The first Alaska-bound sailings are scheduled for late April. Potential complications also still could come from federal health officials and their counterparts in Canada, as the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still working to finalize its detailed sailing guidelines for the industry after the agency’s conditional sail order that the ships operated under last year expired in January. It’s going to be a glide path and I think that’s what we’re seeing in other parts of the world.” “Realistically, my personal thought is that we’ll still see a softer spring that will grow to a summer peak,” Venables said. Robert Venables, executive director of the regional development nonprofit Southeast Conference, said he’s approaching the 2022 cruise season with the view that “anything north of a million is a fantastic year.” “We just don’t know if there’s going to be a new variant coming down the line,” said Schijvens. However, Rain Coast director Meilani Schijvens and other industry observers noted the ongoing uncertainties of the pandemic mean the preseason capacity figure likely won’t be as reliable as in years past. Much of the railroad’s passenger business is derived from the rail cars owned by cruise companies that the state-owned railroad pulls on a contractual basis. spokesman Tim Sullivan said by email that passenger bookings are “tracking well above 2019″ so far and railroad leaders are planning for a full schedule and full seating after significant reductions the past two summers. Slightly more than 100,000 people cruised to Alaska in the latter half of last summer.Īlaska Railroad Corp. That means 2022 could blow away Alaska’s previous cruise season record in 2019 of approximately 1.3 million visitors, just two years after no large ships visited the state. Most years, cruise companies use the long lead time between bookings and sailings to optimize their schedules they rarely sail with ships that aren’t full or nearly so. Industrywide, cruise operators have scheduled sailings with the capacity to carry 1.57 million passengers to Alaska in 2022, according to figures compiled by Juneau-based economics firm Rain Coast Data. “As Royal Caribbean and as an industry, we have more ships deployed to Alaska than ever before,” Carroll said during a Feb. Royal Caribbean Vice President of Destination Development Joshua Carroll said the major cruise line is taking more bookings now than at the same time in 2019, adding that demand for Alaska cruises has been “a standout in our bookings,” even as the most recent wave of COVID-19 cases curbed passenger demand on other sailings. (James Brooks / ADN)Ĭruise companies have scheduled their ships for a record-breaking summer in Alaska, but it’s a long way between here and there. The Encore was sailing through Southeast Alaska on an unusual late-season cruise. The cruise ship Norweigan Encore leaves the Port of Juneau on Wednesday, Oct. Updated: FebruPublished: February 15, 2022
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