Exploring Alaska: Disney Cruise of Southeast Alaska

I’m grateful we unlocked a new dream gig this year—the one where we get to talk about Alaska on an Alaskan cruise. Our first gig was in May, and we have our second one is lined up for September, and hope to line up more for 2027 and beyond!

In case you missed the rundown of how we got this, here’s the recap. Some of our best opportunities over the years have been because we nurtured relationships with the people we meet along the way. We met Lindsey in 2018 while we were working for Leave No Trace here in Alaska. Lindsey has since moved away from Denali, but we kept in touch. Lindsey started doing the guest naturalist speaker on Disney Cruise ships gig a few years ago, and graciously recommended us when they started expanding their pool of speakers. You rarely know which introduction will eventually come back around! I was also super grateful that Lindsey was able to hand-hold us through the whole process. Our Disney contact is super responsive & helpful, but there are still a lot of uncertainties going into a new situation that my Type A personality doesn’t do well with. 

As ecstatic as we were for the opportunity, we were both equally skeptical about cruising with Disney. If you have read my blog these last couple years, you know we are on team “love to cruise” (read my Gen-X ode to cruising here). But we’ve cruised 3 times with Holland America. Disney is synonymous with … kids. On our other cruises, there’s only been a handful of people under the age of 50, let alone under the age of 10. Are we Disney fans? We’re not non-Disney fans, that’s for sure. Justin went through the Disney college program in 1998, and worked there until 1999. And I love me a good Disney movie. 

Disney definitely cornered the market on the young people. And I’m not going to lie, there were tons of kids. I think I noticed it the most during our dinners. The dining room is anything but quiet. But it’s a giant ship (we were on the Magic), and there are only 2 days at sea on the Alaska cruise, so really, there’s a lot of off-ship time. Plus, there are adult-only areas that make you feel less … sniffly. Regardless, we totally played into the Disney vibe, taking pictures with characters whenever we could. 

Anyway, the deal is the naturalist gives 4 presentations (on various Alaska topics) in exchange for a free 7-night Alaskan cruise, all food included, a $40 drink credit, flights & a room with a deck. Justin & I tag-teamed the “Welcome to Alaska” and “From Land to Sea Mammals” presentations. We’ve given a similar “Welcome to Alaska” talk when we used to do virtual library programs, so that was easy. However, we had an ocean to learn about sea mammals (see what I did there?)!! I will fully admit it was a tad stressful to master a brand-new topic—especially with a looming deadline for all the presentations of 4/19—but we both love a good Alaska learning challenge. Justin loves to forever change his presentations at the last possible minute, so it was sort of advantageous for me that we couldn’t do that for these. 

Once aboard, we spent the first few days of our cruise holed up in our room practicing our scripts (having a gorgeous view helped!). Those 2 talks went off without a hitch with about 200 people in attendance! I’m not saying this to be boastful, but I’m pretty sure Justin & I were both born to be public speakers. It’s wonderful to combine our love of nature & wildlife with storytelling & exploration while sailing through the magical setting. 

Justin soloed a talk on mountaineering (specifically climbing Denali) in a smaller theater, which he has done in bits & pieces before. He brought a bunch of gear to show & tell, and he really is a natural off-the-cuff speaker when it comes to topics he loves. 

My solo presentation was about glaciers. I built my talk from scratch, which was slightly daunting. I gave a powerpoint in the theater, but the second part of my responsibility was to narrate our entrance into the Endicott Arm, the 30-mile fjord that takes us closer to the Dawes Glacier FROM THE BRIDGE!! Not sure if anyone knows much about the “bridge” on a boat, but it is the room from where the vessel is steered & controlled. We met the captain the day before, and he said Justin could come up with me, as long as we understood that we would need to be very silent until I was instructed to talk. 

I’m not sure what I was expecting about the bridge, but it kind of blew my mind. It is dead silent in there with a handful of engineers with binoculars calling out degrees for navigation with the calmest voices ever. I wanted to yell, “Iceberg straight ahead!” But I refrained. 

Now for my narration part, there are only certain areas where speaking over a loudspeaker can take place. So the activities director was there to tell me when to speak & when to stop. Once again I need to shoutout to Lindsey for passing on some notes because I had never been to Endicott Arm, so how am I to know what to narrate?! In any case, they were having issues with the mic, so my time to talk kept getting decreased. Finally, they pulled me into a back room with no windows and said, speak into this microphone starting now & you only have 5 minutes. Dear lord, I was staring at panels, not a beautiful scenery to narrate. I improvised a bit & made the best of it. I emerged from the room & Justin said, “where’d you go? To the bathroom?” He didn’t even hear me talk over the loudspeakers because he was in the silent bridge room! I honestly think being in the bridge & talking into thin air was one of the most surreal—yet cool—experiences of my life. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon on deck enjoying the epic glacier viewing. I never get tired of seeing glaciers; they are so otherworldly. And we got to see some harbor seals hanging out on an iceberg in their well-known banana-shaped position that looks uncomfortable. 

Besides our presentations, we felt very pampered by the cruise ship. There are always games, food demos, dancing, food galore, and someone is always cleaning up after you. There was a magician, Zak Mirz, on our ship from America’s Got Talent, and he was awesome! We actually boarded the ship with him, and he had tons of advice for us as he & his family do these gigs a lot, so he essentially bounces from ship to ship. We always had people coming up to us for more interactions following our presentations, which made us feel slightly like celebrities. 

The weather in May was as expected for Alaska. It was in the high 70s in Vancouver, and we actually did hang out at the pool that day! But otherwise, jackets & hats were the norm. 

We opted not to do any excursions, mainly because we were so focused on our prepping for our presentations. But we still got off the boat to walk around Ketchikan, Skagway and Vancouver. It was so lovely being back in these parts. Justin & I did an Alaska cruise the year we got married, so 20 years ago in 2006! The temperate rainforest of Southeast Alaska is an entirely different world from the subarctic tundra of Interior Alaska where we live, and it just makes me love Alaska even more.

Part of our contract includes the verandah stateroom, which means that we have a queen bed, a sofabed & an upper pull-down bunk bed. It sleeps 4 people, so 2 other people essentially get to cruise for free alongside us! For our September gig, we’re taking Justin’s mom & oldest nephew (Everett). I can’t wait to show them Alaska & embarrass our nearly 14-year-old nephew by making him do all the cheesy Disney things! Should we get him Mickey ears to wear all the time??