By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
The season for large cruise ships is off to a late – but good – start, local businesses reported after the second two-ship day on Wednesday.
Large cruise ships are operating at reduced capacity and other COVID precautions in place, with passenger vaccination rates of at least 95 percent.
“Everything with the dock is working well,” said Chris McGraw, manager of the Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal. “It’s been a good warmup to next year. All the passengers seem to be happy and everyone wearing masks.”
Tenders travel to and from the cruise ship Silver Muse Thursday afternoon. This year’s tour calendar has the last ship of the season visiting Sitka on October 10. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
The two large ships at the terminal Wednesday were the Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas with 800 passengers, and the Nieuw Amsterdam with 1,600. Because of the cruise lines’ mitigation efforts, the numbers were far below the ships’ capacities of 2,400 and 2,200, respectively.
The cruise season came somewhat as a surprise to McGraw and others, who were expecting another blank year following Canada’s extension of its cruise ship ban. But on May 24 President Biden signed the Alaska Tourism Restoration Act, co-sponsored by Alaska’s congressional delegation, giving the cruise lines temporary authority to bypass Canada on voyages to Alaska. U.S. law requires foreign-flagged passenger ships to stop in a foreign port on trips between U.S. ports.
The news came on short notice to the cruise lines, but in July they started operating at reduced capacity with plans to increase throughout the season.
McGraw and others said so far it’s gone well. McGraw put up the city signs requiring masks indoors and made sanitizer available. He added that he had expanded the outdoor covered staging areas, which gave the passengers more room.
After a slow year for business in 2020, Fortress of the Bear was ready for the larger number of visitors, welcoming the 600 who came Wednesday to see the center’s five brown bears and three black bears.
“We’re doing really well, surprisingly,” said Fortress co-director Evy Kinnear. “We’re trying to recover for the losses of last year, and we’re still dealing with shortages of goods and things like that.”
After hearing Canada had extended its port closures through this year, Kinnear said, “this whole season has been a surprise. To see anyone to begin with – our expectations were not really there, the cruise ships weren’t coming till the last minute so we were scrambling to find support staff. We’re running pretty tight.”
The visitors are giving the site good reviews, but Kinnear said it’s not too soon to start planning for the “crazy capacity” of next year, when some 400,000 cruise ship passengers are expected to visit Sitka.
On Wednesday Sitka Sound Science Center had about 315 visitors, including 215 on a tour and 100 walk-ins.
“Right now the hatchery is the big draw,” said Sandy McClung, the aquarium manager. “We’re starting that time of year when we’re seeing the salmon running.”
She said visitors might be familiar with the concept of salmon returning to streams and rivers from school lessons or watching National Geographic TV shows, but “it’s hard to grasp without seeing it. It’s such a different experience.”
Visitors have a lot of questions, which kept the interpreters busy. McClung said she’s trying not to think too much about the expectations for next year’s season “because I get overwhelmed.”
“We had three buses pull up at once on Wednesday,” she said. “Knowing most of the summer will look like that is daunting. It’s a little intimidating to think about. ... It was really nice to have all these people here, engaged, asking good questions and excited to be on vacation, to see different things, to be on a cruise. Tourists bring an energy to this town. Last year that was missing. You absorb the energy and feed off it.”
From the retail sector, Steven Eisenbeisz, co-owner of Russell’s, said if Wednesday wasn’t especially busy, in general the summer has been “amazing.”
“We had the best June we’ve ever had, and that was before the cruise ships started coming,” he said. “Sitka is still a topnotch destination for independent travelers. Travel demand may be exceptionally high this year – that may start to level out.”
Old Harbor Books manager Ashia Lane said the cruise ship days have been “moderately busier” than days with smaller ships.
“We can definitely see the difference of less-than-capacity sailings compared to pre-COVID summers,” she said. “It’s been great to have visitors again and most have been mindful about taking care to wear masks, sanitize ... which is the biggest concern.”
Brit Galanin, co-owner of Galanin & Klein, said her store was much busier on Wednesday, with higher revenues than on non-cruise ship days.
“It felt much closer to a normal, pre-pandemic summer day,” she said. “People were very excited to be in Sitka and very respectful about mask wearing – we didn’t have to ask anyone to wear a mask. ... They had a lot of questions about local culture and what it’s like to live here year-round, and were excited to be out and traveling in general.”
So far this year, seven large cruise ships have visited Sitka.
The next port call scheduled is Tuesday, when McGraw will welcome the largest vessel scheduled this summer. Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas is expected to be at half-capacity - about 2,000, he said.
The last call by a large ship is scheduled for October 12. Smaller ships – National Geographic, Alaskan Dream Cruises – have been stopping in Sitka all summer.
