Cruise Town

We’re back with a new season of Cruise Town because — spoiler alert — large cruise ships are coming back to Alaska in July.

How bad was it? Will the industry bounce back? Will Juneau bounce back? We discuss the cruise season that wasn’t and what Cruise Towns might expect for next year.

The first and only cruise ship to sail in Southeast Alaska during the pandemic turned around with a COVID-19 case on board.

Now that it’s clear that big cruise ships won’t be coming this year, cruise towns in southeast Alaska are thinking about next year.

A lot about Juneau’s future is up in the air still, but one thing is certain now: more than a million cruise ship passengers will not be coming to town this summer.

The natural attractions that people come to Alaska to see are exactly the same things that are being impacted by both an increase in visitors and climate change.

No discussion of cruise ships would be complete without talking about maritime disasters. Especially maritime disasters involving international superstar musicians.

Cruise Town’s cultural interpreters have the difficult task of explaining their history, their culture, their art — their existence — to someone who just got off a cruise ship.

Thousands of seasonal workers come to Juneau to work in tourism. Most of them young. They can make Cruise Town feel a lot like a summer camp.

Juneau was one of the first places in the world to charge a per person tax on cruise passengers. Also, it got sued.