Juneau -- six ships in at once -- does it matter

[papadave]

I checked to see how many ships would be in various ports at once for my upcoming cruise. I saw that six ships will be in Juneau at once. Does this have any impact? Are certain excursions booked up? Are some places too crowded to be enjoyable?

[Yukon]

Downtown and the major attractions will be crowded and there will be little available in the way of tours unless you've booked ahead.

[clogaltocruise]

Ditto with Yukon's reply. That's thousands of bodies all vying for a limited number of tours and space. If there is something specific you want to see or do ... book early and enjoy!

[NETexan]

Ok, I have to ask.................. how do you check to see how many ships will be in a port on a certain day?

[PennyAgain]

Yes it will be crowded with 6 ships and no deals in the shops or on tours. Frenzy comes to mind.

[cruisebum50]

Ok, I have to ask.................. how do you check to see how many ships will be in a port on a certain day?

 

Use this link http://www.claalaska.com/schedules.html

[frugaltravel]

Get out of downtown and you might hardly notice it - take a hike, get on an excursion. Most cruise ship passengers hang eerily close to the ships and to the touristy shops.

[VBMom13]

Thank you for the link to the cruise ship schedule. Now that I see 4 ships are in Ketchikan when I'll be there, I'm going to book my salmon fishing trip now!

[Belle]

CruiseTT

Can see how many ships in port.....

by ports or ships name.

[sand piper]

Be sure you check arrival- departure times. It might not be as bad as it looks.

Salley

[lexdevil]

...how bad is four in Ketchikan? Had planned to play it by ear there, as nothing much inspired. My kid wants to see the lumberjack show, but I assumed that was an easy ticket.

[Yukon]

...how bad is four in Ketchikan?

 

About the same as 6 in Juneau - it's a much smaller town. Places like Creek Street will be unbearably crowded (by my standards).

[Markanddonna]

like the other person said. I recall that the Pearl had to wait for another NCL ship to leave the dock so we could dock. They probably had like 6-3 and we had 3:30-9 or something like that. I don't know if Juneau can really handle more than 4 big ships.

[TracieABD]

Knowing this, we book our private excursions in advance and got out of "Dodge".

Also, in all fairness, we are not shoppers, so we did not encounter the crowds in the stores.

[Gardyloo]

Skagway, population 892.

 

Five calling ships, approximately 1800 pax/ship = 9000. (Four most days, six on some.)

 

Ratio, 10.1 visitors per resident.

[TracieABD]

Skagway, population 892.

 

Five calling ships, approximately 1800 pax/ship = 9000. (Four most days, six on some.)

 

Ratio, 10.1 visitors per resident.

Heck of a statistic!

[oliverbc]

Thank you so much. It really gives you the info of what ports you need to book ahead. Good work!

[Rocky365]

Even though there may be many ships, also check what time they are coming in and going. for example, I am on the Westerdam, and on August 14 we will be in Ketchikan, there are a total of 5 ships expected that day, 3 are arriving by 7:00am including us, 2 are arriving at 2:00 or later which is already after we leave at 1:00, therefore there will only be 3 ships in port. I am also very excited because we will be the only ship in Sitka on August 13:p

[luvlake]

I checked to see how many ships would be in various ports at once for my upcoming cruise. I saw that six ships will be in Juneau at once. Does this have any impact? Are certain excursions booked up? Are some places too crowded to be enjoyable?

 

The answer for me is YES! We just returned from a B2B from 7/4/09 to 7/19/09 and it was quite evident that the towns were crowded.

 

I realized before we left that there were several ships in each port and decided that the excursions we were doing would be out among the scenery and wildlife. It was amazing!

 

We did spend a very short time shopping and were only to happy to make it back to the ship. Even in the shops they said that the amount of people in town every day was getting out of hand. The sales people were extremely nice but I'm sure they were very tired by the time the day was over.

 

Our trip was a trip of a lifetime but do your homework and try to get out to see the true beauty of Alaska!