7 Days Exploring Alaska By Cruise Ship - I Was Shocked

I've just disembarked a cruise on one of the biggest and most exciting cruise ships in the world, where I spent 7 days exploring Alaska. I saw and did things on this cruise that if I hadn't seen them with my own eyes, I would not have believed that they were real. From music to shows to food to icebergs to go-karts, our cruise had it all. I've wanted to return to Alaska ever since I took my first cruise when I was 11 years old. That cruise was on board the Norwegian Spirit and I wanted to recreate that cruise as much as possible. This time on the much newer and bigger Norwegian Encore. I loved the trip so much back then, but I didn't know if it would be possible to live up to my expectations as an adult. I wasn't sure if we would have enough time to explore both the ports and the ship. And as I was travelling 4,700 miles to take this cruise, it definitely felt like a gamble, one that I hoped would pay off. We boarded the ship in Seattle and I was very happy to be given an embarkation time of 11.30. I love being on board a cruise ship for lunch and for me, that is the best way to start a cruise. I have boarded cruises in the past at 8pm or midnight, so 11.30 in the morning is fantastic. In total, embarkation took us around half an hour because we'd already watched the safety videos on our phone and we just had to check in to our muster station on the ship. After that, we were free to explore and to eat. Being on board the ship was so exciting. I could see so many different bars and venues, all with different themes and colours. It all felt very modern and I wanted to explore everything. Encore was launched in 2019, so she is relatively new by cruise ship standards. She holds almost 4,000 guests across 20 decks, plus the crew. As we were already in the middle of the ship, we decided to head towards the atrium. There are two atrium-like areas on board Norwegian Encore. One has this massive light that makes me think about bubble wrap and this would actually change colours. And then there is this second atrium, which is a little further along, where I found The Local. The Local is a bar and restaurant where food is served from 6.30 in the morning until 3am. All of the food here is included in the cruise fare and this available easy dining has always been one of my favourite things about Norwegian cruises. At this point, I didn't realise how much I would end up eating on this cruise, but I wanted to try as many restaurants as possible. We were seated for lunch straight away and I decided to order a burger. As a child, I always came here to get the buffalo wings, so I knew I'd have to come back for some of those later, which I did do. We also came back here a couple of times for breakfast, which was always good. Just take a look at these pancakes. I was interested to see Crema here because we don't have Crema like that in the UK unless you order it from an American-themed shop. This whole area is The Local and sometimes we would sit up here and we would watch whatever entertainment was going on on the deck below. Other times, we would just pick up a drink as we went by. Fueled up by lunch, we decided to head to the top deck to explore. This is one of my favourite parts of cruising. It is just so exciting to explore a new ship on embarkation day when everyone is taking photos and so happy and excited. Norwegian Encore is the biggest cruise ship in the Norwegian fleet and she has a go-kart track and a laser tag arena on the top deck. This is the kind of cruise ship where I would love to go back in time and to show people a hundred years ago this ship. It would blow their minds. For a bit of context, Norwegian Encore is almost four times the size of the Titanic. I did go on the go-karts when I cruised on Norwegian Prima last year and they felt very, very fast. When I look at the footage, it doesn't look that impressive but to me, I honestly felt like I was going a hundred miles an hour. There is an extra charge for the go-karts but really there does have to be otherwise the lines would be so long no one would ever get a go. It is worth trying at least once though. If I can do it, anyone can. Also up on the top deck are two water slides. One of which looks particularly terrifying because after the floor drops out from underneath your feet, you do end up going upwards. Well that is the theory anyway. Sometimes people don't make it over this loop and they slide back down and they have to get out of a secret door at the bottom. It certainly wasn't water slide weather when we embarked but I hope that the sun would come out during our cruise. In the middle area, there are a couple of pools and at the other end is The Haven. The Haven is a private area of suites and I've wanted to go through that door since my first cruise. I did manage it on this cruise and it was worth the 20 year wait but more about that later. Our cruise had a sea day and three port days. We would then spend one day cruising in what is called Glacier Bay which really did take me by surprise. It was technically another sea day but it was not like any sea day that I've had before. I did a lot of research pre-cruise about this trip but a lot of it was irrelevant because we didn't have the typical Alaskan weather. Heading into the ship, we found what would become one of my favourite parts, the Observation Lounge. This is a massive lounge that goes around three sides of the ship and there are many many many comfortable seats in here. I definitely did fall asleep in one of these chairs at one point but honestly who can blame me? Watching the view from here was very relaxing and I was trying to adjust to the new time zone. I did wonder if this area might become busy because it was so lovely but I was always able to get a seat in here whenever I wanted to. They did