The sailing season has ended in Juneau, Alaska. As the last ship left port last week, the city can reflect on a very successful first full season after the pandemic.
Over a million cruise ship passengers visited the port, which has always been an incredibly popular stop on Alaska itineraries.
On average, cruise ships that visit Juneau arrive about 74% full due to restrictions on the number of passengers. This bodes well for next season, with cruise ships already approaching 100% capacity.
Juneau’s sailing season is coming to an end
like Norwegian encore departed Juneau last week, the end of a busy sailing season for the city of Juneau, Alaska. The city can look back on a successful season that brought visitor numbers back to near pre-pandemic levels, despite cruise ships sailing well below capacity for most of the summer months.
Sailing season in Junau I had a rough start, with a lot short staffed businesses and to deal with the COVID measures that restricted the way cruise ships operated in the area. However, according to Renee Reeve, Vice President of Government and Community Relations with CLIA, visitors received the same warm welcome as always:
“We’ve always ranked high among cruise passengers and this season we ranked with the rest of them in terms of satisfaction.”
“We were really happy to see this because we know a lot of communities were struggling to find employees and businesses were short staffed, but I have to say they really rolled out the red carpet for our visitors, and we could not be more thankful and appreciative of our partners.” Renee Reeve said.
Carnival Cruise Line spokesman Matt Lupoli was delighted with the successful conclusion of the Alaska cruise season, noting the economic impact the cruise industry has on Alaskan communities:
“We are excited by the success of this season. said Lupoli. “It is clear that local tourism businesses missed the economic impact that the summer cruise season brings to the region and after a difficult period for the industry, we are delighted to have played a bigger role in bringing the first full season back to navigation. “
Carnival Cruise Line sailed three ships to Alaska this season. Next year, the cruise line’s newest addition, Bright carnivalwill be Alaska cruise itineraries also.
Cruise ships visiting Juneau this year had an average capacity rate of 74%, below the usual 100% and more rates that were the standard for Alaska cruises in 2019 and earlier.
In total, 1.15 million passengers visited Juneau. However, for 2023 these numbers are expected to surpass those of the busiest year to date, 2019.
1.3 million visitors are expected in 2023 during 694 port calls
The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) believes that the number of cruise ship passengers will exceed 1.3 million next season. As usual, 2022 started slowly, picking up during the summer months and slowing down again during September and October.
“Like any other season, our seasons tend to start off maybe a little less full, and then the capacity builds up and peaks in August or so and then tapers off again in September and October, and I think this year as well was the same. “
“I think we had a strong recovery this year and our forecast is that we will be stronger next year and likely return to 2019 levels, if not slightly higher.” Reeves continued.
The cruise season is scheduled to begin on April 17, 2023, when Norwegian Bliss is the first cruise ship to arrive in Alaska. That’s a whole week earlier than this year, plus the cruise season will end on October 25 next year, a week later than usual, with a call from The Norwegian sun.
Those two extra weeks will be needed to accommodate the large number of port calls that are scheduled for next season, 694 calls from 41 different cruise ships. These include larger cruise ships such as Quantum of the seasand smaller cruise ships, such as Windstar Star Breeze.
