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10 Disneyland tips for family-friendly travel

Marie LeBaron is the editor of Make and Takes, a popular parenting site featuring kids’ crafts, home projects, recipes, parenting tips and more. She lives in Seattle with her family, and loves to travel.

My daughter and I recently visited Disneyland, the happiest place on earth! From start to finish, our trip was all about Disney adding to the magical experience. To make the most of our vacation, I followed these Disneyland tips to get us through it all:

1. Make a family plan

It’s important to make a family plan before you get to the hotel and the park. Disneyland is a big place and you can make the most out of it by making a list of what’s most important to each person in your family. Set the expectation that you might not get to everything, but that each person will get to do 1-2 things on their list. Disneyland Fast Passes can help with this. They are available for most of the big rides and will help cut down on lines and give you more time. Be sure to grab one for each rider; they are worth it.

Ready to plan your trip? Fly to Disneyland.

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Travel advisory: Flight operations returning to normal after overnight computer systems outage

Updated 11 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015:

Alaska Air Group flight operations are operating normally today after the airline experienced several issues with its computer systems overnight Wednesday.

Alaska started to experience intermittent network issues at about 9 p.m. PDT. The issues continued for roughly three hours, contributing to about 60 delays overnight for Alaska and Horizon.

We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.

Our Information Technology Systems team is investigating the cause of the system issues and the outage.

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TRAVEL ALERT: Hurricane Patricia and Puerto Vallarta

Updated  9:40 a.m., Oct. 24, 2015

Alaska Airlines resumes flights out of Puerto Vallarta

Alaska Airlines will fly all five of its scheduled flights today out of Puerto Vallarta.

The airport in Puerto Vallarta is open and operational Saturday morning after Hurricane Patricia made landfall Friday night. Alaska plans to fly five planes down to Puerto Vallarta to pick up customers and bring them to the U.S.

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Video: Alaska employee brings passengers to tears with moving tribute to a fallen soldier

On Oct. 16, Julia Jette was half asleep in the Anchorage airport, waiting to board a red eye flight to Seattle, when she heard something unexpected.

“We thought it was the announcement to start boarding, “ Jette said.

Instead it was customer service agent Denise Snow, letting her passengers know that a fallen soldier’s ashes would be traveling on the plane and that she would like to sing in his honor.

“Everyone as far as I could see stood in respect and were silent as she sang,” said Jette, who posted a video of the tribute to Facebook. “I was fighting back tears. The family member carrying the ashes was crying and it ripped my heart out. It was amazing and heart wrenching all at once.”

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Alaska employees help two brothers meet for first time

Imagine meeting your brother for the first time right before taking a cross-country flight. On a recent trip to Orlando, that very thing happened to an Alaska Airlines customer, thanks to help from some Alaska employees.

Gary Covington, of Tacoma, was born on June 22, 1948, at Providence Hospital in Seattle and adopted when he was only 1 month old. Growing up, Covington’s mother shared with him that his birth parents’ last name was Helton.

In the 1980s, Covington started searching for his birth parents with the help of some friends. Through his research, he learned that his father was Edward V. Helton, a sergeant in the U.S. Army, and that he had a sister born 15 months before him. He was given up because his parents were planning on separating.

When Covington got in contact with his older sister, he learned that his parents never divorced and he was one of nine children – his parents had seven more children after him. Eventually, Covington met all of his siblings – except his second brother, Jerry Helton, who is seven years younger.

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Weekend Wanderer: Seattle to Nashville

Emily Thomas is an outdoor explorer with roots in both Seattle and San Diego, who loves creating stories through her adventures. She just returned from an Instagram takeover in Nashville as part of Alaska’s Weekend Wanderer series. For more Weekend Wanderer posts, make sure you’re following Alaska Airlines on Instagram.

By Emily Thomas, Seattle, Washington

Nashville, also known as “Nowville” truly is the place to be. Coming to Nashville as Alaska Airlines’ “Weekend Wanderer,” I wasn’t sure what to expect. The city remains traditionally southern, but has a young, vibrant, hip culture with a passion for pursuing a multitude of creative fields.

