Until recently, I’d never been on a cruise before. To be honest, the idea never really appealed to me. I mean, why would I want to pay a bunch of money to be cooped up on a big ship and have some cruise company’s idea of “entertainment” forced on me?
But then, last fall, Jean and I went on a different kind of cruise—a Rhine River trip on a 180-passenger Viking Cruise Lines “longship”—and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Not long after that, we had the opportunity to make reservations for an Alaskan cruise with her family, and we jumped at the chance. Alaska has always intrigued me, and going there on a cruise ship seemed like the easiest way to get a taste of it.
Our cruise was July 7–14 out of Seattle aboard the Encore of Norwegian Cruise Lines. The Encore is a huge, 4,000-passenger vessel, about as different from the Viking longships as you can get. I’ll get into the contrasts a little later on, but first, I’ll share some highlights from our cruise.
After leaving Seattle on Sunday afternoon, we sailed all night and all the next day. I must say, it was fun being on a ship that size. We spent that evening sighting whales in Puget Sound, and then I woke up early Monday morning and found my way to the observation lounge, which I had almost to myself. (That was a rare treat; as the week went on, even the early mornings would get crowded there.)
Dining on the Encore is a treat, particularly in the specialty restaurants, of which our package allowed us two meals. For our speciality meals, we chose Cagney’s Steak House and Los Lobos, a Mexican restaurant. But even the “free” restaurants offered a great mix of fine dining and casual experiences. The Garden Cafe, an enormous buffet, offered a huge variety of foods. It was often crowded, but the quality of the food was surprisingly good.
Juneau
Our first stop in Alaska was the state’s capital, Juneau, where we arrived on Tuesday. Juneau was also the biggest “city” in Alaska we visited, but it’s very much a small town. Our excursion in Juneau took us to the Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska’s only glacier that’s accessible by road; it also has a visitor center, with helpful displays describing the glacier and its advances and retreats over time. This info board, in particular, filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge about glaciers.
The Mendenhall Glacier is some 13 miles long, and we could only see the tip of it, but it was fascinating, as was the nearby Nugget Falls, a massive waterfall that feeds into Mendenhall Lake. Here are some pictures:
Skagway
The next day, we reached Skagway, Alaska, the northernmost point on our trip. Skagway itself is a nice little town, very touristy, but the focus and highlight of our visit was a trip on the White Pass Railroad to Fraser, Canada. The train was built in 1898 to take miners up to the gold fields during the Klondike Gold Rush. The train generally follows the Skagway River, up through some beautiful forest and gorges, with a few waterfalls along the way. By the time the train reaches the White Pass, in Canada, the scenery has changed to a desolate moonscape.
After riding the train up over the pass, we returned on a bus to our ship, including a stop at the Yukon Suspension Bridge, which extends 65 feet above the rapids of the Tutshi River, with beautiful views all around. Some pictures from the day:
Glacier Bay
Thursday was another day to stay on the ship, but there was plenty to see. Our cruise took us into the Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. It’s a privilege to be able to cruise Glacier Bay; to protect the environment of the park, regulations now allow only two cruise ships to visit the park each day.
As its name would indicate, Glacier Bay was itself carved out by glaciers. In 1750, glaciers filled the entire bay to its mouth at Icy Strait; today, a ship must go 65 miles into the bay to reach the dozen or so glaciers that feed it.
Unfortunately, the day we were there was our worst day for weather. It was overcast all day with off-and-on light rain. The beauty of the Alaskan wilderness was amazing, but unfortunately I think the photos don’t do it justice. Oh, to have blue skies behind those mountains and glaciers! But still, it was a day to remember.
Ketchikan
In Ketchikan, on Friday, the excursion we chose was a hike in the Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in the U.S. at more than 26,000 square miles. Tongass is also the largest temperate rainforest in the world. The guided hike was informative and a good workout.
Other options for excursions that people from our group chose that day were electric bike rides into the forest, and a fresh salmon bake.
Victoria, B.C.
On our last night, we had a brief stop in Victoria, British Columbia. It was our only port call in Canada (although the White Pass Railroad from Skagway had taken us into the nation for a couple of hours). We had an interesting walking tour to see some of the highlights of the city, including the massive, lit-up parliament building. Some pictures:
Etc. …
The Encore, as mentioned, is enormous. It has 18 decks, and more than once my depth perception was thrown off by seeing something in the water that I thought was abnormally small—Look at that toy boat down there!—only to remember that oh yeah, I was 150 feet or so above the surface.
To get from our rooms on the eighth deck up to the observation deck (Deck 15) or the Garden Cafe buffet (Deck 16) was quite a hike. There are two banks of elevators, but during peak times, the elevator lobbies were packed—as were the elevator cars, when they would finally arrive. The buffet restaurant, too, would get crowded at every meal time, but we were always able to find tables, even the times when our whole group of 10 would be eating together.
To Norwegian’s credit, they emphasize cleanliness and hygiene. At any time of the night and day, you couldn’t walk through the ship without seeing a crew member cleaning or polishing something. The handwashing reminders are ubiquitous, and they have people stationed at the entrances to the buffet to give every passenger a squirt of hand sanitizer when they enter. (Still, it was almost inevitable, given the crowded conditions, that four people from our group of 10—including yours truly—were diagnosed with COVID after we got home.)
The differences between the small-ship cruise experience on Viking last year and the mega-ship experience on Norwegian are about more than size, though. On the Viking longship, there’s only one restaurant; it serves fabulous food and it actually has a diverse and changing menu, but it can’t compete—in terms of variety—with the multiple restaurants on the Encore. (In terms of consistent quality, though, I’d have to give the nod to Viking here.)
For onboard entertainment, there’s no contest. On Viking, there’s a piano player or trivia contest in the lounge most evenings, but that’s about it. Truth be told, with a walking tour every day, we were always tired after a late dinner and generally didn’t need any more entertainment. Aboard the Encore, the daily schedule is full of all kinds of events and activities. The ship has a full-size theater on board, where we saw a fabulous production of Choir of Man and a pretty good show by a Beatles tribute band that performed different concerts all week. There’s a full-service spa aboard and a large workout area, lots of pricey shopping, a go-kart track, and of course a casino. All of it comes at a price, though; most of the amenities aboard ship (except for the shows in the theater) were not included in the cruise price. We joked that every announcement we heard was an opportunity to spend more money.
Still, we had a great time. On both the Viking Rhine River cruise and the Norwegian Alaskan cruise, we were traveling with close family members, and that opportunity to share the experience of the cruise was priceless, and honestly the highlight of both trips.
I would absolutely do the Alaskan cruise again, perhaps just selecting different excursions for variety. The scenery in Alaska was fantastic, and maybe for the next time we would select a travel option that takes us into more of the state; this cruise covered only a tiny sliver of the southeast part. Likewise, we’ll definitely be taking another Viking cruise, hopefully several more before the retirement money runs out.
