don’t do this alaska cruise with young kids
Norwegian Encore Cruise Review to Alaska - Inside Passage
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 17
7 Night Alaska Glacier Bay (Seattle Roundtrip)
Sail date: September 18, 2022
Ship: Norwegian Encore
Cabin type: Balcony
Traveled as: Family (young children)
Reviewed: 2 years ago
Review summary
calling all parents with young kids. go with the disney cruise to alaska, do NOT sail on the encore. Alaska was beautiful and very worth it but this ship just plain sucks. you will be stressed and frustrated the whole time on your vacation. 1) this itinerary is terrible. you have a half day in juneau, a morning in ketchikan, and these are the 2 main towns that have interesting things to do. they switched icy strait for skagway due to a rockslide. glacier bay was awesome.victoria at 8pm is just stupid. 2) too many covid emails and not one of them was clear enough. If you are vaccinated you still need to have a negative antigen test to board the ship. we were stuck in a giant line up and then charged $75 pp for our covid tests. so many angry people in the lineup. our little one melted down after all the waiting. very unpleasant way to start the cruise. 3) the splash academy kids club was awesome, the staff was brilliant. but why have a kids club that isn’t consistently open, or worse off, has hours that require parents to be there with their kids?!?! we traveled in a large group with 7 kids under 10 and were shocked to see the pared back hours, and different hours every day. so let me get this straight, you can have your spa open at all hours, whether you are in port or not, but your kids club has to have limited hours when we are in port? the adults had to coordinate to watch each other’s kids instead of doing things together. There is nowhere else on this boat for kids to run around and enjoy themselves other than the pool area. we were so lucky and thankful to have some beautiful weather on our trip- if it had rained the whole time, my kids would have had serious cabin fever. how can you not even have a single open area, indoors or out, for kids to play for free? oh wait, becuuse you spent all that open area on the paid areas like a VR room where equipment is broken, a racetrack, laser tag, the haven, etc. the space on this boat was planned to take more money from you, not to give you a good cruising experience, and definitely not for young kids. 4) we were supposed to disembark at 7am, but we were delayed a full hour without any indication of how long the delay would be. I got called just as I was leaving my room by some asshole about a $37 charge that they could not attach to my name. I told them simply to charge it to my husband but they said we needed to come down to deck 6 for him to sign. I told him we didn’t have time to do that, and he barked the order to me again and hung up. if he had said we couldn’t leave the boat without resolving it we would have lined up at guest relations. also if i knew the lineup to leave the ship was going to be an hour, i would have sent my husband down to sign for this ridiculous charge. but how are we supposed to know if you don’t tell us anything?! we were stopped departing the boat, where we got separated. i went back to deal with the charge only to discover they could not take a new credit card where the guy was resolving issues. the same asshole who had called earlier barked at me again about getting my husband to sign and told me again to go down to deck 6 with huge lineups, even though i explained to him we have young kids and a 10am flight that the airline moved up by 2 hours, for which we were being let off the boat an hour late for (8am instead of 7am). why did he not plug in a machine to take one of my many other credit cards? My husband had disappeared down the ramp with our little ones and was headed to the taxis! i had to run to get him, he had to run back to sign, thankfully the security guy expedited the signature process and did not send him down into the belly of the boat into a massive lineup. we made our plane by a hair, we were the last to board. it was very stressful and all our kids were crying. it really marred a trip that we tried so hard to make the best of. shame on you norwegian for ending our cruise this way over something so stupid! i will never ever sail with you again!Embarkation
nightmare. tons of covid emails but none of them clearly stated: even if you are vaccinated you still need a negative antigen test. Then they had massive lineups to charge you $75 pp to take a test you could have gotten for free if they had only sent you one email with one clear sentence in it.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
drinks were strong, so that was good. Indian food and theme nights were consistently good at the buffet.
Onboard Activities
why have a kids club if you don’t have regular hours or require parents to be there with their kids? we traveled in a large group with many young kids and needed that club open for way longer than it was. There is nowhere else on the ship for your kids to run around and play. the staff was excellent, when they were there.
Entertainment
Children's Programs
Service and Staff
90%of the staff was service oriented but we all know 1 jerk can ruin the whole thing. We encountered that guy and he should be fired for delaying us departing the ship when we were an hour late to disembark and we had young kids with us.
Ship Quality
Royal Caribbean oasis class ships can’t be matched in design. Norwegian corded off too much of the boat for exclusive Haven areas or parts where they can charge more. Not enough play areas for kids. not enough options for included dining. hot tubs not enough and not big enough.
Cabin / Stateroom
this is one of the smallest cabins i’ve been on. usually there is a proper sitting area with balcony suites. bunk bed had a sign not to put back on your own but it’s easy to do and i wish i had known that instead of bumping my head a bunch of times on it.
Ship tip
pick another cruise with a better itinerary
Thumbs up
0
Ports of call
Icy Strait Point (Hoonah), Alaska
we were lucky to have amazing weather. spectacular. if you want to see it from the most desirable area in the observation lounge you need a scout to sleep there the night before!
not enough time here. also ward cove is just a warehouse. norwegian sucks for docking here and forcing you into a shuttle into town.
Disembarkation
an hour late to let thousands of people who need to catch flights off this boat. shame on you!