Cruise season starts Monday with new daily passenger limits, Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center's capacity rebounding

Public can provide input at two Visitor Industry Task Force meetings in June as group contemplates recommendations to manage post-pandemic growth

The Norwegian Encore's lights shine on the water as it berths in downtown Juneau on Oct. 14, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Independent)

By Jasz Garrett

Juneau Independent

A cutback in daily cruise passengers — and a comeback of staff at the Mendenhall Glacier — are two major changes for Juneau’s 2026 cruise season. The first ship of the year, the MS Eurodam, is scheduled to dock Monday at 12:30 p.m. 

The first five-ship day will be on May 5.

Alix Pierce, the city's tourism manager, said she expects Juneau's visitors to hit about 1.69 million this year, slightly more than 2025's record. But a new daily passenger cap of 16,000 passengers aims to give the community a sense of predictability — and a chance for city leaders to breathe as they envision tourism’s long-term future.

“We came out of the pandemic with 30% growth, and that's massive,” Pierce said. “We need to be able to react to that. So the intent behind the passenger caps was to give us the capacity to do that while not experiencing massive growth.” 

The passenger cap — which drops to 12,000 on Saturdays — is enforced through scheduling, she said. Juneau’s busiest days prior to the cap going into effect were about 21,000 people.

Pierce said the restriction adds stability for both the community and tour operators by managing cruise traffic. 

“Infrastructure is a destination management tool, and we need time,” she said. “Our infrastructure needs to catch up to the number of visitors that we have. So we have all these infrastructure projects in the pipeline, and we need to be able to take a breath on the number of people that we have while we build things, and then we can evaluate.” 

She said that doesn’t mean the cap will be lifted when projects are completed, but it provides valuable time to plan in between and implement recommendations of the Visitor Industry Task Force, which has been meeting since January. 

“There have been some really great discussions about downtown crowding, helicopter flightseeing, whale watching. It’s been really productive,” Pierce said.

The public will have the chance to weigh in at two June meetings. Public testimony can also be emailed to the task force anytime at city.clerk@juneau.org. Pierce said the task force is not making any recommendations until after they hear from the community.

Juneau's visitors will still top Ketchikan's which, earlier this year, Pierce thought might be different due to the new daily limit. Another question was whether Royal Caribbean would cancel some sailings to the capital city or back out of the voluntary five-ship a day agreement the City and Borough of Juneau implemented in 2024. 

“They haven’t pulled out,” Pierce said. “They’ve moved some calls to Ketchikan because they had to, but they’re still calling on our docks. We had certain days that we would have been over the cap with that ship, so that’s why they moved.”

Pierce noted two new cruise lines are coming to Juneau this summer, MSC Cruises and Virgin Cruise Line. She said they are both a part of the five-ship and daily limit.

Earlier this month, the city finalized the tidelands lease agreement for Huna Totem’s additional dock, which is expected to open in time for the 2028 cruise season, according to the project’s website.  

“It takes some time to get the tidelands transferred from the state, and so that's finally happened,” Pierce said. The tidelands agreement was made last April.

“I think that will help with some of our downtown congestion challenges, and I think it will also coincide with the seawalk being built, which we're also in permitting for that,” Pierce said. “So that — the seawalk from the Franklin dock to the AJ dock — will also help kind of mitigate some of our downtown congestion issues. So those are things that we're working on that won't be in place for this year, but they'll help once they're done.”

Another project is the rebuilding of Marine Park. Demolition recently began and construction will continue throughout the summer.

“I’m really excited about the new park,” Pierce said. “It's a space that's been underused for a long time, and we'll have more permanent spaces for food vendors so that looks a little bit more intentional. We're bringing back performance space in the park — that was something historically that we used to have that people really missed when we did public outreach. So we’ll have a stage and an ability to do performance.”

The park’s remodel also includes a seating area for people who want to eat outside. During construction, seasonal food vendors will be moved by the Downtown Library parking garage near the Elizabeth Peratrovich mural.

A sign welcoming people to The Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center is seen on Nov. 26, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Independent)

Pierce said she is also excited for a change on the other side of town. The Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center will be open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week this season.

Operations changed after nearly all Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area employees were fired through President Donald Trump’s purge of the federal government workforce in February 2025.

It's an expansion from the visitor center’s limited hours last summer, although not completely back to normal, Pierce said. 

“I think it's a really positive thing that we're staffed at the glacier, and that the glacier is going to be operating from nine to six every day, which isn't full capacity, as they were before the cuts, but it's a huge improvement from last year,” she said. “We’re really looking forward to some stability out there and that’s a huge relief after how tenuous things felt all last year.”

In May 2025, the Juneau Assembly approved spending up to $200,000 to hire additional staff for the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area. Pierce said it was never needed and the money went back into the Marine Passenger Fee balance.

Juneau District Ranger Michael Downs said there are about 18 total park rangers and several seasonal recreation technicians, making them fully staffed.

"We have returning staff, three park rangers that were with us last year, and regional employees who lateralled over to us now,” Downs said. “We are ready for Monday.”

• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or 907-723-9356.