serve some food in here too and when the buffet was busy upstairs for breakfast, we would sometimes bring our food down here. We went out on the top deck to watch our sail away from Seattle and the weather was very much what I expected. I was told to prepare for rain and drizzle when visiting but to be honest that weather is just what I'm used to in the UK. It's raining right now in England when I'm recording this. Grey and drizzly is just sort of my natural habitat. Checking the Norwegian app, I could see that my dinner booking at the Texas Smokehouse was coming up. I also booked the theatre show Choir of Man which I was really looking forward to and a few more speciality meals for later in the cruise. Speciality restaurants are those that do cost extra. You can either pay as you go or you can get meals as part of a booking promotion like I did. I had the standard free at sea promotion and that meant that I had two speciality meals included in my cruise. From looking at everybody's cruise cards, I'm pretty sure the majority of people on board have this promotion added. It's not normally very expensive so that does tend to be what I do. I normally eat early but being 8 hours behind my normal time zone meant that I was even hungrier than normal when we arrived for our dinner at 5.30. We were the first people in the restaurant so we had a pick of all of the seats and it was a great chance for us to have a look around. Everything we had to eat was fantastic and the staff were brilliant. The portion sizes were absolutely massive. I did my best but we definitely could have shared one of these plates and still been full. I had to find some room for this chocolate brownie for dessert though and I did manage it because I'm pretty sure that dessert goes into a separate stomach. They do have live music here later in the evening but we went to a different venue for that. There are 20 bars and lounges on board so there's no shortage of places to go. I couldn't stumble very far with all this food in my stomach so we did end up going to the District Brew House. It's a bar that's biker themed and they have live music in their most nights. I decided to get one of the cocktails which was on tap and we listened to the very relaxing music. Also listening in to the people around me I noticed that the majority of people were from the US and Canada which I did expect but I also heard people speaking German and a couple of other languages which was a nice surprise. I always enjoy cruises where there is a mix of passengers, I just think it makes it more interesting. Heading the opposite direction from the fish on the carpet led us back to our cabin. We knew that we hadn't explored hardly any of the ship yet but we did have a sea day the next day and there would be plenty of time to do that so we decided to call it a night. I slept so incredibly well, I was very tired and very jet lagged and very full at this point. I'm not a big breakfast person normally but I did head to the buffet to pick up a few things. The buffet is absolutely massive and it stretches round the back of the ship and down both sides. There are actually toilets at the back here which is good because it would be quite a walk if you decided that you needed to go and you were in the middle of your meal. By the time you'd walked out and come back you'd probably forgotten where you were sat. There was a great selection of food and water, tea and coffee are included in the cruise fare here any time as well and during the day they would have flavoured waters which I liked. The food was good and overall I really like this buffet. I would have been happy with this cruise even if I just ate all of my meals here and some people do do that. That's the good thing about cruising, you can do pretty much whatever you like. As long as you sanitise your hands on the way into the buffet of course, Norwegian Cruise Line are very good at making sure that everybody does that and I love to see it. The buffet could have been improved with more cookies of course but I did find some later in the cruise. Wandering around the ship we would often find things happening like trivia or game shows in the atrium. Sometimes it would be a teppanyaki demonstration and other days it would be live music. On this morning we found penguin origami which was very cute. We didn't have time to make a penguin though because we were heading to the theatre to learn about Alaska. This got me excited not just for where we were going but also for Choir of Man, the theatre show that I had booked for this evening. The theatre was big and spacious, there wasn't a pillar or post in sight and every seat had a cup holder too. I learnt about Alaskan wildlife and hoped that we would see some. I did book cruise line excursions every day of this cruise so I was looking forward to that. It isn't something I normally do but as I was so far from home I wanted to see as much as I could. We did get very lucky on this first sea day and we saw some whales. I'm pretty sure they're orcas or killer whales. Apparently a female orca's life expectancy is 50 and they have been known to live to 90 which is pretty cool. That means that almost all of us could have an orca version of ourselves born on the same day just swimming around out there somewhere and I hope that Orca Emma is doing well. Norwegian Encore has three main dining rooms on board, two that are called Taste and Savour which are at the sides of the ship and the Manhattan room at the back. I'd heard a lot about the Manhattan room with its big windows but for lunch we decided to eat in Savour. I've been on a lot of cruises recently where the main dining rooms didn't open for lunch so it's very nice that Norwegians do. There are no fixed dining times at all on Norwegian cruises so we just went to the restaurant whenever we were feeling