Encore Alaska 8/7/2022 Review

[mkkao924]

We just got back from Encore, and I would like to give my perspective about our vacation.

 

A little bit about us. We are family of 4, with two kids DD (10) and DS (5) from Southern California. The timing of this cruise fits perfectly to our schedule since this is the week that we don't have summer school / day care before fall semester starts, so the kids don't need to skip school, and we don't need to find nanny to watch them. Wife and I have been to Alaska once over 10 years ago, and this is the first time for the kids. This is our first NCL cruise, but we have been on other lines before.

 

Our plan was to arrive Seattle the day before (Saturday 8/6/2022, Day 0), and fly back to SoCal the day of the debarkation (Sunday 8/14/2022, Day 8).

 

Overall, I consider ourselves extremely lucky. Up until days before our departure, the weather forecasts show "Showers" for all Alaskan port we stop. We ended up getting zero drop of rain. On the contrary, we got plenty of sun instead. Also the for the entire cruise, the sea was extremely calm. I remember our previous Alaska cruise I had to pop in motion sickness pill on the last day of the cruise due to rough sea, but not this time.

 

 

[mkkao924]

Planning

 

Like I mentioned earlier, this trip was designed to fill the one week gap between kids' summer school and fall semester, and I really wanted to see Glacier Bay (we stopped at Tracy Arm last time), and that left us only a handful of options. Knowing Encore is still pretty new, this itinerary became our final choice, and I am also excited to try NCL out for the first time.

 

At the time when we booked the cruise, the price between balcony and club balcony was minimal, so we opted for the club balcony for its larger bathroom. We chose the sail away (category MA) tier, but eventually was assigned deck 10 mid-ship (category M4).

 

We also bid on upgrade for Haven AFT, but it seemed that all Haven suites were sold out before sail, so we didn't get it. Got denial email early morning on the day of the sail.

 

We also booked two excursions:

- Harv and Marv Whale Watching in Juneau

- Chikoot Charters for bus tour in Skagway (the port was eventually cancelled due to landslide, more on that later)

 

We chose to use eMed to do our rapid covid test, and I strongly suggest you to do it on mobile phone. Originally I did it on my computer, and my webcam cannot tilt down enough for the proctor to see the covid test lying on the table (my desk is not big enough to do that anyway), so three advice if you want to use eMed or any other proctored covid test, 1) find a big flat surface, 2) use your mobile phone to do the test, and 3) have a cell phone holder or something heavy and provide support to hold cell phone at certain angle so the front camera can see both the table top right in front of you and yourself.

 

It's a lengthy process, more like 20 minutes per person, so for 4 of us, it took us more than an hour to complete everything, but we got it done. Now we are ready to sail!

[Sand and Seas]

Good details!  Looking forward to more of your review.  Thanks for sharing with us😊

[justhappy]

Looking forward to your review, thanks for taking the time to share.

[Mike Moore]

16 hours ago, mkkao924 said:

We chose to use eMed to do our rapid covid test, and I strongly suggest you to do it on mobile phone. Originally I did it on my computer, and my webcam cannot tilt down enough for the proctor to see the covid test lying on the table (my desk is not big enough to do that anyway), so three advice if you want to use eMed or any other proctored covid test, 1) find a big flat surface, 2) use your mobile phone to do the test, and 3) have a cell phone holder or something heavy and provide support to hold cell phone at certain angle so the front camera can see both the table top right in front of you and yourself.

Just an FYI that Inspire Diagnostics does allow you to do all members in your party at the same time so long as they all fit on the screen at once.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Mike Moore

[Erekosse]

Thanks for posting! We are on this itinerary next May and doing our research at the moment.

[seachaz]

Hey we were on the same cruise - look forward to hearing your review/opinions.  Ketchikan sounds like we struck weather gold based what crew members said to us. We both bought new rain coats for the trip so will chalk it up to that though the start of the day in Glacier Bay was….