse the net at the top of the Malahat Skywalk; whatever you decide will leave you wanting more! 

On this adventure you will… 

• Board your motorcoach and travel approximately 50 minutes to the Malahat Skywalk. 
• One look at the Malahat Skywalk’s sweeping views and visitors are instantly in awe. The striking 10-story spiral tower brings you 800 feet above sea level to take in 360-degree sightlines of islands, fjords, forests, and mountains. 
• Leading to the tower, the elevated walkway places you among the soaring treetops of the west coast’s arbutus and Douglas firs. Learn about the wildlife and the indigenous Malahat Nation. 
• Thrill seekers can traverse the net at the top of the Skywalk or slide down the thrilling spiral slide within the tower. 
• After your approximately 2-hour visit at the Malahat Skywalk, reboard your motorcoach and continue your coach tour through the many highlights of Victoria and downtown including Old Town, Beacon Hill Park, BC Legislative Buildings, and the iconic Fairmont Empress Hotel surrounding Victoria’s beautiful Inner Harbor. 
• Return to the pier.

Shortly thereafter arriving in the Walt Disney Theatre, we headed ashore and boarded a double decker tour bus for the start of an adventure. Like in all good movies, there are clues foreshadowing things to come that you might miss during your first screening. However, today, the clue was repeated about 3 times and we all ignored it. Our driver made mention of the air conditioning on the bus which was not blowing cold air stating it was a result of sitting at idle in the parking lot. It was mentioned we may pull over if there becomes an issue and switch busses. About 30 minutes later, we pulled off to the side of the road. Bus driver checked with everyone on second floor and came back down and let us all know he is calling to request a new bus and we will drive a little more down the road and pull over again to get everyone water. About an hour after departing the cruise terminal on the bus, we reached our unscheduled stop at a gas station.

Our driver got out and brought back 3 cases of water to distribute to those of us on the bus. Almost immediately, 5 guests got into an Uber and drove off…..those were the lucky ones……. About 30 minutes later, we are still waiting for the backup bus. I looked at the map, and we were less than 8 miles away from our destination or about a 20 minute drive.

The driver told everyone a bus was on the way, but was currently stuck in traffic due to an accident. He gave us some options, we could get a ride share and be on our own to get back to the ship, wait for the new bus, or wait and take the old bus back to the ship. It was around 72F, and it was not even remotely hot. Grant it, yes, we are from Florida (as were others in our group), but there was even a nice young gentleman who proclaimed that he was from the desert (Arizona) and was also unbothered. Talking with other passengers, it seemed as if the majority of the group was also unbothered. At this point, I asked the driver if he could take a vote and if we could continue to our destination on the current bus without air conditioning as long as all passengers were in agreement. Well, this option seemed to be popular enough to make it work. Our young friend from the desert, as well as ourselves and multiple others, offered to ride on the ‘hotter’ top deck of the bus. However, as soon as we started to finalize the plan, the backup bus pulled into the parking lot. I also learned something during our pit stop, gas stations in this part of Canada do not sell beer.

We finally arrived at our destination around 3 o’clock. With tickets in hand, we quickly embarked out a little hike to the Malahat SkyWalk. We were told to meet back at the bus at 4:05PM. 

The walk from the parking lot to the Skywalk was approximately 10-15 minutes – round trip, 20-30 minutes so our total time at the tower would be roughly 50-55 minutes.

The views from the Malahat Skywalk were stunning, but by the time we walked out, walked up, and made the loop our allotted time was flying by.

There is a fun “adventure net” allowing you to stand at the top of the tower and look down abyss.

The top of the tower was a popular spot for family photos.

The huge draw to this lookout is the spiral slide which by my observation was operating at 2 guests per minute. By a rough count, there were at least 60 people in line when we arrived at the end of the line.

Quite a few of us from our tour group joined the line for the slide. Emily and Isabelle eventually bounced based on the time, but there were still folks from our bus getting in the line for the slide. So, unless those folks skipped the slide and returned to the bus what was the point of getting out of line myself?

The slide reminded me of the Abyss on the back of Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Sea, but faster. The slide was a major factor in selecting this excursion with the view being secondary. Malahat SkyWalk includes an ice cream shop and a nature trail that were left unexplored due to our limited time. The girls were able to run into the gift shop to grab a Christmas ornament and a few stickers for our luggage after the final pit stop before re-boarding the bus.

All aboard time was 6 o’clock – we were not in any danger of missing the ship, especially since this was an official ship Port Adventure. I figured being that was our last night and our geographic location, worst case, we could just take a ferry to Vancouver if we missed the ship. In reality, the group’s primary concern was missing the start of main dinner seating – specifically drawing night at Animator’s Palate.

We all made it back to the bus and started the drive back to the port at 4:21p in what we nicked-named the icebox. The air conditioning was so cold we were shivering. Really made me miss our first bus. Also, the driver took us on a tour of downtown Victoria, and many folks on the bus were starting to get nervous (not us).

Fun story, we originally planned to go out on our own as the Sanders mostly do, as the Malahat SkyWalk offers a FREE SHUTTLE from Victoria!!! Then, all you need to do is buy a ticket upon arrival: $38 CAN (ages 18-64), $34 CAN (ages 65+), $24 CAN (ages 6-17), and free (ages 0-5). Looking back, we would’ve debarked the ship right way at 11am and made our way out there, and then we would’ve arrived back in plenty of time, probably before/by 4PM. However, being that this was a group cruise, we were unsure that others in our group would want to travel on a non-DCL excursion 50 min from the port. Hindsight is 20/20.

