8 Things you can do on Norwegian Encore for Free
What are the eight things you can do completely for free on board Norwegian Encore?
Norwegian cruises and Encore offer you huge amounts of choice on their cruises, but not everything is for free.
Watch my Free Things To Do On Norwegian Encore Video
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/TV2Gu55kXF8
In this article, I’ll share eight incredible things that you can do without paying any extra money above your cruise fare, starting with this one.
#1 Watch Broadway Shows
You can go and see Broadway production shows of incredibly high quality.
On board Norwegian Encore, they have the multi award winning show which won Tony’s and also won awards in the London West End, Kinky Boots. It’s a full 90-minute production and it is really top notch.
The other phenomenal production which you can see for free is called “The Choir of Man”. I was very sceptical about the show, went in, had a great time, incredible talent, phenomenal voices, re-imagining the songs that we all know. There’s lots of contemporary songs, and it’s a really beautiful story.
So those are all included within your fare, they’re completely and utterly free to go to and I definitely strongly recommend you go and see the big production shows.
#2 Catch a live music gig
The second thing is that there is a huge amount of live music around the ship. That again is all included within your fare.
Cavern Club
The first of those, one of the most popular is the Cavern club. This is recreating the Liverpool club where the Beatles were founded. There’s a Beatles tribute band that play in here twice a night, and they cover all the greatest hits from different phases during their career. It’s hugely popular and really good fun. I’m not a big Beatles fan, but had a great time there with this band.
District Brewhouse and others
Dotted around the ship, there’s lots of other live music throughout the evening and the ones to check out are in the District Brewhouse, they have a singer pianist who does singalongs in the Sugarcane Mojito bar. There’s Latin music, a bit of dancing, and then you have a house band entertaining in the different lounges around the ship and in the main atrium.
The music is completely free. If you want to have a drink while you watch it, you pay for your drinks, but the live music is completely free and included.
#3 Comedy night
You can also have a great evening of comedy. In the Social Club, they have a comedian on various times during the night and in the late evening that becomes a nightclub so you can laugh your head off and then dance the night away until really late.
Again, if you want something to drink you pay for that, but the actual entertainment, the DJ
and the comedy is completely free.
#4 Water Parks
Access to pretty much all the facilities on board is included, there are a couple of exceptions but one of the things that is included that is phenomenal are the water parks.
There are two water parks, one which is for basically adults and people of all ages and then there’s the Kids Aqua park.
In the adults’ park you have two multi-storey high thrill rides. The first of which is called the Aqua racer, these are tandem slides and then you have ocean loops which extend right out over the side of the ship, you whoosh over the side of the ship and you go through a double loop down.
On the pool deck, you have the Kids Aqua area where there’s lots of cascading water
and lots of fun for the kids. Again, of course the use of the pools is all included within the fare, but the waterpark is 100% included.
#5 Watch the Go-Kart
The fifth thing that you can do for free is to go and watch the go-kart, the speedway.
If you want to take part in the go-kart, you do have to pay for that, but you can go and watch the thrills and perhaps the spills, up on the two-level go-kart racetrack.
The Encore Speedway is larger than the ones on the other ships of a similar size. There’s a great viewing area right in the middle of the track and it really is a huge amount of fun.
If you want to go on the go karts, you do pay, at the time of writing it is $9.95 for one circuit. You can also buy a day pass or an entire cruise long pass which gives you unlimited rides. So, a day pass is $29.95 per person and it’s just under $200 for at full weekly pass.
If you’re into laser tag, there is an open-air course, which is the lost city of Atlantis and you do have to pay to take part in that.
Again, it’s around about $9.95 per person for a game and you can buy weekly and day passes to play laser tag. There’s no way that you can actually watch that particular activity.
You can also head down to Galaxy Pavilion and watch people on the simulator rise. These are sort of multi-dimensional 4D rides, and people are wearing virtual reality goggles, you can go watch people take part in these various activities.
If you do want to go on any of the rides that does include extra cost, and you can certainly go down and have a look at everyone making fools of themselves at times on those particular rides.
Also, there is a Video Arcade which again is a pay-per-play. This is a great space and are
lots of things to do here. But again, you can go watch people playing but you can’t take part without paying.
So, the critical thing to do in terms of all those activities, which I would strongly recommend you do is go and watch the Speedway on Encore and the various races, it’s really good fun.
#5 Eat food for 24 hours of the day
The good news is, that for free, in other words included within your fare, you can eat for 24 hours of the day.
