Norwegian Encore Alaska Cruise Review: Day 1 – Chicago to Seattlefeatured
It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?
The past two years have been something that even my wildest dreams couldn’t conceive of. If you would have told me in 2019 that our Asia adventure would be our last cruise for over two years, I wouldn’t have believed you. A global pandemic? You’re joking. At first, the break from cruising was almost welcome — only in the sense that we’ve been cruising for so long that we’d started burning out on it a little bit. 2-3 a year for, what, 15 years? COVID challenged us to find new ways to fill that void when cruises were shut down (or just plain not a great idea).
At first, we road tripped — we went to South Dakota and to Kansas City. After a few months of lockdown, we found the greatest joy in the simplest ways of traveling and the Great American Road Trip had us exploring places we wouldn’t normally look to. Holy cow, the BBQ in Kansas City is something else. And South Dakota, you guys? It’s incredible. The Badlands. Needles Highway. Mount Rushmore. Custer State Park’s Wildlife Loop. If you asked me before Covid if I wanted to go to South Dakota or literally any random place I could throw a dart at on a map of Europe, I’d choose the dart and never known what I missed out on.
Once travel started back up, we tiptoe’d our way back in — Stephanie and I went to an all-inclusive in Mexico for a week. Before COVID, we’d never stop to stay one place for an entire week and do nothing but sit in the sun, watch the waves and drink spicy margs. A week of relaxation? Of stillness? It was so foreign…and restful and rejuvenating in a way our travels normally aren’t. We loved it so much we went back for a second week in December.
When the vaccines hit, we got in line for the first ones we could get. We flew to Dallas two weeks after our first dose (and got stuck in the famous Texas Snowstorm of 2021). Two weeks after my second shot, I flew to Puerto Rico with one of my friends for a long weekend in the Caribbean sun. Mom, Steph and I replaced our yearly spring cruise with a week in Hawaii. I started finding joy in places nearer and newer instead of running as far away as I could get.
And then Europe reopened, and it was like this fountain I’d been sipping from for the past six years was flowing again, and while I’d found other ways of quenching my thirst, my body just ached for a taste of something no other place could give. And Stephanie and I booked ourselves on the first flight we could get to Paris, where we spent days eating croissants, traversing the bridges spanning the Seine, staring at the Eiffel Tower and shopping our hearts out. It was like everything had changed and nothing had changed at all, all at the same time. The Paris we loved was exactly as we had left it on New Years Day 2019, but the world around us — that would never be the same and we savored each minute, made each decision, as if it was our last time, because at any time now, we know it could be. It felt like we were the only Americans in Paris — an experience I will never, ever forget.
As it became safer to travel, as more places opened up and I started picking back up on where I left off in 2019 (a year when I flew more than 60,000 miles, visited four continents and 12 countries), I began to get that itch again. Cruises started and I just wasn’t there yet. The experience was different, the fear of catching COVID in such a contained environment still echoed in our heads. So I stayed on land. After I came back from a long weekend in Copenhagen for Labor Day, Stephanie and I started talking about taking a trip in October. My job turned remote first after our offices reopened, which has made it easier for me to travel and I’ve done a lot of it over the past year and a half…but I haven’t really taken any time off. I just brought my work with me wherever I went. And I needed a break. Changing locations and surrounding myself with different cultures and languages and history to dive into…it’s always helped me recharge, but after a year and a half of 70 hour work weeks, I needed something more.
We missed cruising. A lot. The more places we went, the more we wished we were on a cruise ship. A lot of my zeal for travel was born through the cruises we took as a family when I was younger — the ability to visit so many places in such a short period of time — it all came through cruising. I missed the exploration. I missed strolling around ships late at night and watching movies under the stars and singing along with an over enthusiastic piano player in a dark bar. I missed the opulent (and even the gaudy) decor. I missed meeting and getting to know people from around the world and hearing their stories. So when we started looking at places to go, we started wondering if it was the right time to start cruising again and how we would feel comfortable cruising.
