Ketchikan set to surpass Juneau in cruise passengers for the first time, due to limits set in capital city

Cancellation of sailings by Royal Caribbean enough to narrowly tip the balance in favor of Alaska’s southernmost port, CBJ tourism manager says

A view from the Majestic Princess during the cruise ship’s inaugural visit to Ketchikan in August of 2021. (City of Ketchikan photo)

By Mark Sabbatini

Juneau Independent

Ketchikan is expected to get more cruise ship passengers than Juneau for the first time ever this year due to voluntary daily limits the capital city and cruise industry have set on ships and visitors, Juneau’s tourism manager said Thursday.

The margin is slight since Juneau’s passenger total is expected to be comparable to the record 1.69 million passengers visiting in 2025, according to Alexandra Pierce, the City and Borough of Juneau’s tourism manager. But she said a five-ship-per-day limit that took effect in 2024 and a daily limit of 16,000 passengers (12,000 on Saturdays) "have changed things in the region."

"Ketchikan will have more passengers than Juneau for the first time in 2026," she said during a Visitor Industry Task Force meeting Thursday night. "That's a direct result of our limits."

More specifically, Royal Caribbean Group’s decision to reduce sailings to downtown Juneau this year and beyond appears to be the reason Ketchikan will have more passengers, Pierce said in an interview after the meeting. A subsidiary, Royal Caribbean International, is reducing the number of ships arriving downtown Juneau from four in 2025 to three in 2026 — but is still sending four ships to Alaska, stopping at other Southeast ports such as Icy Strait Point in Hoonah as well as Ketchikan.

Royal Caribbean is expected to begin docking up to two ships a day — and 500,000 passengers per season — at a two-berth private cruise ship port Goldbelt Inc. plans to open in 2028 on land it owns along the northwest coast of Douglas Island. The question of whether that means two of the current limit of five daily ships will be diverted to that port or if Juneau will allow up to seven ships a day is not yet resolved.

But a private cruise facility that opened in Ketchikan in 2021 — The Mill at Ward Cove, about eight miles north of downtown — may offer indicators of how such a facility can affect Juneau’s mass-scale tourism. Kara Tetley, executive director of the Ketchikan Visitor’s Bureau, said in an interview Friday that the port at Ward Cove "spreads out the folks a little bit" and more offerings are in the process of being added.

"Our lumberjack show is going to have a second option out there," she said. "We've got some different businesses that are going to be opening up as well this coming year. I believe it's a multi-phase project. And so year over year they're going to be adding on to that space."

Tour and city buses are available for visitors interested in visiting downtown, Tetley said.

"So I think the community is really coming together to help navigate all the increase," she said.

Surveys about how residents in Southeast Alaska communities feel about cruise tourism were presented by Pierce during Thursday night’s meeting. A Juneau survey last year found 43% of respondents stated benefits outweighed drawbacks, 31% felt drawbacks outweighed benefits and 22% offered neutral responses. Wrangell’s respective numbers were 52%-20%-27%, and Haines’ 61%-19%-16%.

A task force in Sitka, which has sought to impose cruise limits similar to Juneau’s, issued a report in 2024 with findings stating "80% wanted the community to reach common ground so that Sitka can find a balance when it comes to cruise tourism" and 60% favor the city taking an active role in determining what’s considered a balanced number of passengers.

"I'd say that generally, the ports in the region have been supportive of each other's efforts to create negotiated caps," Pierce said during Thursday’s meeting. "I think we all recognize the issues that we're dealing with locally. I do think that everyone was a little surprised by the impact of Juneau's caps on Ketchikan this year and I think that has informed some conversations in Ketchikan. So while it's not so concrete as like, ‘Why did you do this to us Juneau?’ the things that we do have impact."

Juneau’s Visitor Industry Task Force, a revived version of a committee whose work ended in 2020, is scheduled to hear the results of the most recent community survey from last year’s cruise season at its meeting next Thursday.

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.