Norwegian Encore Alaska Cruise Review: Day 9 – Sea Dayfeatured
Sunshine. Sweet, bright sunshine.
After days and days of rain and dull gray skies, waking up on our final sea day to bright, beaming sunlight was like an omen to start our last day onboard with, bringing the energy we hoped to carry through the rest of the day.
We lost an hour coming back to Seattle, so we took our time lazing in the room, watching The Social Network and sitting on the balcony before heading out for breakfast.
At this point, we were kind of over all of the breakfast options — the food on Norwegian was okay, better in the speciality dining restaurants but nothing special in any of the complementary venues (except, surprisingly, The Local, which had a crazy good grilled cheese). So we settled on the quickest option (Garden Cafe) and had a quick, unremarkable breakfast before heading down to The Waterfront to enjoy all of the sunshine we could get in.
When we made a quick stop back at the room, we noticed our luggage tags had been delivered, as well as our boarding passes. Because the Port of Seattle is so small, they offer a special service called Port Valet, which (for no charge), allows you to pre-register your luggage with a number of airlines (including ours, American) and have your luggage checked in from the cruise ship direct to your final destination. In other words, you leave your luggage outside your room (like normal) and then you pick it up at baggage claim when you land at home. No picking it up inside the port or checking it in at the airport — they take care of all of it. And. It’s. FREE. Did I mention that they don’t weight your baggage and do not charge for overweight baggage? Can we get this EVERYWHERE?! Overweight baggage after a cruise is the reason why we bring so many suitcases! They will charge you if baggage is not included in your plane ticket per the fees associated from your airline, but that’s about the only fee you may incur.
We had no plans to finish packing so early and using up the precious few hours of sunlight we got on this cruise, so we grabbed our jackets and headed out to the activities deck. It wasn’t particularly warm but it was the nicest weather we’d had all week, so people were out and about in the pools, riding the water slides and racing on the go kart track. Stephanie wanted to race each other but I wanted to go one at a time so we could root each other on (…and take pictures of each other) and not have to go back to the room to drop off our cameras and bags. Stephanie went first and waited just under an hour in the standby line. The go karts cost $15 for one ride, which included eight laps around the rather lengthy track. Stephanie says it was tons of fun. I wouldn’t know because after waiting an hour for her to go, I had no desire to wait in that line again (especially since those sunny skies were quickly turning gray and the go karts are shut down in rain, high winds or rough seas — all of which, spoiler alert, came on within minutes).
Instead, we decided to grab lunch at Food Republic, one of the speciality restaurants onboard the Encore. We really enjoyed the specialty restaurants — the quality and diversity of the menus were much greater than in the complimentary eateries — but if you don’t have a dining package, the prices can get a little high. Our cocktails were included with our beverage package, but an order of dumplings, an order of pork belly bao, a bowl of ramen and a bowl of pho set us back nearly $60. The food was good, but it wasn’t $60 good. We can get top of the class Asian food in Chicago for a quarter of that.
That said, I loved the location and design of Food Republic probably more than any of the other eateries onboard. It’s positioned forward, and instead of having outdoor dining on the waterfront, it’s enclosed and cantilevered over the side of the ship. With it’s big windows and neutral tones, it’s a really peaceful space to grab a quick (albeit expensive) bite.
We skipped out on dessert in favor of afternoon tea up in The Observation Lounge. The Encore does not have a formal tea service of the likes of Carnival, but instead, they put out all of the makings of an afternoon tea and you can kind of make your own little tea service. They even had a bar in the lounge so you could do a boozy brunch, if that’s your pace. Even better, though, is that they had live music and The Observation Lounge is such a lovely space that it really made for a nice afternoon activity.
By this point, any vestiges of sunlight were gone and we were sailing through (another) storm. We didn’t want to pack so we went back to the room, sat on the balcony and then took a gloriously long and relaxing nap.
We woke up just in time to shower and get ready for our final formal night. Well, maybe our final formal night — we didn’t really know if it was formal night or not because Norwegian is all “freestyle” and any formal attire is entirely optional. We dressed up — we liked the occasion to get dressed up before Covid, but after a year plus of working from home in sweats and a top knot every day, having an occasion to put some makeup and something less casual on was part of the fun!
