Just off Encore - long review

[flarad]

The Encore - our thoughts (disclaimer, these are the result of thoughts and discussions between my husband and I, they are our opinions and probably not yours, that’s OK, let’s agree to disagree nicely).

First of all we had a fabulous time on our vacation. If you can’t enjoy an NCL cruise, a ship is not the place for you. We have cruised many times on many lines and NCL is one of our favorites. It was our first time on the Encore and our first cruise on NCL since COVID. We have cruised, just on another line.  To understand us, we are semi-retired, early sixties and love to travel and cruise.  My husband is a numbers and business guy so he is frequently analyzing costs, labor, etc. I’m more of a give me a good book, music, a drink, and someone to talk to on vacation, girl. If there’s something fun to watch, a party, etc. even better. We are quite easily pleased and never, ever, complain about service.  This review may or may not reflect that.

We thought the ship was beautiful and the staff terrific. 

 

The great - 

Embarkation was smooth and quick. We arrived at 10:00. We were on board by 12:00 and had no problems getting the reservations we wanted at restaurants and for entertainment. We did not reserve Vibe, my husband needs shade throughout the day and after research we knew that shade is limited. 

TIP - head down to level 6 immediately. Book entertainments in the Social Club and head across the way to book restaurants. The app may or may not work for you. If you were unable to book online, no worries. They can help here. Also if it appears you didn’t get the entertainment, again no worries, the standby lines usually seemed to get into the event.

Aft cabin - DH and I disagree here, I loved my aft balcony on 9. He didn't think it was any better than our usual cabins. I loved the sunrises and sunsets. There was good storage space in the cabin and bathroom. But the cabin was super tight. The aft balcony was large. We loved the location of deck 9 - close to restaurants, bars, and the waterfront. Side note: the hair dryer in the room was terrific. We had seven water boxes each from some deal or other and this water was really good.  Our steward brought us a coffee pot on request and supplied coffee, creamer, sweetener every day. 

One disclaimer here- The mattress, this is a very personal choice, but oh my gosh! That mattress is hard as a rock. My hips never hurt at home and I felt like an old woman every morning. DH loves hard mattresses and he was quite happy. 

TIP: I used packing cubes this time and it was super easy to use the shelves for storage. Also there is so much room in the bathroom I really didn’t need my over the door shoe thingy.

Our steward was super, even with all the rooms our room was cleaned early, fresh towels, we have no complaints.

TIP - I heard many complaints about the elevators this week but the Aft elevators are much less busy than forward. We usually headed back to use the elevators.

The Observation lounge - this is a terrific space with a nice bar and light refreshments. It gets crowded though. More on that later.

The Waterfront - I don’t know what else needs to be said really - water front seating, bars, restaurants. It’s fabulous. Again, more later. 

TIP - We have learned to book a waterside restaurant for sailaway evening and then ask for an outside table. We ate in Los Lobos. This was the perfect spot to view Miami as we sailed away. 

The bars and drinks - They make really nice drinks on this ship. Bartenders are attentive and drinks are not made in bulk like they are on another larger ship line. 

TIP - we find our favorite bar and tip the waiter or bartender well. This shows appreciation to them and they will do almost anything for you at this point. I think far too few people tip this hard working staff. 

Ports - we loved all the ports on this itinerary. I was most surprised by Taino Bay. Beautiful, nice shopping, gorgeous pool and some very nice locals in the shops and bars. If you don’t want to go far, just want to relax, you can do that here with no reservations required. 

Specialty Restaurants and dining - We love specialty dining on NCL and the choice of restaurants was fun, food delicious. We ate in Los Lobos, Cagney, Onda, and Q. We enjoyed them all. 

Choir of Man - terrific, amazing… don’t miss this show! We, like many, saw it twice.

Debarkation - Wow, they are organized. Since we are Latitudes we qualified to get off just after the walk offs. Our color was called at 7:45, we were at our car leaving the garage by 8:05. Facial recognition makes all the difference. 