In summary, we paid $149 per person for our abbreviated excursion, when in reality we could have taken the free shuttle from the port when the ship was cleared, boarded the free Malahat SkyWalk shuttle and paid $28 USD per adult for admission. As I write this, I cannot believe we paid $121/person more. I realize, the Disney Cruise Line port adventure includes some level of insurance that you will not get left behind, but $363 is quite steep for this safety net.

At this time of day, traffic was building so any attempt to get us back quicker was impossible. However, we did arrive back to the terminal at 5:42, 3 minutes before dinner started. We were the last bus to return to the ship, this left no time for last minute shopping at the terminal gift shop. Sorry Victoria Cruise Terminal shops.

Let’s turn and burn! We dropped our day bags off in the stateroom, and immediately turned around and headed to Animator’s Palate for dinner. Not the ideal way to wind down on the final night, but its all part of the adventure!

On our way in, there was a QR code for the guest feedback survey in the entry corridor of Animator’s Palate.

We made it to our table in Animator’s Palate at 6PM, and our servers had our Animation Magic placemats and markers all ready for us. We apologized for our tardiness, and we ordered our entire meal including dessert all at once and finally took a collective sigh of relief that we made it and that the important drawings were submitted on time! The menu for the evening was Animation Magic with Regional Inspirations. It would be our final night of our baked potato bar!

Getting to trivia was the expendable tonight, but missing out on seeing characters come out life in Animator’s was not something the group wanted to miss.

Not only did we arrive late, but we had time to draw before ordering. Our desserts arrived at 7:15 allowing us to get to Crown & Fin in time for Decades Music Trivia. Nate from South Africa has been our nightly trivia host and did a great job engaging with the packed house each night.

Another amazing cast member was our regular Crown & Fin server, Chey who was also from South Africa. Chey was amazing all week including the previous day when Isabelle was working on a puzzle and left a note when she ran out to get lunch. She was also great at explaining and helping the non-drinkers pick out the new to us offerings from the zero-proof menu. 

Following trivia we took advantage of the sunset for a final group photo (albeit missing a few folks) on deck 4 before settling into some seats in French Quarter Lounge where we said our goodbyes before retiring to our stateroom to pack our suite cases.

I’m confident we could bring an empty suitcase and still do the ‘suitcase shuffle’ on the final night to get everything packed away and underweight for our flights home. I think I need to go back to using the vacuum packing bags to help reduce the space on these Alaskan cruises where the suitcases fill up, but are still underweight. We utilized them on our previous Alaskan sailings, but frankly, I was too lazy to dig the bags out of the closet when it came time to pack.

7/24 Vancouver – Day 10

We were not planning to do express walk-off, but we woke up to discover our flight from YVR to Toronto was delayed by 3 hrs 45 minutes arriving 2 hours after our connection flight home to Orlando. 

We left the ship about 8 o’clock during the express walk-off period, and waited in the terminal for our luggage to arrive.

Not ideal, but the idea of getting to the airport ASAP was now becoming more important in hopes of finding an alternative flight to Toronto, or a completely new set of flights to Orlando. Either way, we miss our cats and want to sleep in our own beds tonight.

We were in a cab by 9 and in the check-in line at the airport just after 9:30. Thankfully, Air Canada was able to move us to the currently delayed 9 AM flight that was departing around 11 AM leaving us adequate time to get to our connection in Toronto! YEAH! We were blessed on the flight and were assigned a four-seat row for the three of us.

Well, history repeats itself. Once again, we were stuck on the tarmac in Toronto waiting for a gate to open due to a mechanical issue with another plane. Is this some sick joke – do we have bad luck, or is this just a common occurrence at Toronto airport? Seriously, I’d love to know.

Anyway, finally made it and proceeded to work our way to the United States connections area. The security line was a walk up, but US Customs and Border Protection had a significant line. However, the Global Entry line only had 5 people in line!

While pre-check is becoming less and less worthwhile, Global Entry remains undefeated. We estimate we saved at least 20-30 minutes at the time we had an hour before our next flight started to board.

We made our connection, landed in Orlando, jumped into our friend’s truck, and were on our way home to see our cats, and sleep in our own beds!

As always, thank you very much for following along. If you have any questions about cruises to Alaska, let me know in the comments or feel free to send me an email. This was our third Alaskan cruise, all 9-nights long, and I would be happy to pass along any more info to anyone who is interested.

This was our 5th DCL Blog Group cruise and I am so thankful to everyone who has joined us over the years include a few regulars that are approaching DCL Blog Group Cruise Gold status. We’d love it if you considered joining us on our next DCL Blog Cruise in May 2025 as we sail from cay to cay. We will be returning to The Bahamas visiting both Castaway Cay and Lookout Cay. Click here to learn more.

Complete Trip Log Index

• Pre-Cruise – ✈️ Travel Day from Orlando, Florida to Vancouver, British Columbia & Pre-Cruise Day in Vancouver
• Day 1 – Vancouver, Canada
• Day 2 – At Sea
• Day 3 – Ketchikan, Alaska
• Day 4 – Glacier Viewing (Stikine Icecap), Alaska
• Day 5 – Juneau, Alaska
• Day 6 – Icy Strait Point, Alaska
• Day 7 – Sitka, Alaska
• Day 8 – At Sea
• Day 9 – Victoria, Canada

P.S. Huge shout out to the awesome decision makers at Disney Cruise Line for offering the Alaska pillow in a compressed vacuum bag!