Norwegian Encore Alaska Cruise Review: Day 5 – Sea Dayfeatured
There’s a meme in Chicago that we don’t have four seasons — we actually have something like 12. They range from Spring of Deception to Third Winter and Actual Spring and False Fall. Since June, we’d been stuck in what we adoringly refer to as Hell’s Front Porch. It’d been hot. It’d been stormy. It’d been humid. Basically it had been awful to be outside — my balcony was my favorite apartment feature and I’d barely used it that summer. I think I grilled once. It’d just been so dang hot.
When we woke up on our first sea day, our room was cold and the skies outside were a little gray and I said a silent prayer of thanks, because after two days in Portland (which, seemingly, was in their own Hell’s Front Porch season), I was beyond ready for some mild temps — even if it pushed off the sun.
We were up around 8:30 AM and I suddenly found all of the motivation I needed to unpack (which took, legitimately, less than ten minutes — remind me of this the next time I push it off!). We got dressed, grabbed our stuff, flipped on the Make Up My Room switch and headed downstairs for breakfast in the MDR. The Encore doesn’t have one MDR but rather, it has three: The Manhattan Room, Taste and Savor. All of them have the same menus. Taste and Savor are across from each other and I honestly don’t remember which one we went to because they are visually the same. We just chose off of what was less busy! Our breakfasts were solid and I took solace in the more peaceful meal time versus the madness that tends to exist up in the Garden Cafe.
After breakfast, we went down to the lobby to knock out some errands — we checked on the show times for Choir of Man and Kinky Boots, we extended our dining package for an additional three days and we confirmed eligibility for the Port Valet service to handle our luggage upon debarkation. So productive for a lazy sea day!
Afterwards, we wandered around the ship a bit and landed at The Local to watch the fruit carving demo and the ship life talk below. The Local is a great place to watch over any of the programs in the lobby since it has seating that looks directly down!
We headed up to Garden Cafe for some tea and found some very interesting options for lunch (including a full suckling pig at the carving station!). We headed out to the pool deck to see what was going on and headed down to The Waterfront to walk around when we found the pool deck empty.
When lunchtime hit, we headed back to The Local, which was featuring some new options on its dining menu. Our fave grilled cheese was gone but in its place were items like sausage sliders and cottage pie potato skins — both very tasty options! We ordered Bloody Mary’s (me) and Diet Pepsi’s (Stephanie) and played along with the Emoji Song Title Trivia going on below us. If we would have played, I totally would have crushed it!
After lunch, we spent some time looking out the windows in the Observation Lounge. It was busier than the day before so it was definitely “discovered” and no longer a fun secret, but we quickly found loungers, grabbed some hot tea and watched the water extend out ahead of us.
Stephanie decided it was time for a siesta and I decided I was behind on my daily step goal, so she headed back to the room and I headed out to The Waterfront to walk some laps and, by some miracle, THE SUN CAME OUT! We had rain and snow and dark gray skies every day of our cruise last year (save for a few hours where the sun broke through on our sea days) and I was going to enjoy and take advantage of every ray of sun that came through the clouds.
Once I hit my steps, I headed back to the room and Stephanie and I watched some movies on the stateroom television. Norwegian does these random mixes of television and movies so you never really know what’s going to play. Today was Cruella and The Blind Side, both entertaining options for background noise while we got ready for formal night. Or “formal night.” Norwegian’s Freestyle philosophy means that formal night isn’t really formal and it’s not mandatory in any way, so you’ll see folks dressed to the nines and folks in their most casual comfy clothes. We like getting dressed up. Not like ball gowns dressed up (though we did see some of those), but I think that occasions to get dressed up are fewer and far between these days and sometimes it’s just fun to get a little fancy.
We had late reservations at Onda, so we decided to catch the first half of Choir of Man in the Encore Theater. Choir of Man was a highlight of our last cruise and we’d read it’d been off for a few weeks when one of the cast members broke his leg during a performance, so we were SUPER excited to see it back onboard in time for our sailing. The theater filled up quickly and if I’m being honest, I’m always a bit confused and perturbed by people who think they can come to a show five minutes before it starts and clog the walkways while they try to figure it out. Might be just me but man, there were a LOT of people expecting to find seats and a very full house. The new Choir of Man cast was incredible and we were sad to have to cut out early, but we had full intentions of returning for the late night performance!
It was a quick walk over to Onda by Scarpetta, where we arrived a few minutes early and were promptly seated. We settled on wine instead of cocktails and enjoyed their incredible house breads while we poured over the menu. Everything we tried was rich and delicious, but the highlight for me was the short rib ravioli with garlic and horseradish. It tasted just like a prime rib dinner and they did not shy away from the horseradish. It was incredible!
Our meal closed out just in time for us to go back to the Encore Theater, where we found primo seats for the late showing of Choir of Man. We turned down the free beer (spoiler alert: they hand out beer before the show!) but the experience seeing it that close up was pretty spectacular. This cast is incredibly talented and the show is so engaging (even if they changed the set list and took my favorite song out!).
We closed our day out with a late cup of tea up at the Garden Cafe before we headed back to the room. On our beds was a time change notice — apparently we’d turn the clocks back before bed, gaining an extra hour of sleep. A much needed hour of sleep, as it was, too, because even a quiet sea day left me exhausted, and we were excited to get into Juneau (with big hopes we’d get a few more rays of sunshine!).