 

The Cuts - There’s been much talk about the cuts Norwegian has made. They are definitely visible to a Latitude traveler (I don’t say that to brag but to explain we’ve done this a few times).  These cuts are evident but for us not a deal breaker. I think all lines are going to have to do some cutting to manage their costs.  Our room steward was terrific but he always looked so tired. I would describe the staff as having “tired eyes.” They tried so hard to be cheerful and were wonderful at greeting and serving. They just look tired. In other noticeable areas, the bars seem to have fewer  bartenders and wait staff, but they are making it work. Our waiters in specialty dining were attentive and really good. In the main dining areas they were good but much more stretched thin than in the past.  In Taste there was a definite lack of supervision and our waiter seemed new and very confused. In the past the Maitre D would come around to greet and check service, there was backup for that new waiter and… there were assistants. Those times are over. While we’re talking about food we felt cuts were evident in the food. The food was good, really good we thought. The choices just didn’t seem to be as vast and you’d get more pasta with the short ribs than ribs, just a bit or two of lobster in the bisque  🙂 We get it, food is super expensive and they seemed to do a decent job managing these costs. Finally, entertainment. We all know that Kinky Boots was cut. What I didn’t realize was this removed all the dancers from the ship so the dance classes - gone, the live entertainment in Manhattan - gone. We thought the quality of the additional musicians and magician seemed to reflect budget cuts. There just seemed to be an energy missing in entertainment, whether this was a reflection of the Cruise Director or actual entertainment I’m not sure. 

 

The bad - this ship was full, crowded, wow! Others have said we should expect this right now on a cruise. I disagree. We’ve been on some ships that when sold out don’t feel this way. They are designed with space in mind. The Encore feels it. 

My husband and I spent a lot of time trying to figure this out. We feel the ship designers have maximized revenue spaces over passenger friendly relaxing spaces. What I mean is, they placed Laser Tag, the Galaxy Pavilion, Go Carts, even fee based Vibe where other ships offer aft views, bars, or relaxing adult space for free (RCI, MSC, Celebrity). These are all fun spaces, yes, but they leave us with a ship that doesn’t have enough room for a capacity load of passengers on sea days.  On sea days every nook and cranny was crammed with people. Chairs at the pool deck were full by 7:30 (I kid you not, 7:30!) by lunch time every chair on the waterfront was full and it was not a quiet zone. The Observation was also full, people on chairs, on the sofas, sitting on the floors, everywhere. But, you can’t blame people, they needed somewhere to go and this ship just doesn’t have the space. In a time where NCL is losing money like it’s tap water we understand it, but, we will make the choice to not cruise this ship again in the Caribbean. If you’re booked on her in the Caribbean, don’t worry you will have fun. Your cruise is what you make of it and she will always be a fun experience. 

Maybe, one day, we’ll go back to Alaska on the Encore. I think she’d be great for that itinerary, or even Europe. All that being said, we made a deposit for a future cruise and are booking on the Escape in New England this fall. We’ve loved her in the past and I’m confident we will love her again. We have always enjoyed NCL and are hopeful they will whether the financial storms 

 

[Two Wheels Only]

25 minutes ago, flarad said:

But the cabin was super tight. The aft balcony was large.

 

Was your bed near the balcony or was it near the closet? Most people find that the room "feels" larger with the bed near the balcony. If your bed was near the balcony, well....it could have been worse. ☺️

[flarad]

43 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

 

Was your bed near the balcony or was it near the closet? Most people find that the room "feels" larger with the bed near the balcony. If your bed was near the balcony, well....it could have been worse. ☺️

It was near the closet. And you almost had to sit on the bed to see in the closet 🙂 We've had worse... it was my one time in an interior. Can't remember if it was the Getaway or the Celebrity Equinox but oh man...  no space at all. 

[Northern wanderlust]

I will say there is sold out and then there is sold out.  The capacity of the NCL Encore is listed at right around 4,000 passengers but that is if every cabin is at double occupancy.  This is college spring break time so I'm guessing a lot of those cabins had more than 2 people in them.  I tried to find what the maximum passenger capacity for that ship is but couldn't.  Either way, that is a wide margin.

 

That said, DH and I were on the Escape last fall and it was only at 50% capacity and thank god because I agree with your statement about the public areas being small.  Full disclosure, we never tried to get a lounger by the pool or anything like that, we only walked through the pool area on the way to the buffet but the atrium and public areas like that all just seemed so small.  It didn't feel overly crowded on this trip but I cannot imagine what it would have felt like if it was.

 

To be fair, we are not NCL's target audience.  We have no interest in anything like waterslides, go carts, tag, or even the entertainment options really.  If the kids are with us it may be different but NCL is not the line for DH and I on an adult trip.

