Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise – Part 2, Victoria

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Tuesday – Victoria

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

Victoria was our only port of call on this cruise. Since it’s not very far from Vancouver, we spent a lot of the night not moving very fast. 🙂 We’d already made it into port by the time we got up.

We went up to Beach Blanket Buffet for breakfast. It was about 7:00, so not too many people were up yet and it wasn’t crowded. It was a beautiful morning! The last time we arrived in Victoria it was cloudy and drizzly, though it cleared up later in the day.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

My favorite thing to do in Victoria is visit the Butchart Gardens, so we’d booked an Adult only tour. I wish Disney would offer a tour JUST of Butchart Gardens so that we could have maximum time there, but this one included a “short city drive” (others included afternoon tea at the Gardens or a stop at the Butterfly Garden, but they were all the same length of time).

RANT ON
The excursion ticket very clearly said to meet at 8:45 in Wavebands. And throughout the morning multiple shipwide announcements had been made reminding passengers that all adults needed a Key to the World card AND a photo id to depart the ship. At 8:55 – 10 minutes late – a guy shows up with JUST his Key to the World card, and has to run back to his stateroom and get ids for himself and his mother. So we end up being 20 minutes late leaving the ship. Come on, people, show some consideration for your fellow tour members and show up on-time and ready to go!
RANT OFF

The tour started with a drive along some of the waterfront and park areas. Our bus driver shared lots of interesting information about Victoria. For example, Victoria is considered a very desirable retirement location, and has a very high population of retirees. And about half of them are over the age of 80! (Later at lunch we shared a table with a couple of those retirees, who if they weren’t over 80, were close, and they were delightful.)

With the city tour the drive to Butchart Gardens took about 45 minutes. For those who don’t know the history of Butchart Gardens…it was originally a limestone quarry. After the limestone was removed, which of course left an ugly hole in the ground, Jenny Butchart, the wife of the owner, put the first garden there – the Sunken Garden. Over the years additional gardens were added, but I’ll have more on those.

We arrived at the garden and the driver told us to be back at the bus in an hour and a half. That’s not nearly enough time to see everything, so I found that quite frustrating. Though at least for this tour we were on our own in the garden, and not expected to tour as part of a larger group.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

This was my fourth visit to the Butchart Gardens over the years. Twice in the month of July, and my most recent visit was at the beginning of May in 2011, when we stopped in Victoria on the Pacific Coast repositioning cruise prior to the first Alaska cruise. All that being the long way of saying that I saw different flowers than on my other visits. 🙂

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

The Sunken Garden is always a highlight – in addition to all of the flowers there’s trees and shrubs and the animated fountain.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise


Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise


Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

There was a very large display of dahlias in all sorts of sizes and colors. Those were flowers I hadn’t seen there before. And some of them were enormous!

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise


Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

The last time I was here it was early May and the rose garden was more like a stick garden 🙂 This time the roses were still in full bloom. I believe our driver told us that are 250 varieties of roses, and over 2500 plants. They were beautiful – there were roses from all over the world.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise


Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

We also went through the Italian Garden and the Japanese Garden.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise


Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

I had to rush more than I would’ve liked, but I still had some time to hit the gift shop before it was time to go back to the bus – we arrived with a couple minutes to spare.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

RANT ON
We arrived on time, as did most of our fellow tour members, and then we proceeded to wait 25 minutes for three people who never did show up. We finally left without them. As far as I’m concerned we should’ve left sooner. This has happened to me on other tours and it’s very annoying to have to wait on people who apparently feel they are special and can do what they want with no regard for the rest of us.
RANT OFF

Once we returned to Victoria our bus driver stopped in front of the Empress Hotel. Anyone who wished to could get off there rather than taking the bus back to the ship.
From the waterfront area Disney had a free shuttle to take us back, or we could walk – it was just over a mile to the ship. Most people stayed on the bus, but a few of us took the opportunity since it would give us a little more time to sight see. Though thanks to all of the late people on our tour we didn’t have quite as much time as we should have. We took the opportunity to wander through the Empress Hotel – they were serving tea, but there was a line and I didn’t think we’d have enough time to enjoy it.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

This is a weeping sequoia tree in front of the hotel – I thought it looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

Our bus driver had recommended Barb’s Fish and Chips in Fisherman’s Wharf, which was on our way if we walked back to the ship. It’s fairly popular and we had a little bit of a wait to get our two-piece combo with chips and coleslaw. It was pretty good, though I’ve had better.

