Check Cruise Ship Schedules

[East_Texas_Trav]

Check the number of cruse ships scheduled to visit a port town before planning a visit in order to avoid the thousands of t-shirt buying masses of people. Just do an internet search on "Cruise Ships in city, state on date"

[fanrgs]

joe b. wrote:
So in town, that will leave Mountain View, not too desirable looking, the last time I walked by it and the one down by the docks, Pullen Creek RV, which is also built on City, Borough or State land, as I am not sure which government entity owns the port facility.

Mountain View is still a dump that gets very poor reviews on RVparkreviews.com. It is overpriced, has crowded sites, is poorly maintained, and backs up to the railroad tracks, so noisy trains run past all day. To get into and out of Pullen Creek, you have to negotiate all the walking cruise ship passengers, trains departing from the cruise ship/ore dock, traffic into the marina, and packed downtown streets.

With Garden City gone, that leaves only the Dyea NPS Campground, which has 22 spaces with no hookups and is 9 miles on a narrow, curving shelf road from town (as well as being reconstructed last summer). But I have a feeling that the city of Skagway doesn't really cater to, or care about, RVers anyway. They make all their big bucks off the cruise ship passengers.

[joe_b_]

thanks fanrgs, for the info on the Garden City CG. That has been a problem with several of the campgrounds in Alaska, that are built on leased government land. Sea Otter in Valdez, was a favorite of ours till their lease expired and the city wouldn't renew it. (a bit of politics got involved I hear)

So in town, that will leave Mountain View, not too desirable looking, the last time I walked by it and the one down by the docks, Pullen Creek RV, which is also built on City, Borough or State land, as I am not sure which government entity owns the port facility.

None of the SE towns that don't already have a good deep water dock are likely to build one. Just too expensive, if all the big ships stopping are cruise ships. There are not going to bypass a place, where they want to stop, just because of no deep water dockage available. They will just tender the guests into town on their launches as they do currently at many places.

The only places you tend to find the nice deep water docks are where the commercial cargo ships come into to load and unload. Places where they need to be able to pull a train car up next to or be able to run a heavy fork lift in and out of to move material or conveyer belt load a ship. I know there have been several law suits between the cruise lines and the state of Alaska of the years on docking fees, etc. I have seen the passengers in K Town (as Ketchikan is known by some in Alaska)Sitka and Juneau get taken to shore by launches. The deep water ports, that I am familiar with are at Skagway, Haines (probably built by the US military to support Fort Seward, located there) Whittier( remember the weather is always XXXXier in Whittier), Anchorage, Kodiak and the new facility built to handle the zinc mines north of Kotzebue at the Red Dog deposits, operated by the NANA Native Corp.

When I was living in Nome in the early 60s, the summer freight and fuel came in on a government ship, North Star, owned and/or leased by the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) to supply the coastal small villages. They had to anchor about 2 miles off shore, in the Bering Sea and then use local small barges to lighter the supplies into the port of Nome. They also had some freight launches to deliver to other places, such as King Island (not far from Nome) and on up the coast. We had to order a year's supply of groceries back then and one year they damaged some of my shipment, so they were quick to get me a claim form, which I filled out and mailed in. I am still waiting to hear from them on the claim, 48 years later. LOL

So the gist of all this verbiage, is check out the cruise schedules of anywhere you may want to spend time and if you find large crowds of excited, funny dressed people, in a great hurry much of the time it seems, then you may want to visit these places on non-ship days such as perhaps weekends and other days of no ships arriving. They are only there for the day and leave in early evening to wander the high seas.

[fanrgs]

joe b. wrote:
Sometimes we will leave the RV in Skagway and take the fast passenger ferry over to Haines for the day. So laid back over there.

We stayed in Garden City CG the last couple of visits, all of the campgrounds in town tend to be packed.

Four cruise ships docked at Skagway this day.

Last summer, we endured three days of Skagway and had to leave. Four cruise ships were there at all times and, when one left, a new one was there the next morning to take its place. And the noise of helicopters taking off (four at a time) to take tourists up to a glacier could be heard all day long. We got a reservation on the ferry to Haines one morning and left the same afternoon.

Haines was such a nice change that we ended up spending four days there. No cruise ships came in the entire time and we actually walked all over town on the sidewalk! (that's hard to do in Skagway) We visited Fort Seward, ate seafood, took eagle photos at the Bald Eagle Preserve, toured a salmon cannery, and stocked up at the IGA before heading back into Canada, where groceries are more costly. However, we did miss the Hammer Museum--maybe next time!

