Norwegian Encore Alaska Cruise Review: Day 6 – Glacier Bay National Parkfeatured

I’ve been fortunate enough to have a lot of WOW moments in my travels. A lot of them came from cruise ships. I’ll never forget the time I walked through the Coliseum or seeing the Sistine Chapel in person when we were in Rome or the day I spent riding around Havana in a vintage car. I’ll never forget the excitement of shopping through the night markets in Hong Kong or the night sky that never got dark when we sailed through the Gulf of Finland. My head is filled with these memories of moments that make me stop and say I am here and I want to remember every detail of this forever. Over the past two years, these have been my respite, the warm blanket I wrap myself in when I feel stuck. When I get sad or discouraged or angry over the state of the world, I remind myself of these moments and the beauty of these places.

Sailing through Glacier Bay National Park was one of those moments. Our day of scenic cruising was probably in the top ten of cruise experiences (and it’s pretty high on the list of travel moments overall). It was so special and it’s something I’ll cherish the memory of for years to come.

We had left Icy Strait Point early because of storms forecasted for the area. When we looked at the map, we had taken a long detour to get around them. What a storm it was, too — more than two feet of snow fell over Glacier Bay. It wouldn’t be the lush, vibrant experience we’d seen in other people’s photos from earlier in the season, but we knew it would be just as special.

Stephanie was so excited she woke up at 6:00 AM — she didn’t want to miss any moment of it. She let me sleep until 7:00 and then she was shaking me awake, ready to get this day started! And start it did — we saw a black fin poking out of the water from our balcony! Might have been an orca. May have been a seal. Either way, what a way to begin!

We knew we had a bit of time — scenic cruising was set to begin with the National Parks guide at 9:00 — so we headed to the Savor restaurant for breakfast. Their daily special was some kind of hash with potatoes, corned beef, bacon, cheese and green onions with fried eggs on top — it was delicious!

Afterwards, we headed out to The Waterfront as we started seeing tall mountains overtake both sides of the ship. There were coffee bars set up outside selling coffee with Baileys (or Jameson…or Disaronno…or Kahlua…) and servers made the rounds with hot chocolate (and later, salmon chowder) to keep everyone warm.

Another special part of our scenic cruising day was that they opened up the crew area at the bow of the ship, allowing anyone who wanted to get a panoramic view of both sides to see everything the park had to offer.

We made the rounds, going from one side to the other, to our balcony, to the bow. There was so much to see — wildlife and mountains, glaciers that were more than 12 miles long (like the Johns Hopkins Glacier that we sailed past — it was MASSIVE!) and icebergs floating in the waters. We’d hear a crash that sounded like deck chairs and it was a sign to look for a crumbling glacier chipping away and crashing into the water. Many of the ship’s crew were floating around The Waterfront, too, Facetime’ing home, taking pictures and just marveling. Many of them have never seen snow before so this was truly a special experience for everyone and witnessing their joy in experiencing something I take for granted every year (snow is truly the bane of my existence) was just so…special. I keep saying that but I can’t find any better way to put it. It was up, down and all around an experience I’ll treasure forever.

There was a park guide, as well as a ranger, up in the Observation Lounge and their talk was live-streamed into the atrium, all public areas and the stateroom TV. They narrated our journey through the park, highlighting points of interest and helping everyone understand what we were seeing and why it was remarkable. We didn’t go to the Observation Lounge during our scenic sailing hours because, well, even in the cold, this scenery is best observed in the open, not from behind a window. There are so many fine details you can’t pick up on, and the views are so vastly different from deck 15 than they are from deck 8 or deck 6.

There was a short lull after the Johns Hopkins glacier — the ship did a full 360 so everyone could see it and then lingered in the bay — so we headed inside to The Local for a quick lunch. Nothing warms the bones quicker than a nice grilled cheese and as used as we are to the cold and snow, we were absolutely chilled from hours out on deck.

After lunch, we headed back outside, first to The Waterfront and then to our covered balcony when the snow and rain got out be too intense. We took hundreds of pictures and videos and we couldn’t wait to show them to Mom as soon as we got home. All of the pictures and videos of Glacier Bay we saw online were bright, sunny and colorful and I’m sure at some point, we’ll see it that way, but seeing it in the snow was almost like sailing through our own version of Frozen — there was a bit of magic in it.

As we began to sail out of Glacier Bay, Stephanie and I headed up to the Observation Lounge (which was predictably crowded). While Norwegian doesn’t offer formal tea service, they do put out tea treats every afternoon and we made our own service with fruit, scones and cakes and warmed back up with herbal tea.

Despite the rough weather, the seas had calmed down tremendously as we sailed out of Glacier Bay and towards our next port of call in Juneau, so we napped and lazed around our cabin. I never took myself for a cold weather cruise type of girl, but I was feeling SO relaxed from the sheer amount of down time we found ourselves with. We were cozy, we were lazy, it was everything we both needed.

We re-emerged from our cabin for dinner, where we had reservations at Onda by Scarpetta. If you aren’t familiar, Scarpetta is the brain child of frequent Chopped judge Scott Conant (who is actually no longer affiliated with the restaurant, but still appears on the Food Network frequently). The high-end Italian-inspired restaurant has locations in some of the most posh cities in the world, and Norwegian now has it at sea! On our dining package, we were entitled to a starter or a pizza, a pasta or a meat dish, a side dish and a dessert each. Our server was incredible and brought us extra sides and desserts because there were just so many great dishes to try! She mentioned the polenta was Scarpetta’s signature dish and holy cow was it delicious! Really though, everything was just fantastic and it was a fantastic value with the dining plan.

After dinner, we made our rounds through the ship getting our photos taken at any photographer who asked. Stephanie found a Titanic backdrop and just had to do pictures there. Our photo package for Mom became a running joke and I couldn’t even keep a straight face with it anymore!

We floated around to the Atrium, where there was a Bee Gee’s tribute band performing (and where we had to fill out our luggage docs to get our luggage transferred straight to the airline for us!) and through the rest of deck 6. I stopped to marvel every time we walked through the atrium lobby because it was just so stunning and beautiful!

Our night ended at The District Brewhouse, where there were plenty of brews (and ciders for me!) on tap and a piano player leading a singalong of classic tunes. It wasn’t quite the Carnival piano bar, but it filled the role and we enjoyed the low-key camaraderie that comes with big, drunken group singalongs.

Stephanie crawled almost immediately back into bed. I kept trying to get Instagram to work but the wi-if onboard was pretty terrible. Thankfully, we’d be docked in Juneau bright and early (well, early — Juneau was forecasted for rain and snow) and we could use our regular cell plan to check in with real life.