[flarad]

7 minutes ago, Northern wanderlust said:

I will say there is sold out and then there is sold out.  The capacity of the NCL Encore is listed at right around 4,000 passengers but that is if every cabin is at double occupancy.  This is college spring break time so I'm guessing a lot of those cabins had more than 2 people in them.  I tried to find what the maximum passenger capacity for that ship is but couldn't.  Either way, that is a wide margin.

 

That said, DH and I were on the Escape last fall and it was only at 50% capacity and thank god because I agree with your statement about the public areas being small.  Full disclosure, we never tried to get a lounger by the pool or anything like that, we only walked through the pool area on the way to the buffet but the atrium and public areas like that all just seemed so small.  It didn't feel overly crowded on this trip but I cannot imagine what it would have felt like if it was.

 

To be fair, we are not NCL's target audience.  We have no interest in anything like waterslides, go carts, tag, or even the entertainment options really.  If the kids are with us it may be different but NCL is not the line for DH and I on an adult trip.

We area probably similar demographics. I just need my husband to come to terms with this... 🙂 As we begin to plan our next cruises, I'm curious, what line do you prefer? We like Celebrity but we tend to get a little bored with their entertainment in the evening.  

[Northern wanderlust]

Just now, flarad said:

We area probably similar demographics. I just need my husband to come to terms with this... 🙂 As we begin to plan our next cruises, I'm curious, what line do you prefer? We like Celebrity but we tend to get a little bored with their entertainment in the evening.  

 

We are about to turn 40 with 3 kids at home but I think really we are 60 somethings trapped in 40 year old bodies lol.

 

Most of my cruising experience has been on Holland America but I have my eye on Celebrity.  We haven't been with Celebrity yet but I think that would fit our personalities much better.  We knew that going into our cruise last fall but, as they say, itinerary is king and we booked that cruise for the itinerary.  Celebrity seems like a smaller line with fewer itinerary choices.  

 

I also have my eye on a couple of Viking Ocean cruises but we may have to wait a few years before we can afford to do those on a semi regular basis....or until we win the lotto.

[mickeysgal]

33 minutes ago, flarad said:

We area probably similar demographics. I just need my husband to come to terms with this... 🙂 As we begin to plan our next cruises, I'm curious, what line do you prefer? We like Celebrity but we tend to get a little bored with their entertainment in the evening.  

We also aren't NCL's target demographics anymore.  No interest in the bells and whistles.  We've been cruising with Celebrity for about 7 years now and zero regrets.  That said, their entertainment can be lacking sometimes.  Ships are swanky and gorgeous without being pretentious.    NCL fit our needs for our upcoming cruise, but generally we agree with the OP...the lack of public space is noticeably apparent.  We felt that way also on the Gem and Pearl.  Our upcoming cruise we popped for the Haven to specifically get away from the overcrowding and chair savers.   Celebrity has the Solarium and it's my favorite place on the ship to relax - adults only.

[Northern wanderlust]

6 minutes ago, mickeysgal said:

We also aren't NCL's target demographics anymore.  No interest in the bells and whistles.  We've been cruising with Celebrity for about 7 years now and zero regrets.  That said, their entertainment can be lacking sometimes.  Ships are swanky and gorgeous without being pretentious.    NCL fit our needs for our upcoming cruise, but generally we agree with the OP...the lack of public space is noticeably apparent.  We felt that way also on the Gem and Pearl.  Our upcoming cruise we popped for the Haven to specifically get away from the overcrowding and chair savers.   Celebrity has the Solarium and it's my favorite place on the ship to relax - adults only.

 

Our cruise last fall was an 11 day and we saw exactly zero entertainment acts of any kind.  It just really doesn't interest us.  Granted, this was a very port intensive itinerary, we only had one sea day.  If we had more time on the ship we may have been more interested in the entertainment offerings.  Though we have less than no interest in the Mr. Sexy Legs contest or anything of that nature.

 

Like I said, my past cruising experience is with Holland America and I enjoyed some of the offerings in conjunction with Lincoln Center and some of the history and culture lectures they had.  The atrium on the HAL ships were impressive.  I remember seeing the atrium on the Escape and just thought "that's it?"  Also, the layout there was horrible.  The casino was right there and allowed smoking and it got so bad in the atrium that most nights we would avoid walking through there.  We also felt the food on HAL was much better.

 

I think ultimately DH and I are not cruisers at heart.  We view cruising as a relaxing mode of transportation to explore different places rather than a destination that happens to go to multiple places.