Norwegian Encore Alaska Cruise Review: Day 2 – Seattlefeatured

Seattle is one of my favorite cities to visit. It’s ripe with nature, a melting pot of cultures and a healthy appreciation for art and local businesses. I used to jump at the chance to work from my Seattle office whenever I could, usually sitting in meetings from 7:00 AM until 5:00 PM and exploring local coffee shops in between to keep myself awake. I’d stroll Pike Place during lunch and the local dining scene once my meetings ended for the day. Over the years, I built up a long list of favorite spots that I’d visit throughout my one week visits.

We had one day in Seattle before our cruise. A lot of the big stuff, I’ve already done: I’ve been up and down Pike Place, to the top of the Space Needle (…twice), to the Chihuly Glass Museum (…three times), to Nordstrom #1, to Starbucks #1, around the International District and Pioneer Square, up down and back again. I showed Stephanie all of my favorite spots when we were here back in 2019. You don’t need a lot of time in Seattle to experience the best of it — the city is pretty easy to navigate (though easier by car than on foot: it has long, sloping streets that rival the hilly footprint of San Francisco). So we resolved that in our one day in Seattle, we’d just visit some of the favorites, soak in the nostalgia and enjoy the best of the best.

It helped that it was a brilliantly sunny day — a rarity here. Seattle is a city that dances in the rain, but when the sun shines, it radiates with beauty and joy. When we woke up, we could see a Celebrity ship, and just seeing a ship docked outside our window added even more anticipation to our week ahead.

We got an early start, leaving the hotel around 8:30 for the short walk up towards Pike Place. There was a slight chill in the early morning air, but the fresh breeze off the water and the fall colors splashing the trees lining the street —it was a [literal] breath of fresh air.

Pike Place hadn’t really woken up yet so we strolled through leisurely, admiring the market in it’s opening hours without the throngs of people that usually pack the walkways. As we were taking pictures at a seafood stand, Stephanie kept poking me and whispering tersely. It took me a few moments of “What, what?” to get at what she was saying: Sean and Catherine from the Bachelor were standing next to us with their kids and extended family. We’re big Bachelor people so of course we watched their season AND their wedding special. We didn’t approach them or say anything — I’m too old for that at this point — but it was a fun way to start our day!

Afterwards, we headed down to the Gum Wall in Post Alley. The Gum Wall is…exactly what it sounds like: it’s an alleyway where people leave their chewing gum on the walls, the windows, the sidewalks — it’s a colorful spray of color. It’s inspiring and disgusting. I can never tell if I’m enthralled by the colors or disgusted by the melting pot of germs that are sure to be dripping down the walls, but I stop by every time I’m in town.

Once we left the Gum Wall, we decided to take a leisurely stroll over to Pioneer Square to grab some coffee. Pioneer Square is an interesting neighborhood. It’s urban, home to some of the city’s best eateries, bars and coffee shops (and it’s historic lore — supposedly, it’s haunted!). But it’s also littered with shantytowns, homelessness and wide open drug use. It’s also home to one of my favorite coffee shops: Zeitgeist Coffee. Zeitgeist isn’t fancy or particularly special, but they make a mean cold brew and we were in desperate need of some caffeine.

Afterwards, we were like, you know what’s better than one cup of coffee? More coffee. Or Moore Coffee, maybe. Here’s the thing: being in a city that’s so familiar, every street we walked brought in a place I loved. And since we were only here for a day and I’m a girl that thrives on excess, a cup of coffee at one favorite coffee shop wasn’t enough. And since we were near another favorite coffee shop, we just hopped on over to Moore Coffee for two of their fun lattes (black tea for Stephanie, matcha for me).

We kept trekking and found ourselves at Biscuit Bitch, a great casual breakfast place serving up some killer biscuit sandwiches. We ordered a couple of sausage, egg and cheese sammies and they hit the spot. I’m a firm believer that the messier the sandwich, the better it tastes.

Fully caffeinated, fed and ready to take on the rest of the day, we headed back towards Pike Place, now filled with people packing the narrow sidewalks and walkways. We explored new nooks and crannies of the market. We hit up coffee shop #3 (Storyville Coffee!). We browsed boutiques with wares created by local artisans, we snacked on our favorites (Ellenos Yogurt and Piroshky Piroshky!) and we stopped to marvel at how long the line was to get into Starbucks original storefront.

When we couldn’t figure out what was left for us to bowl through at Pike Place, Stephanie decided she really wanted to go on The Great Wheel and we had some time to kill before meeting one of my old teammates at a nearby brewery, so we headed down to the waterfront and bought tickets ($16/each) to ride the big ferris wheel over the water. The line to board snaked through a long queue, but it only took maybe 20 minutes and we were whisked into our own cabin for the two of us. The views were just spectacular.

Afterwards, we headed over to Old Stove Brewing to meet up with one of my former coworkers. It was the perfect spot for a happy hour hang and we actually found a few beers that didn’t give me major scrunchface — a big win for Stephanie, who continues to make it her mission to find a beer I’ll actually drink. I really dug the vibe of the brewery, too — it was a great place for a casual meetup.

Stephanie headed back to the hotel and my friend and I headed to a nearby cider house, where we sampled an expansive flight of really great ciders and pizzas. It was smaller and much more low key than Old Stove, which fit us great for an hour of gabbing and catching up.

We headed up towards Westlake Center to meet up with some of our Seattle-based engineering colleagues and it was so great to catch up with people I talk to on Jira and Slack just about daily but had never actually met in person! I love putting faces with names and it was so nice to get to know them outside of a formal work setting.

After dinner, I met back up with Stephanie at the hotel. We planned out our morning, when we’d leave, how we’d get to the cruise terminal, what we’d do onboard. We watched videos about the COVID testing process and hoped that we’d clear our tests with flying colors (we tested before we left, but this always makes me so nervous!) and we commiserated on how we went from rockstar know-it-all cruisers to feeling like first timers all over again. We couldn’t believe we were here, doing this again. It felt so foreign and so exciting and we just couldn’t wait to get back onboard.