Petersburg’s first cruise ship of the season, the 152-foot National Geographic Sea Lion, comes to town this Sunday, April 26. This season, Petersburg will be seeing 85 cruise stops, about 10 fewer than last year.
James Valentine doesn’t think fewer stops will be a big hit to the local economy. Valentine is the co-owner of Petersburg’s travel agency, Viking Travel. As part of his job, he regularly interfaces with cruise companies.
This year, the Sitka-based company Allen Marine announced the end of their cruise line, Alaskan Dream Cruises. The company had four small cruise ships and would visit Petersburg. Valentine said that, while Alaskan Dream Cruises will be missed, the closure isn’t an immediate bad sign for Petersburg.
KFSK’s Taylor Heckart sat down with Valentine to learn more.
Listen here:
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
James Valentine: (Alaskan Dream Cruises) only held about 40 passengers. So, on a numbers standpoint, the people downtown might feel the effects. However, in my personal opinion, (Alaskan Dream Cruises) never stayed in town super long.
So with American Cruise Lines bringing in that second boat, that really brings in more of that walking traffic, and I think that is felt more than the losing of the Alaskan Dream Cruises.
Taylor Heckart: So even though we lost those Alaskan Dream Cruise ships, they were pretty small, and so that kind of passenger load can be picked up by those larger cruise ships. Is that what you’re saying?
James Valentine: Yeah, you can say it like that.
I’m not gonna talk for the businesses downtown, I’m sure they’re gonna feel the effects of not having Alaskan Dream Cruises here. There was writing on the wall that they were gonna eventually step down from doing this.
It stinks that they’re gone, because it was a cruise line that had been coming here for years. It’s always just sad to see them just decide to take a different direction. But that doesn’t mean that our future isn’t bright, I don’t think that it’s gonna be as big of a swing than (local businesses) might anticipate.
Taylor Heckart: Yeah, it sounds like you’re saying this will not be like an earth shattering loss.
James Valentine: It’s not an earth shattering loss.
Taylor Heckart: It might hurt a little bit, but it sounds like something we could recover from.
James Valentine: Yes, correct. I think so. And I personally believe that the tourism for Petersburg — the cruise ship tourism — is going to be consistent.
Personally, I like consistency. When you read about all the other port towns — Juneau, Skagway, Sitka, Ketchikan, all those — you see everybody up in arms because they have just grown tremendously. While Petersburg, our growth is a lot more linear, and I think that that is the proper approach to Petersburg tourism.
So I think that what we are currently having is a good, consistent growth, and I think that that will be better for the longevity of Petersburg.
Another thing to note, I think we actually might see more yachts coming up into Alaska this year, because the World Cup soccer is over in Seattle and Vancouver this year. I think we’re actually going to see a decent amount of yachts hovering around.
Taylor Heckart: You talked a little bit about the business owner perspective. You talked about your perspective. If I’m just a random person walking down the street this summer, am I going to notice any differences compared to last year, or is it going to feel pretty much the same?
James Valentine: I think you’re going to feel the same. I don’t think you’re going to feel like it’s overwhelming. And if it is, please come tell me. I don’t have complete say over any kind of cruise line at all. They do their own thing. However, these cruise lines, they want to come here, they want their guests to have a good experience, and they want the town to like them.
So if it gets to be a lot, you’ve got to say something, because these guys want feedback. They want to see that Petersburg is involved with them as well, right? And so feedback is huge.
I don’t think you’re gonna feel any different between ‘25 and ‘26. I think it’s gonna be fairly the same compared to those two years.
