Norwegian Encore Alaska Cruise Review: Day 5 – Icy Strait Point, Hoonahfeatured

I never feel as rested as I do on a cruise ship. The more the seas churn, the better I sleep. I’m like a baby in a rocker — the more it moves, the deeper my rest. I woke up bright and early (well, gray and early — the weather wasn’t stellar) feeling like I’d slept 12 hours with no interruptions. The reality was not as great (I slept a tick under five hours and woke up four times), but the clocks rolled back an hour as we sailed towards Icy Strait Point, so between the rocky seas and the time change leaving me more time to laze in bed, I felt great, so ready to take on our first port day!

We lingered in the room for awhile. We Facetime’ed with Mom (now three hours ahead of us with the time change), we watched The Social Network and we tried to figure out how to dress for a whale watching tour that would sail in four hours of rain. We had time to figure it out, though — we wouldn’t dock in Icy Strait Point until the afternoon, so we had a full morning to treat like a sea day.

The landscape outside our window started shifting into gorgeous snow capped mountains peeking out from the gray overcast skies, so we headed up to the Garden Cafe for a quick breakfast. Before we left, Stephanie was convinced she was seeing whales (or at least blow holes) from the surface of the water. I didn’t see it, but we were hoping it was a good sign for our whale watching tour!

After we were full and caffeinated, we headed down to The Waterfront to watch the Alaska coastline come into view. The Waterfront is down on deck 8, so you feel pretty close to the surface of the water. It was raining, cold and gray but it felt like that added some moody ambiance that felt very Alaska. The forecast didn’t look great for this cruise and since I don’t control the weather (as Stephanie frequently reminds me), we just kind of had to embrace that lush landscapes and sunny blue skies just weren’t in our future. We knew this was likely when we booked — Alaska was in full on rainy season and we sailed on the absolute end of the cruising season. I just take it as another reason to sail to Alaska again to see it in a different season!

As we were outside, Cruise Director Silas came on to tell us there had been a change to our itinerary — our time in Icy Strait Point would be cut short due to a big storm moving in tonight. We were supposed to leave around 10:00 PM, I think, and now we were due back on board at 7:30 PM for an 8:00 PM sailaway. I didn’t really care — apparently we weren’t even allowed in Hoonah (the main town — Icy Strait Point is a tourist area built up for cruise visitors) because of rising Covid cases, so it wasn’t like there was a ton for us to explore anyways.

We lingered on The Waterfront for awhile, snapping pictures and marveling in the sights. We also did a quick walk through Food Republic and District Brewhouse, which have some primo views towards the front of the ship. We made note to visit them on our scenic cruising day!

Another walk around The Waterfront and we decided to catch an early lunch. We planned on grabbing lunch at The Local, but when we went upstairs for some tea, we saw today’s special at Garden Cafe was a build your own taco bar and we couldn’t say no to that! And it wasn’t just tacos — they had a full-on nacho bar, too!

We took a siesta after lunch. Our whale watching tour wasn’t until 3:00 PM and we finished lunch around 12:00 PM, so we had plenty of time to relax, watch the water from the balcony and get ready to see some whales! In fact, those whales must have been ready to get the party started because we saw water spouts and movement as we navigated through the Inner Passage towards Hoonah!

Even though our excursion tickets had a 3:00 meeting time, Stephanie as also ready to go and insisted we go down early. Norwegian’s process for gathering excursion groups was less formal than Carnival and Royal Caribbean’s — it was basically sit in the theater, and then cruisers in wheelchairs and those with mobility issues (which seemed to be half the theater) got a head start to go down the stairs to the debarkation deck.

We were off the ship promptly around 3:30 and the boat that would take us whale watching was waiting right at the pier — it was such a relief that we wouldn’t have to transit to another location to get on the boat! There was an indoor and an outdoor section. We initially sat inside but quickly moved outside for better viewing. There was also complimentary hot chocolate, coffee and tea, as well as a small commissary with snacks and souvenirs onboard.

The weather was not ideal for whale watching by any means. It was raining and at times, pelting ice. The waves weren’t particularly choppy, but the skies were overcast and that freezing rain was killer. I was wearing two layers of pants, a heavy knit sweater and a water resistant coat and I was freezing and wet. We saw a bunch of whales, though, so all worth it in the end. It’s hard to get good pictures of humpback whales — they’re nimble (not-so) little guys and as soon as we saw a water spout, we’d start searching because they’d usually go tail-up. One of them even swam along our boat for a bit! It was such a special experience to see these majestic animals in their native habitat.

The boat returned us right to the ship around 6:00. We had some time to cross the bridge over into the port area, but it was so cold and so wet that we decided we were better off getting right back on the ship. I was a little disappointed, but I knew it was the right decision for us.

We had a little time to dry off and change before our dinner reservations. Stephanie hung our coats to dry and I used the blow dryer to wring out some of the moisture from our hats and gloves. Our room steward stopped by with a map of Glacier Bay for our day of scenic cruising and we plotted out the rest of our night as we watched other cruisers come back to the ship from our balcony.

Our dinner reservation was for 7:15, but we showed up at Le Bistro a bit early to see if we could get done early — dining reservations were incredibly limited and occasionally hard to come by, but we were hoping to get in a little early. They were able to accommodate us and we had an incredible meal with fantastic wine, made even better by the top-notch service from the staff at Le Bistro. I’m not the biggest fan of French food, but everything — from the beef tartare and the goat cheese salad to the filet and especially the dessert — was just incredible!

The rain kept coming down so we knew we were sticking indoors for the remainder of the evening. We headed down to the Encore Theater for the late showing of The Beatles Invasion show, which featured a great set list of some favorite tunes and we ended the night with a singalong before heading back to the room to crash. We’d arrive at Glacier Bay National Park early the next morning and we wanted an early start to see as much of this national park as we could!