We enjoyed our walk back – it was really a gorgeous day in Victoria. From the dock we had a very nice view of the Wonder.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

We arrived back on board about 2:30 and the Wonder pulled away from the port about 3:30. Once we got clear the captain really started to put on some speed – it was a long way to San Diego (there were no other ports).

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

We went to the Outlook Cafe (enclosed area above Cove Cafe) and tried a couple of their specialty drinks – I had the Toblerontini, and Lee had the Toledo Coffee. Both pretty to look at, but I think mine tasted better. 🙂

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

I really like the Outlook Cafe area, but because of the enclosure it gets VERY warm in there if the weather is nice. It was warm enough that we didn’t want to sit there very long.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

I always find it kind of amazing that even on a ship with 2100 people on board, there’s times when it seems very empty. This was taken at 4:11 p.m.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

That night was semi-formal night, though Cruise Casual was acceptable dress as well. The Golden Mickeys was the featured show, but we’ve seen that before – and most recently at Hong Kong Disneyland, where it is a much better show. Or maybe that’s because I couldn’t understand what was being said. 🙂

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

We had dinner in Triton’s, which is a lovely restaurant. Beautiful mosaic on the wall.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

After dinner, since we weren’t going to the show, we went to The Cadillac Lounge, which is the quieter piano bar on the Wonder. Very few people in there. We ordered a bottle of our favorite Moet Ice Imperial champagne. Our server put strawberries, an orange slice and some mint leaves in our glasses – that was excellent! Made it even more refreshing. He also brought us a plate with some strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries, and a couple of truffles.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

There was a pianist there when we arrived, but he took his break and a guitar player took over. She played music that was much more our style. It was all a wonderful way to end our day.

That night’s towel creation was a dinosaur.

Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise

Coming Next: Days at Sea

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Laura Gilbreath is a native of San Diego, CA. She has been making the trek up Interstate 5 to Disneyland since she was a small child and terrified of talking tikis and hitchhiking ghosts. She and her husband Lee enjoy trips to Disneyland and Walt Disney World, as well as sailings on the Disney Cruise Line.

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5 Replies to “Disney Wonder Pacific Coast Cruise – Part 2, Victoria”

  1. Beautiful pictures! Thank you for sharing.
    Why not arrange your own transportation to the gardens? Then you’d be on your own timetable (well, and the ship’s), and you wouldn’t have to wait for inconsiderate people. Is there an advantage to the excursion?

    Laura replies: Kathy, I considered that, but because our cruise was after the high tourist season I was not able to find reliable information on-line about the availability of transportation to Butchart Gardens from the dock. I looked into hiring a private car, but it was a lot more than I wanted to pay. As it turned out, there were Hop on-Hop Off buses at the dock that looked like they would have taken us to Butchart Gardens, so that probably would have been an option.

    The “advantage” to a Disney excursion is that if there’s some problem (for example a breakdown), the cruise ship will wait until all passengers are back on board before leaving.

  2. Those weeping sequoias looked like wooly mammoths to me!

    Laura replies: I agree – though I think it looks like a cross between a wooly mammoth and a centipede. 🙂

  3. Great posts! I’ve had tea at both Butchart Gardens, and the Empress. I much preferred it at the Gardens. It is less expensive and more relaxed. Plus I found a critter crawling in my berries at the Empress. The staff was appropriately shocked and appalled and they bestowed me with tea tins, and a trivet, but still charged us full price for the Afternoon tea which surprised me.

    Laura replies: Hi Michelle! Ewww…I can’t believe they still charged you full price! Thanks for the Butchart Gardens tea recommendation…I hope to experience that one of these days.

  4. Laura– Loving the coverage here. How so very annoying that people just don’t show up, without any consideration to what it does to other’s plans. Oh dear. Well, I look forward to your days at sea post.

    Laura replies: Thanks, Eve! Days at sea…ahhhhhhh!