peckish and we just sat down. The service was good and again the portions were big. Your Britishism of the week is the word peckish which means that you are hungry, not hungry for a lot but a little bit. You could peck at some food. I often say that I'm feeling peckish as we get towards dinner. There were probably a lot of people also having their lunch in this restaurant when we were but because of these walls it felt as though we were in a restaurant with maybe 20 or 30 other people. More intimate restaurants do seem to be popular on cruise ships at the moment and I did like how this one felt. After lunch we went to explore more of the ship but there was still so much that we hadn't seen. We spent a little bit of time looking around the shops and bought a few souvenirs before we headed out and onto the promenade deck which is almost a full lap of the ship. A lot of cruise lines have got rid of the promenade deck completely which I think is a real shame. It is a lovely place to get in a few steps while looking at the view. Traditionally promenades were just wooden decks with chairs and maybe a shuffleboard painted on the floor but Norwegian have taken this idea even further. Lots of speciality restaurants and bars have an outside area so it was a very popular part of the ship. When we sailed away from Juneau I could not believe how beautiful it looked from here. We got a drink at one of the outside bars and wandered around looking at the people on the ground below. We were on deck 8 and we felt much closer to the ground here than we would on one of the top decks. I was told that an eagle's eyesight is so good that if it was on deck 8 of a cruise ship it would be able to look down at the ground and read someone's text message on their phone. I think that is pretty impressive and if I could do that I absolutely would. The promenade deck always looked lovely with these comfy chairs but with a backdrop like this it looked even better. I got to the theatre early for Choir of Man and I'm glad that I did because before the show started they were inviting people up on the stage and handing out beer. That is something that I've never seen on a cruise before or in any theatre for that matter. That definitely set the kind of casual, fun tone of the show. Norwegian are a very relaxed cruise line with no real dress codes and this fit in perfectly. Everything was very chilled out and that is great for me because that meant that I didn't have to worry about packing formal clothes. On a lot of cruises I'll bring one outfit for the day and another for the evening but I didn't have to think about that. Shorts are totally fine in the main dining room for dinner on Norwegian cruises and I think that is great. I know some people really don't like it but what somebody else is wearing underneath their table really has no impact on me and how much I enjoy my dinner. I would much prefer everyone just to be comfortable. You do have to wear trousers if you're going to a couple of the more formal speciality restaurants but really as long as you're clean and you're wearing clothes you're pretty much good to go on a Norwegian cruise. Choir of Man was fantastic. For years I've walked by the theatre in London and always assumed that I would see it there one day. Seeing it on a cruise ship was the best mix of both. We got to see the same show which ran for almost an hour and a half but then we could just walk back to our cabins. I didn't have to worry about finding a hotel or a train or crossing London or anything like that. The show was high energy and positive and I'm sure we all came out of that feeling good. We did see a couple of other shows in the theatre during the cruise, one of which was The Mentalist show was described as being very interactive so I sat in the back row like this. I'm not a fan of audience participation but the other guests were more than happy to take part so I was always left alone to my relief. The Beatles tribute that we watched normally performs in a bar called the Cavern Club based of course on the Cavern Club in Liverpool where the Beatles played. The venue is pretty small for obvious reasons and because of that it does get full when the Beatles tribute play. My top tip though would be to watch the tribute in the theatre and then listen to some other live music in the Cavern Club. We watched a rock show in here and we didn't have to wait at all. I had a peach bellini and it was just a really nice room to hang out in. I had a drinks package included in this cruise because of the free at sea promotion. I normally don't drink a lot when I cruise but having the package meant that I felt free to try all kinds of random drinks and if I didn't like it, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I didn't have to feel as though I'd wasted my money because it was included in the drinks package. My personal favourite drink on board is still the raspberry mojito from the Mojito Bar which I first found on the Norwegian Getaway way back in 2016. That was my first cruise that I took alone as an adult and it was so much fun. I had the cheapest cabin on the ship, I didn't really do much in the ports but that wasn't the point, I was just excited to be on a cruise by myself. We stopped in our first port stop of Juneau at 2.30pm and we were docked until 10pm which was great. The late arrival meant that we could sit and we could watch the scenery for hours and hours from our balcony as we sailed in. That's a lot of what Alaskan cruises are about in my opinion and I'm glad that we had a balcony so that we could watch the views like this. It is unlike anywhere that I've ever been before. In Juneau we went dog sledding and in Skagway we went on the White Pass Railway. Both of these were phenomenal and that is the only word for it. It's hard to believe that this is a real place