Kudos to Sitka for keeping the cruise ships out in the harbor. That's one reason it is still our favorite picture-postcard town in Alaska.

By the way, Joe, we read in the Haines newspaper that the Garden City RV Park (where we stayed too) is closing this year. The city of Skagway owns the land and wants to build a new city hall on it.

[explorenorth]

joe b. wrote:
While at many of the SE ports, the larger of the cruise ships have to anchor out, in Skagway they have deep water right at the docks.

The only port visited by the large ships where a dock can't be built in a handy location is Hoonah. While passengers have to tender at Sitka as well, it's only because the city won't build a dock.

[explorenorth]

DianneOK wrote:
Also....avoid rv parks/campgrounds that host dog show participants! We stayed in one that had so many dogs on a site near us that it reeked of urine !!!!! We asked to move, and were told to deal with it. Grrrrrrr

One RV campground we stayed at in New Zealand with our campervan was filled with dog show people - a couple of those women were the only ignorant people we met in NZ, and some of the most ignorant we've met at any campground anywhere.

[joe_b_]

If a person enjoys people watching it can be fun to be in some of the SE Alaska towns when the cruise ships arrive. They are just there for the day and by dinner time, all the visitors have returned to the ships and the towns go back to sleep. LOL Of course most of the businesses do as well. Every so often I enjoy Skagway and the chaos of the place. The cruise folks don't stay in the campgrounds so no problem there, but you may have to have lunch at your rig to find a place to sit.

It is fun to walk the shops and see all the "rustic" names being used. Real gold rush sounding for the most part, lots of high priced, quality jewelry stores, etc. I was talking to a clerk in one of them and asked her who owned the shop. Said she didn't know but her paycheck had "Tiffney of NY" across the top. Not too many of the shops are owned by Skagweigans, at least full year residents, but lots of summer work available there if anyone is interested.

When we get tired of the chaos of Skagway, we will either head back up the hill to Carcross or to Atlin, or Whitehorse. Sometimes we will leave the RV in Skagway and take the fast passenger ferry over to Haines for the day. So laid back over there. Last time we stopped there, 2009, I believe they were down to only one cruise ship a week and the shop owners were not happy about it.

Skagway is one of the places I will call to get a campground reservation, usually a day or two ahead. We stayed in Garden City CG the last couple of visits, all of the campgrounds in town tend to be packed. Have reservations for the scenic railroad if you plan to ride it and it doesn't matter, to me, if the town is crowded for the day. Skagway for breakfast is a sleepy little place, population of 600 to 800, I would guess and by noon it is over 15,000 people there trying to get someone to take their money. I can take roughly 3 days of Skagway and then I am done and have to get out of there. I have also been there in the winter time and it is really sleepy then, ghost town almost.

While at many of the SE ports, the larger of the cruise ships have to anchor out, in Skagway they have deep water right at the docks. The docks were originally built for the ore ships to transport concentrate to mills around the world. Skagway has docking for at least 5 of the large vessels, such as these two.


Skagway docks


Four cruise ships docked at Skagway this day. Nice runway in the foreground.

[DianneOK]

Also....avoid rv parks/campgrounds that host dog show participants! We stayed in one that had so many dogs on a site near us that it reeked of urine !!!!! We asked to move, and were told to deal with it. Grrrrrrr

[explorenorth]

If it's Alaska you want info on, all the cruise ship schedules for 2014 are posted at Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska

[PA12DRVR]

I'm not sure the OP is talking Alaska (and I have no idea about the accuracy of the suggested internet search), but it's a valid point about cruise ships hitting (in my experience) SE AK towns.

Over the years I've been in K-town, Juneau, and Sitka when some variety of cruise ship hit town. Not a terribly enjoyable time. Heck, even in Los Anchorage, one can tell when a trainload of folks arrive from Seward.

[fanrgs]

Are you talking about Alaska on this thread?

[peajay]

I look at the cruise port schedule whenever we head to Cozumel. I don't have a choice for vacation time really due to my job and hubby's job so we're stuck with what we get but I check the schedule anyhow. We leave for Coz in a couple weeks. Most days we are on island there will be anywhere between 4-8 ships docked. Hope we can get a taxi to the marina for diving!