Stephanie did a lot of the initial research and with all of the choices, felt that Norwegian fit the bill best — Norwegian was at 100% vaccination for both guests and crew AND required a pre-departure test (which they took care of at embarkation). We felt that for us, this was the best and safest option to start tiptoeing back in to a world we missed desperately. And then in looking at the options, Stephanie found an Alaska itinerary and the more she looked at the ports, the more energized she was by the idea. And I was so burned out from work that I didn’t even care where we went, I just wanted to go.
So we did. We booked a cruise three or four weeks before it departed. We planned very little because, well, we were kind of afraid to. Things seem to change daily these days, and we wanted to be ready for everything, but open to anything with the evolving circumstances we live with now.
As we were packing, it struck me just how foreign it felt, as if I didn’t remember how to pack for a cruise anymore. I used to be able to get enough for three weeks of cruising and traveling into one 50-lb max suitcase and suddenly, we’re going away for one seven night cruise, one day of pre-cruise and no post-cruise, and we each needed two full suitcases to fit everything we thought we needed. It was like being a beginner all over again.
Our cruise was scheduled to leave on a Saturday so we flew out Thursday afternoon, giving us a day of flex for any travel ~complications but leaving very little time for any major touring. I took the day off and Stephanie headed in for a half day of work. I lazily went about my morning, finishing my packing and sipping my morning coffee. Mom and I picked Stephanie up at work, grabbed a quick lunch together and headed off for the airport.
O’Hare was busy enough, not as much as pre-Covid, but not the ghost town it was for the first year of the pandemic. We walked through security, grabbed water bottles and snacks and parked out at our gate. I cleared an upgrade to first as we were walking on the plane. It wasn’t all easy — we had a minor delay as the inbound flight was slightly delayed, and then a short maintenance delay, and then we had a ground delay because apparently President Biden was in town and was leaving Chicago from O’Hare (and apparently all air traffic stops when the President is leaving town!), but we had a relatively smooth flight otherwise.
As we began our descent into Seattle and the clouds below us morphed into the mountains that mark the path into SeaTac, I was flooded by all of the memories I’ve made here over the past six years. I traveled here frequently for work before the pandemic and haven’t been back since, but as soon as I caught a glimpse of Mount Rainier from the window, the memories overwhelmed me: how the smell of Pike Place reminds me of middle school, the taste of a cheddar garlic piroshky, days that began at Storyville Coffee before the sun came up and ended at Sun Liquor or Iron Bull in the early morning hours. Good memories. Some of the best memories.
We gathered our bags (four full bags — what the eff were we thinking!?!?) and headed to the parking garage. Because our time in Seattle was so short, we decided not to rent a car. Thankfully, ride sharing is readily available and easy to use at the Seattle Tacoma airport — follow the signs in baggage claim to the parking garage, go down to level 3 and cross the walkway to the middle, where you’ll see prominent signs for Uber, Lyft and Wingz. We needed an Uber XL with all of this baggage, but there were no XL drivers in the area (Uber actually sent me a $5 credit because they couldn’t match me with a driver). Thankfully, Lyft had lower fares AND drivers already at the airport, so we booked an XL through Lyft and met our driver in spot 28.
The drive from the airport to downtown cost us just under $60. A taxi would have been around $45/$50 if we didn’t have so much luggage, but they are metered here and traffic can get quite heavy around rush hour and on Seahawks home games (perfect timing for us — we landed during both!). The ride was just under a half hour and before we knew it, we were driving through the familiar streets of downtown Seattle.
I had booked us at the Marriott Seattle Waterfront. It’s not my favorite hotel in Seattle, but it has one leg up on all the rest for cruisers: it is walking distance from Norwegian’s dock, and it’s also one of the testing spots for pre-departure Covid tests. It’s steps from Pike Place and a short walk from Pioneer Square, the Space Needle and Belltown, so it was super convenient for our short trip. Check in was quick and easy and our room, though rather simple, was comfortable.
We finally settled in around 8:30 PM, but many eateries in Seattle close between 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM. We were too tired to go out, so we ordered in pizza and cookies and watched Prom on Netflix.
A low-key start to a much-anticipated trip, but we figured we’d have plenty of time for late night fun and exciting adventures when we set sail for Alaska.