Our initial intention was to immediately get more portraits taken, but the photographers weren’t set up quite yet, so we passed the time the best way we knew how: in the mojito bar. And the whiskey bar. There might have been another bar in between — I lost count. That unlimited drinks package is dangerous.
We couldn’t decide what we wanted for dinner so we settled on the main dining room. The food was fine, mostly unremarkable, but the service was just incredible. I had overheard someone in an elevator talking about it earlier in the day and couldn’t stop thinking about it — the crew on this cruise was so kind and courteous. I don’t think I passed a single crew member who didn’t say hello, ask me how I was or wish me a safe trip home. We were frequently greeted by name by our room steward and many of the bartenders. As we left dinner, every single server (including many who had never served us at all), wished us a good evening or safe travels home. We loved their kindness.
The photographers were out and set up when we finished dinner, so we wasted no time going to as many as we could. See, we had a photo package from Costco and after years of Mom saying “Bring me home a portrait” or “Can we take a picture” we decided to give her what she wanted. Not one portrait or two or even three. We were determined to use the full extent of our package and bring her home 50 portraits (both in print and digital). Some were nice serious ones — the ones she wanted. Many, though, were us having fun with it. Matching outfits. Titanic backgrounds with Jack and Rose I’m-the-king-of-the-world poses. Back to back with crossed arms. We were in tears laughing through many of these. It was so much fun.
Once we finished our photo sessions, we headed up to the photo gallery to choose our prints. We had about 80 that we had to whittle down to 50 and once we were done, the staff got to work on pulling together our final prints and creating the digital file. They’d deliver those to the room later, so we headed off to cross one more thing off our lists.
Every day, we passed Coco’s and Stephanie really wanted to try their ice cream sundaes. We didn’t love anything on the dessert menu in the MDR so we decided we’d do Coco’s for dessert tonight. They had a ton of really delicious looking stuff — massive crazy milkshakes and made to order crepes, chocolate delicacies and intricate looking pastries — but we were here for the fancy sundaes (or ice cream coupes, because they’re that fancy). At $8, which is basically the cost of a Cold Stone ice cream, we figured they’d be small enough that we should each order one. But no — these coupes were massive. Massive, rich ice cream sundae art. Neither of us came anywhere near finishing but dang, these were good!
Stephanie snagged late reservations to the final 10:00 PM Choir of Man show, so with luggage due outside the door before midnight, we had to get packing. It was painful and I don’t know how we accumulated so much stuff but we finished just in time to get out to snag primo seats at the show. And I have to say it again — the Choir of Man cast is so dang talented and the show is really uplifting and it was just such a feel-good set.
The show let out with just enough time for us to get our bags out into the hallway for collection, so we quickly tossed our show clothes into our suitcases and brought them outside, giving the locks and the tags one last check (because we can never be too careful).
We weren’t particularly tired since we napped for half the afternoon, so we headed out to watch the midnight movie in the atrium (Crazy Rich Asians — one of our favorites!). The best viewing for the movies, we found, wasn’t in the atrium at all, but actually one deck above in the bar seating at The Local. There’s a ring of seats overlooking the atrium that are primo for trivia and games, movies and demonstrations. And, plus, you can have some of The Local’s delicious pub grub while you watch or play!
After the movie, my heart said walk around the ship, do as much as possible, take it all in because who knows when the next time you’ll be able to do this will be (I mean, I do know — we did it again two months later in December). My head said you can’t really escape the inevitable and staying up won’t make morning come any later — at some point, you just have to go to bed. So we did — we headed back to the room and finished packing up our carry on bags. Stephanie went to bed immediately. I headed out to the balcony, where I could see lights off in the distance. Victoria, maybe. Or Vancouver. Maybe we were starting to approach Washington. The sky was lit, likely ambient city light but in my head I wondered if I could be seeing any Northern Lights. I think I’m just desperate for it…might need to plan a trip to firmly and formally see them at their prime in Iceland or the Nordics. I stood out on the balcony, feeling the chill of the air on my skin, taking in the sound of the waves lapping against the boat and the movement of the ship as it glided across the water, one last time for that feeling, and then I gave in to the inevitability that morning was going to come and it would be more pleasant if I slept than if I kept myself up all night.
