Alaskan Dream Cruises shuts down after 15 years in Southeast Alaska
- Daily Sitka Sentinel
- 15 hours ago
- 4 min read
Four-ship company that offered weeklong voyages for 40 to 80 passengers halting voyages so parent company Allen Marine can focus on other operations
By Shannon Haugland
Daily Sitka Sentinel
After 15 years of offering small-ship cruises in Southeast Alaska, Alaskan Dream Cruises has closed, as of Feb. 4.
“This decision was intentional and necessary,” said Jamey Cagle, one of the owners, in today’s announcement. “After careful evaluation of our long-term objectives, we determined that concluding cruise operations allows us to responsibly focus our resources where they will have the greatest impact.”
The decision by the Alaska Native-owned cruise line to cease operations reflects a “deliberate alignment” of the company’s business to strengthen its core operations and ensure long-term sustainability, the company said.
The news release says the plan is to refocus 100% of its resources on its “founding strengths and roots,” which include Allen Marine Tours day boat excursions, and Allen Marine shipyard operations and marine services. Alaskan Dream Cruises, Allen Marine Tours and Allen Marine Inc. are under the parent company AM Owner Group Inc.
Alaskan Dream Cruises is contacting guests with reservations for 2026, and processing refunds.
Alaskan Dream Cruises was founded in 2011, offering week-long cruises around Southeast Alaska aboard smaller vessels with capacities of 40 to 80 passengers. Throughout its history, the company provided about 500 cruises aboard the Chichagof Dream, Alaskan Dream, Baranof Dream and Admiralty Dream, the company estimated.
“We are deeply grateful for the trust our guests have placed in us over the past 15 years,” Cagle said in the announcement. “We have had the privilege of sharing the wonders of Alaska and the richness of our Alaska Native heritage with incredible passengers from across the globe. It has been an honor to work alongside extraordinary communities, partners and crew throughout this journey.”
The main part of the Allen family-owned company is the day cruise business Allen Marine Tours, which was launched in 1970 by Allen Marine founders, Bob and Betty Allen, who started a Sitka shipyard in 1967 in Jamestown Bay. They were the grandparents of current Allen Marine President and CEO Jamey Cagle.
The company expanded to speedy day boat catamaran cruises, and now hundreds of thousands of cruise passengers, nonprofit groups and independent travelers each year take wildlife cruises out of Sitka, Ketchikan, Juneau and Yakutat to see otters, sea lions, whales, sea birds and occasionally bears, and glaciers. The day tours also include day-lodge experiences at Fin Island in Sitka and Colt Island in Juneau, as well as culinary tour offerings. The company operates some 30 such vessels around Southeast, and this business is unaffected by the decision to close Alaskan Dream Cruises.
The smaller towns not visited, or not often visited by other small or larger lines, included Kake, Kasaan, Pelican, and others. The cruises focused on “active” experiences Southeast residents enjoy such as hiking, kayaking, and paddleboarding.
Company spokesperson Zak Kirkpatrick said Allen Marine has been and will continue to be a cornerstone of Alaska’s maritime and tourism industries for more than 50 years, with 105 year-round employees, and some 350 seasonal workers.
He said while the company is proud of the cruise experiences it offered through Alaskan Dream Cruises, the challenges of operating such a business was “unique.”
“The small-ship overnight industry carries particularly high overhead and complex logistics,” he said. “In recent years, we’ve seen an expansion in cruise capacity — even in our niche expedition market — with newly built ships recently entering the water or being built.”
He said it’s a “well-capitalized landscape” and becoming a more capitalized market.
“By simplifying its business model, Allen Marine aims to reinvest in its core strengths,” Kirkpatrick said. “As a vertically integrated company, Allen Marine designs, builds, and maintains its own fleet—a capability that famously gained national attention when Allen-built vessels participated in the “Miracle on the Hudson” rescue.”
Allen Marine built vessels for New York-based NY Waterway that responded to such emergencies as the plane crash into the Hudson in 2009 and getting people out of Lower Manhattan after 9/11.
Dream Cruises guests currently booked for summer 2026 will receive full refunds. Alaskan Dream Cruises also worked with UnCruise Adventures to offer booked guests a transfer, if desired.
“While we’ve exited the overnight cruise market we still wanted to offer guests an opportunity to receive the intimate, small-ship Alaska experience they planned,” Kirkpatrick told the Sentinel.
The closure of the cruise company will have economic impacts on Sitka and other Southeast ports. Alaskan Dream Cruises employed roughly 10 full-time staff members year-round in Sitka in addition to a seasonal workforce of 100 to 115, most of whom came from outside Sitka, said Jeremy Plank, Allen Marine CFO and one of the owners. The vessels were serviced locally in Sitka, Juneau and other ports, including with groceries, other supplies, repairs, laundry and other services.
Kirkpatrick expressed the company’s thanks to its dedicated workforce.
“We’re so grateful, first and foremost, to the incredible staff and crew who helped run this operation and shaped it into the award-winning travel company it became,” Kirkpatrick said in the news announcement. “We’re also deeply appreciative of the port communities and partners, and of course, our wonderful guests. This chapter is closing and that’s always tough, and little nostalgic. But there are many, many more incredible chapters to come in the book of Allen Marine. We’ve been around 50 years and are excited to see what the next 50 bring.”
• This story originally appeared in the Daily Sitka Sentinel.