at all but it is and we were so unbelievably lucky with the weather, it doesn't always look like this. I will be bringing you a full video that's just about the excursions so make sure you keep your eyes peeled for that. I will link to that one at the end of this video, they'll be live at the same time. It was when we were sailing away from Skagway that I decided to put on a dress for dinner. Don't be fooled by me here, it was not warm but I was planning on being mostly inside the ship and the inside of the ship was not cold. The second speciality restaurant I went to as part of my free at sea promotion was Cagney's. This is a steak restaurant and the onion rings here are the absolute best. From up here we could look down into the main dining room, the Manhattan, and that reminded me that I wanted to go down there at some point. I also wanted to eat in the American Diner and because of my loyalty status with Norwegian I had a bonus two speciality restaurant vouchers to use. One of which I would use in my all time favourite cruise ship restaurant. There was no shortage of food on this cruise, I think I ate more than I have in years. I'm not a big gambler but I did decide to go to the casino to spend my usual $10. I do it every time and sometimes I do come out up. I never know what I'm doing on these machines but all I know is that each time I press this button I spent $1 and it didn't take me very long to lose all 10. When I cruise with my brother he sometimes likes to time me to see how fast I can lose $10 and I'm glad he wasn't on this machine and this cruise because this was an all time record. But still I had fun and that is the whole point. The majority of the casino is non-smoking but there is one area where you can smoke behind these doors. There are other smoking areas around the ship and no guest, absolutely no one, is ever allowed to smoke on their balconies or inside their cabins. They did also have other things on board like deal or no deal where people can win real money. They also have bingo and they have scratch cards. Because I started cruising with Norwegian and my first five cruises were with Norwegian this is kind of just what I assumed cruises were like. I thought that they all had a busy schedule and you could always find things happening. That's not really how it is. On some cruise lines there might be a gap of three or so hours between events but never ever on Norwegian cruises. I think it would be almost impossible to be bored on here. Sailing through Glacier Bay was one of the coolest things I have ever experienced on a cruise. They actually opened up the bow of the ship and we started the scenic part of the sailing around 8am. Normally I'd be asleep but the time difference was working in my favour and I was up and ready. I was expecting it to be cold and in the shade it definitely was but in the sunshine it really was warm. Most of the time I just had a jumper or a sweater on and we were outside for hours. There was plenty of space outside on the top decks and on the promenade. When we reached the glaciers we would slowly spin around 360 degrees. Even though I was here and I filmed this and I saw this with my own eyes it still doesn't look real to me. It was unbelievably calm and quiet. We did see some seals which were adorable and just lots and lots of big chunks of ice in the water. The promenade deck was my favourite place to watch scenery from, that and of course my balcony. I was expecting the top decks to be lined with people but they really weren't. There were lots of people on the bow when we first went out there but I went out as soon as it opened and everyone was just excited together so that wasn't a problem. They were handing out drinks and hot chocolate up there too and they did that a few times during the cruise. Another area of the ship that had amazing views but where most people can't go is the Haven. In the Haven the guests have their own sun deck and they have this incredible inside pool. We were invited to tour the Haven and to have lunch which really was a dream come true for younger me who could never get through that door but just looked through it longingly. I remember going on cruises when I was a teenager and seeing that button in the lift that said The Haven and I couldn't press it because I didn't have a Haven keycard and I didn't know if I would ever in my life manage to get in there to see what was in there. I did sneak into the Haven once with a friend who was staying in there when I was 13 but I don't think really that counts. I remember him showing me jars of sweets on the side and I took some and I have felt guilty ever since. I'm very sorry Norwegian. Thinking about it now as an adult I'm pretty sure that people who are staying in the Haven you are allowed to bring friends to your cabin so I may have been carrying around that guilt for years for just absolutely no reason. After my lunch which was amazing of course I bumped into a lovely new friend called Lynn who showed me around her aft suite. It was great to get to meet her and her family and this cabin is the cabin of my dreams. If I had the money this is exactly what I would book. I didn't realise that some of the Haven cabins aren't actually in the Haven bit at the front but it is totally worth it for this walk to the aft. The balcony was huge, there was a lounge and most importantly there was a bath. I love baths. My balcony cabin was towards the aft as well but it was on the side of the ship and when we were sailing from Ketchikan after our boat tour we had the most glorious sunshine. My laptop actually overheated and you would never think about that when talking about an Alaskan cruise. We ordered room service one afternoon and my meal came with four cookies. Four cookies as standard, I didn't ask before it just came with four. I hadn't seen any