After visiting, if I had to choose one thing that characterizes Nashville, it would be the people. Everyone I encountered was so warm and welcoming. I even made new friends just waiting outside of the airport. When I told people I was here visiting, they instantly had a list of “must-sees” and restaurants I should try. Some even invited me to join them for dinner, which I gladly accepted. Although the Nashville metropolitan area has more than 1.7 million people, it is not uncommon to walk into a coffee shop and see someone you know. When you’re in Nashville, you’re family.

Ready to book? Find nonstop flights to Nashville at alaskaair.com.

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Yes THAT Nordstrom tire story

By Paul Frichtl, Alaska Airlines Magazine

As a 16-year-old Nordstrom sales associate in the late 1970s, Craig Trounce was a legend in the making. That’s when he was working in the retailer’s Fairbanks store, and an old miner walked in with a pair of dirty, worn tires. The man had purchased the tires several years earlier, and had been told that if they didn’t work out for him, he could return them.

In 1975, Nordstrom had purchased local retailer Northern Commercial, which at the time sold tires. The man had a case to make, on a promise made in that very building, never mind that the space was now filled with pleated slacks and button-down Oxford shirts.

Trounce’s priority was to do right by the customer. He called a local tire dealer, came up with a fair value for the used tires—$25 for the pair—and paid the man out of the till. A legend was born.

Decades later, Trounce is Alaska Airlines’ customer service manager based in Honolulu.

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“Band in Seattle” brings local music to your seat

The Seattle music scene doesn’t disappoint. After Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters found their success it seemed like artists flocked to the Emerald City and the music scene became one of the most cherished parts of Seattle culture.

Alaska Airlines passengers can now get a real taste of that culture while inflight. “Band in Seattle,” featuring local artists and bands, will now air on Alaska Beyond Entertainment giving passengers a look into real, local art.

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Weekend Wanderer: Salt Lake City to Seattle

Ryan Thayne is an adventurer and photographer living outside of Salt Lake City, Utah who has a love for the outdoors. See why TIME Magazine named him one of the Top 50 Instagram accounts to follow. He just returned from an Instagram takeover in Seattle as a part of Alaska’s Weekend Wanderer series. For more Weekend Wanderer posts, make sure you’re following Alaska Airlines on Instagram.

By Ryan Thayne, Salt Lake City, Utah

No doubt, Alaska flies to some of the most beautiful places in the country which are easy to explore in a week or a weekend. As a nature photographer, I carefully select where I want to be for sunrise and sunset and then use the time in between to explore. Since the flight from Salt Lake to Seattle and drive to Mount Rainier took less than four hours, I decided to plan my three day trip wandering around two of Washington’s most noted peaks – Mount Rainier and the Space Needle.

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From brunch to happy hour, eat your way through San Diego

Take a 24-hour eating tour of San Diego? Sounds like a job for an over-energized 20-something on an empty stomach.

From a morning breakfast on the beach to a night cap downtown, San Diego is the perfect place to explore and play, live like a 20-something and taste-tour the city for a day.

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Alaska deepens commitment to Hawai‘i with $100,000 investment in education and the environment

Last night, Alaska Airlines announced gifts totaling $100,000 to two local organizations in Hawai‘i, in support of youth, education and environmental stewardship. The announcements were made during an event at the Moana Surfrider in Waikiki, which honored Alaska’s community partners throughout the state.

From day one, when Alaska first started service to Hawai‘i in October 2007, our relationship with the Islands has always been more than just business.

Our company was born in a region where air service is integral to the way of life, much like here in the Islands. We understand the importance of reliable, dependable air service for kama‘aina (local Hawai’i residents) and feel a great affinity for Hawai‘i because of our similar cultures. Our commitment to caring for our communities, our customers, our environment and each other is a fundamental part of who we are and what we do. In tight-knit communities like Alaska and Hawai‘i, this is ever more important.

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