At long last we have a list of Port Adventures (shore excursions) from Disney Cruise Lines for the Pacific Coast & Alaska cruises on the Disney Wonder summer of 2011.
The Pacific Coast excursions were released on Christmas Eve. The repositioning cruisers who are in suites or are Platinum Castaway Club members were allowed to book these starting today if they were paid in full. In both San Francisco and Victoria, there were a lot of city tours, covering various areas of the city. Of course, I was interested in the wine country tours! We thought about the Monteray & Carmel tour, but it didn’t actually go to any wineries, just giving you time to shop on Cannery Row (which is very close to my favorite winery – Baywood Cellars). This tour however was 11 to 11.5 hours long because of the distance to Monteray from San Francisco. The tour to Sonoma sounds pretty good. What I was most interested in was the trip to Napa Valley. This included two stops at wineries with backstage access to how the wine is produced, plus special tastings. Between the two stops was a trip to the Culinary Institute of America with a three course meal. Unfortunately, this trip was a bit too pricey for me at approximately $340 per person.
The Alaskan cruises offer an extensive list of excursion possibilities. I worry a little about this because they may have a hard time filling all the excursions and therefore they will likely be cancellations last minute onboard. Many of the excursions though are similar which will allow you to switch to other adventures without too much trouble if your chosen one is canceled.
Of course the excursions involving private transportation (boats, helicopters, biplanes, trains, dog sleds) do cost more than the other excursions. In Juneau, you can go whale watching, dog sledding on the Mendenhall Glacier, biking, salmon bakes, and even gold panning. There is the Rainforest Garden where you can do some ziplining! I’ve also noticed a number of the Port Adventures have Adults Only departures on some of their excursions. This will be nice alternative for some adults traveling without kids.
Ketchikan offers tours both on land and sea. Again you can do wildlife exploration, city tours, ziplining, but you can also see totem poles, bald eagles and lighthouses. You can tour Misty Fjords by boat or floatplane. There is even a snorkeling excursion (wetsuits are provided). How about a lumberjack show?
In Skagway you can do some dog sledding again as well as hiking and rafting. While in Skagway, a trip to the Canadian Yukon is also possible. There are more opportunities at this port to go panning for gold as well.
There are many options here with pricing ranging from $38 per person (The Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan) to $2799 per person (Wild Coast by Private Boat in Juneau). You can even do an excursion with exclusive Disney Characters in Skagway (Liarsville Gold Rush Trail Camp and Salmon Bake for $89 per person).
Now I will have to review all my choices and decide what we want to do! For more information on these and other port adventures being offered by Disney, please check out http://disneycruise.disney.go.com/cruises-destinations/shore-excursions/search/. Here you can select which port you are interested in and all available excursions will be filtered.
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