cookies up until this point so that was very nice. If you've watched my videos for a while you'll know how much I love cookies. It wasn't all sunshine on our cruise, we were very very lucky with the weather but we did have times when it was chilly and windy. For some reason we chose one of those windy chilly times to go to the American Diner on the top deck. The American Diner is somewhat protected but it is still outside. Luckily for us the food came very quickly and we weren't too cold. I'm pretty sure there must be some sort of heater up there in the ceiling or something. I couldn't see a heater at any point but I was convinced that I could feel some heat coming from somewhere. We were up near the go-karts and the laser tank but we couldn't ever hear the go-karts probably because they are electric. The VR games are also up here too. The American Diner did used to cost money but now it's included in the cruise fare so that's nice. My favourite included restaurant on board though was the Manhattan Room. I love the big windows and we could watch people walk around the deck at the top. It reminded me a lot of the main dining room I went to on my first Norwegian cruise. You can actually see me here. I was very very excited to be on board. I don't normally wave like that anymore though. I am hoping to go on a cruise on the first ship that I sailed on though. She's still sailing and if I do, I promise, I will recreate that clip. We had a great meal in here and we were in and out within an hour and a half which is what I like. We didn't have any wait for a table either. Outside the restaurant, it does show you how busy each restaurant is which is very helpful. Eating early is usually the best way to not have to wait for anything and that suits me perfectly. By far, my favourite speciality restaurant on the ship is Los Lobos. I first tried this restaurant on board Norwegian Prima when we sat outside on the promenade deck in Bermuda. It is a Mexican restaurant and this time, I decided to go for the tacos. Last time, I had tableside guacamole to start which was good but I just didn't have the space for it this time. I was not peckish enough. I have platinum loyalty status with Norwegian because this was my 14th cruise with them so I used one of my platinum perks for this meal. I used my second loyalty perk meal in Onda by Scarpetta and that one comes with a bottle of wine. I don't really drink wine so I bought it home and I gave it to my friend who was house sitting and looking after my cat Hudson. I know nothing about wine so I just picked the one that looks coolest. It was after this meal that we docked in Victoria, Canada. I've never had an evening stop before but this is what is called a technical stop. Because of an old law called the Jones Act, cruise ships that are flagged in foreign countries can't take a cruise that starts and ends in the US without visiting a foreign port. That means that most Alaskan cruises briefly stop in Canada. We had a lovely walk around the town and it seemed like a great port. I wish we had more than one evening here but I guess that's another reason to come back. I did meet quite a few Canadians on this cruise and I wondered if anybody lived near here but went to Seattle to get on the cruise and then would have to go home again after the cruise. The nationalities of guests were pretty much what I expected but the age range on this cruise did surprise me slightly. There was a good mix of ages on board and it didn't seem as though there were many young kids. We were cruising outside of the school holidays so it may have been that there weren't many or it may have been that they just weren't in the places where I was. I didn't really spend much time in the splash park or the amusement arcade during this cruise. It was around now that a very exciting invitation arrived in my cabin. I was invited to go to the bridge of the ship along with other people who were staying in suites and a few travel agents. With my loyalty status I do get a behind the scenes tour too so in the past I have been able to see places like the laundry and behind the stage of the theatre which is very interesting. Seeing the piles of sheets in the laundry really brought home to me just how much washing the crew have to do on a cruise like this. I of course took our mascot captain Hudson to the bridge so that he could do a bit of work. These toys have been all over the world but normally he's relaxing, he's sitting on a balcony. I very rarely see him actually doing anything. He does do things though in the book series that is coming out very very soon and I'm so excited for you to see these. We had a chance to ask the captain any questions and he chatted a bit about what it was like to work on board. He explained that he worked 4 months on and 4 months off and he said that Encore was his favourite ship. I'm not sure if saying that is part of the ship and maybe everyone just says whatever ship they're currently on but he had been on a lot of other Norwegian ships too and he told us about the new ship Aqua which is coming out next year. Chatting to the other guests on the tour I got to hear about the other excursions that they had taken. Some had been on seaplanes to visit glaciers and one had found some secret caves that I've never heard about before. I was very happy with our choice of excursions, in particular the White Pass Railway. To find out what it was like inside those train carriages and what our sled dog excursions smelt like, check out this video next. This video is actually on the Norwegian Cruise Line YouTube channel and it's the reason I was able to take this trip which is very very exciting. Please let them know over there that I sent you. It was entirely because of your support that I was able to take this trip and I cannot thank you enough. See you over there.