Encore carries a few hundred guests, not a few thousand; this is Alaska from the waterline.
The engines go quiet a little after breakfast. You feel the ship slow before you see why. The bow eases into open water at the head of the bay, and the glacier is simply there, a wall of blue and white a mile wide, taller than it has any right to be. You are close. On a ship this size, you are always close. Somewhere along the ice, a slab lets go and drops into the sea with a sound like a rifle shot, and the cold air off the face reaches you on the veranda a moment later. Nobody is jostling for the rail. There is room and time, and no pressure to be there first.
This is the morning Seabourn Encore is built for, and in summer 2027 it returns to the Inside Passage to sail it.
Down at the waterline
The best part of the day often happens after the ship anchors. You pull on a jacket, step off the stern into a Zodiac, and within minutes you are at sea level in a cove the big ships will never enter. The naturalist at the tiller cuts the motor and lets you drift. A bald eagle works the shallows. Farther in, harbor seals watch from a rock and decide you are not worth moving for. Your expedition guide teaches about the scenery and its role in the ecosystem, and the shoreline stops being scenery and starts being a place you understand.
This is Ventures by Seabourn, and it is the difference between seeing Alaska and getting into it. Encore carries a few hundred guests rather than a few thousand, so it slips into the narrow channels and fjords the large fleets pass by, and it can put a boat in the water on short notice when the coast offers something worth stopping for.
Ashore, at your own pace
By afternoon, you are walking through a town that has not been rearranged for a crowd. In Sitka, onion domes rise over a working fishing harbor where Tlingit and Russian histories still overlap. You have time to wander before the ship slips away in the long evening light. In Wrangell, near the mouth of the Stikine River, the Alaska underfoot is the older, rougher kind, unlike the big ports, which have been polished smooth. In Haines, at the end of the longest fjord in North America, the quiet is the point, the kind of quiet that survives because most itineraries never reach this far. Across the season, Encore also calls at Icy Strait Point and Juneau, and on the Canadian side at Alert Bay and Prince Rupert, where the waterfront is yours to explore without waiting your turn.
Back on board, the place comes with you. Dinner draws on regional ingredients and coastal traditions. In the evening, local musicians and artists step aboard for performances made for these sailings, so the culture of the coast carries into the night rather than staying on the dock.
The shape of the season
Encore's 2027 Alaska season runs from May through September, with 18 departures of seven to 15 days sailing from Vancouver, British Columbia, and Juneau. Four core itineraries move among roughly 15 destinations across Alaska and coastal Canada, and each includes at least one glacier morning like the one above at Hubbard, Tracy Arm, Endicott Arm, or Glacier Bay National Park. The two shorter routes can be combined into a 14-day voyage for travelers who want the whole coast.
Choosing among these itineraries is where an expert advisor earns their place. As one of the largest Virtuoso agencies in the country, Montecito Village Travel books Seabourn with access most travelers never see on their own, from added amenities and shipboard credit to guidance that matches the right sailing to the right traveler. The combination of voyages and the peak midsummer weeks fills first, and getting the departure you want often comes down to knowing which one to hold and holding it early.
Where it can lead
Some travelers finish the Inside Passage and find they are not ready to turn for home. For them, the Alaska season opens onto something larger. In the fall, a 20-day voyage carries Encore from Vancouver to Tokyo, pairing the Alaska coast and Glacier Bay with a Pacific crossing into Seabourn's Japan season, one part of the world handing off to the next from the same familiar suite.
You could see Alaska from a distance, from a high deck with a thousand other people and a schedule to keep. Or you could be there, at the waterline, close enough to hear the ice. Seabourn's 2027 season is the closer look, and when you are ready to plan it, the advisors at Montecito Village Travel know exactly how to get you aboard.
