Norwegian Encore Alaska Cruise Review: Day 4 – Sea Dayfeatured

I love the choose-your-own-adventure kind of fun that sea days bring. Sometimes, they’re super active and we hop from activity to activity. Or they’re filled with pool time, sunshine and frozen cocktails. But sometimes, they’re just completely inactive. We stroll, we eat, we nap. I like those just as much — they’re not much to write about but they’re so relaxing and if nothing has come out of the past two years for me, it’s a deep appreciation for down time.

We knew that booking an Alaska itinerary meant that our usual sea days wouldn’t be so usual — the temps wouldn’t be prime for pool time, the seas are usually rockier and the weather is more unpredictable. The Freestyle Daily listed a handful of activities — not as many as Carnival (who sets a high bar, in our opinion), but there was plenty to do: fruit carving demos, destination lectures, shopping specials, trivia. More low-key than we usually go for, but plenty of activities to keep us busy if we wanted to be kept busy. But the seas started rolling the evening before and never really let up, and as we woke up and started getting ready, the sun would come out, and then it would rain as we sailed into darker clouds. Our time in Seattle was so active that a relaxing don’t-do-much-at-all kind of sea day felt like the kind of fun we needed.

There are a few options for breakfast onboard the Encore: there’s a sit down breakfast service at the Savor dining room, a different menu sit down service at The Local, a full-service buffet at the Garden Cafe, a lighter buffet at the Observation Lounge and if you didn’t want any of those options, there’s room service (and even a full service Starbucks!) for additional fees.

We opted for breakfast at Savor, where service was prompt and there was a menu full of traditional breakfast options. It was nice and leisurely and we poured over the activities with our morning coffee, planning out the day ahead.

After breakfast, we strolled around the ship a bit, starting at the dining reservations desk to sort out Stephanie’s multiple reservations at Cagney’s. We noticed that the buy up on our dining package was actually cheaper than it was in our pre-cruise planner, so we added two additional nights of speciality dining for something like $75/each. We browsed the shops and got some fresh air and wave watching time out on The Waterfront.

Afterwards, we settled in the atrium for an espresso martini (…me), a Diet Pepsi for Steph and the How To Run a Floating Hotel Q&A with Cruise Director Silas and the senior hotel staff. We love these behind-the-scenes sessions and learned a ton of fun facts. Did you know that…

The Encore has more than 70 nationalities represented in the crew onboard? Or that there are more than 100 different pastries prepared in the galley every day? That the ship carries the equivalent of 169 bathtubs full of alcohol on each voyage? That they do 11,000 lbs of laundry every day? We got to hear from the crew and see what the crew-only areas are like and it was just so interesting!

After some post-martini down time in the room, we headed upstairs to Garden Cafe for lunch. They’d have the most diverse options (and also hand washing stations, by the way!) to use. I had noodle soup with a cupcake. Steph just wanted rocky road ice cream from the ice cream station. We all walked away happy.

The waves were really starting to pick up, turning the pool into a wave pool and making it hard on all folks to walk anywhere. We ended up back in the room to relax, wave watch and enjoy the treats we had left in the room.

The evening brought our first formal night, so we got all gussied up for what felt like the first time in forever. We kept noticing small things we forgot to pack, which reinforced just how out of practice we were with packing for trips like this! Mom had asked for us to bring home one thing — a formal portrait. I didn’t know what she planned on doing with it, but all she wanted was a “nice picture” of me and Stephanie and our Costco package included 50 prints and a digital flash drive. So once we were dressed up, we headed down to deck 8, had a couple of mojitos at Sugarcane and sought out as many photographers as we could.

We had reservations at Cagney’s, the steakhouse onboard, for dinner. Our reservations were for 6:00 PM, but we checked in a little early and they had no problem accommodating us. The decor and vibe of the space reminded me of Wildfire (my favorite steakhouse at home!) and the staff was efficient and friendly. When our server came to introduce herself, the first thing she asked was if we had other plans for the evening. We mentioned we had show reservations at 7:30 PM and she paced our meal perfectly to get us out with plenty of time to go get seats. She also explained to us that on the dining plan, because Cagney’s is a la carte, we were entitled to one app (but she’d “take care of us” if we wanted two), an entree, two sides and a dessert per person.

The food was really great. I wouldn’t put it on the same level as Carnival’s steakhouse, but I liked it better than Royal Caribbean’s Chops. Our filets were cooked perfectly and the sides were delicious! I think the only thing I didn’t care for was dessert — the sauce poured over my cheesecake was delicious, but the cheesecake itself was dense and relatively flavorless.

We settled the bill with our cards, left an extra tip for the incredible service and headed off to the Encore Theater for a performance of Choir of Man.

Production shows are one of my favorite parts of cruising. I love Broadway, I love musical theater and I love how these ships all bring these elaborate shows onboard, especially so for Norwegian and Royal Caribbean (who bring actual shows onboard!). Choir of Man is a high-energy show with a set list full of classic favorites, set in a pub, a group of men who come together to forget their problems and cheer each other on by singing…at the pub. Like an English pub version of Glee. Make sure you get to the show early — they pass out beers to the audience before the show starts!

I thought the cast and production were incredible, even more so that the performers pulled it off without missing a step during some crazy turbulent seas. The seas had been rolling below us all day and it got progressively worse throughout the night. No one could walk in anything remotely resembling a straight line and Stephanie was starting to get her usual bad seas headache.

We went to the room for a bit after the show to just decompress a little and then we changed into our warm clothes and outer gear and headed outside again. Stephanie had been tracking the Northern Lights and there was a chance we’d be able to see them from our position. She talked about it for days, but when we went outside around 10:30 PM, we couldn’t see anything. The original plan was to check in for them until 2:00 AM, but the seas were making Stephanie miserable. We had some tea, we looked around outside and then we headed back to the room so she could crash.

I headed out onto the balcony intermittently and couldn’t see anything — there were probably too many clouds. Another item stays on the bucket list, but we were hoping to cross off plenty more over the coming days!