Now there’s a couple of key dining options that are included within your fare, you have three main dining rooms, which are called Taste, Savor and the Manhattan Room. They all have the same menu.
So, it really depends on which of the decor or the venues you prefer – breakfast, lunch or dinner. These are very beautiful rooms, and you can go in there and have a full multi course meals.
The other restaurant which is included within your fare is the Garden Cafe, which is the buffet restaurant. I really liked this as a buffet restaurant, they had all sorts of different stations.
So, for example, at lunchtime, you could have stir fries, pasta, there will be a pizza station, there will be a burger station. Again at breakfast, you’d have all sorts of different types of stations, they have lots of desserts and you can have huge amounts of food up there in the Garden Cafe and that it tends to be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
You will also find that during some parts of the day you can go up and get free teas and coffees, juices and various snacks.
All the speciality restaurants, you do have to pay extra to go to and there are a lot of them. However, there is one of the speciality restaurants that is included within your fare, and that’s The Local.
The Local has comfort food – like hamburgers, hot dogs, fish and chips and this is a great space to go and it’s open 24 hours a day.
You pay if you have a drink, so just bear that in mind. It’s a great location and you can look down on to the main atrium, which is a great meeting point. That is all included within your fare, with everything else there are some charges.
So, for example, for room service, you do pay a service fee, which at the time of writing was $7.95 per order.
If you want to go to any of the speciality restaurant (of which there are at least nine of them)
or you want to go to any of the other food and beverage outlets like Starbucks, the Bake Shop, or the ice cream shop, you do pay to go to those.
So, the free things are the main dining rooms, the buffet and the Local.
#7 Leave the kids to play
The next one is great, particularly for parents and multi-generational families travelling together, is you can leave the kids to play all day, be looked after all day and that’s all included within the fare, so it’s free.
They have three phenomenal kids’ clubs; these really are really big spaces and they can cope with hundreds of kids in the peak season. So, for example, at the really peak time like Thanksgiving, they could have almost 1,000 kids being looked after by these various kids’ clubs.
So, the key ones that that you need to know about are first of all Guppies. Now Guppies is a largely unsupervised space for very young toddlers, where parents can go and play with their toddlers and there’s all sorts of things to do there. The next one, which is one of the most important ones of all and the most popular ones of all and the biggest of all, is called the Splash Academy.
It’s got nothing to do with water, that’s just the name. This is where kids from three up to 12 will be able to go and play and they’re divided into different age groups.
Then you have Entourage which is for teenagers. So that’s from 13 up till 17. That’s all included within the fare and your kids can spend all day there.
The only thing you would pay for is in the main Kids’ Club, the Splash Academy, normally closes at lunchtime for an hour and is closed in the evening for an hour.
But if you want your kids on port days to be supervised and taken to meals, you’ll pay (at the time of writing) $6 for lunch, $6 for dinner.
So, the great news is as a parent, you could go off on an all-day excursion and your kids would be supervised and you’d literally paying $6 while the supervision out of mealtimes is totally free and included within the fare!
#8 Burn off the calories in the fitness centre
After talking about the ability to eat 24 hours a day and the huge amount of food options, you’ll be pleased to know that there’s another thing that you can do for free and that is go to the very
large fitness centre.
All of the cardio equipment and weights are included with your fare, and free to use. Once you start looking at classes, you do pay for those, but you can get a good workout, you can exercise and burn off any of those extra calories to then go back to your 24-hour eating.
Also, on board there is a running track around and near the pool deck as well. So, a huge amount of opportunities to exercise are free too.
Final Thoughts
Norwegian Cruise Lines and Norwegian Encore really focus on Freestyle Cruising, which gives you lots and lots of choice.
Now a lot of the choice options do have a price associated with them – however, you can come on board the Norwegian Encore and do loads of things for free in terms of exercising, entertainment, dining – all without having to put your hand in your pocket and pay for anything extra (unless of course those things really appeal to you!).
Have you found this helpful? I have loads more videos about Norwegian Cruise Lines and cruising and I’d love it if you’d watch another one of those right now.
Want to find out more about Norwegian Encore? Read Heather On her Travels Norwegian Encore Review
Note: I went on a 2-night shakedown cruise as a guest of Norwegian Cruise Lines on the Norwegian Encore
Follow Tips For Travellers:
- Follow Tips For Travellers on: YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
- Sign up for the monthly newsletter. includes a free eBook to download every month.
- Never miss a post by signing up below and every new post will be sent direct to you.
