How do Cruise Ships reach Port Juneau in Alaska?
Why I am Asking been watching these cruise ships coming in and out of Port Lauderdale for weeks now Now they are Sailing around Alaska. would they all Transit The Panama Canal. Some like the star princes are much to big for that i;m assuming To get to the start place of the Alaskan Cruise im assuming its Seattle. Do Cruise ships go Empty of paying passengers to there cruise Disembarkation ports
What is the actual Logistics. How does it work please.
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Answers & Comments
There are basically three options for cruising Alaska. The Alaska cruise season is mid-May through mid-September ONLY. All of the cruise lines that cruise Alaska have ships that are normally in the Pacific Ocean, either doing Hawaii, the South Pacific islands like Fiji and Bali, or in Australia and New Zealand. So when the Alaska cruise season begins they generally have what they call a re-positioning cruise from wherever they are to an Alaska departure port. So the cruise lines do NOT move the ships empty. Many people like these re-positioning cruises because they are different and the fares can many times be less than a regular cruise.
For Alaska cruise ships depart from Seattle or Vancouver going north, or Seward or Whittier Alaska going south. A few cruise also depart from Vancouver and go north and then return in the 7 days to Vancouver. So, NO, ships do not have to go through the Panama Canal or around the horn of South America to get to the Alaska itineraries.
However, many cruise ships can and do fit through the locks on the Panama Canal and some cruise lines offer cruises through the while canal or others that go through the locks on the Atlantic side and then let passengers off for tour while the ship sits in Guten Lake. Then the ship goes back through the canal locks and waits for the passengers in the city of Colon. I went through the Panama Canal on the Island Princess several years ago so I know the ship fits.
Whenever a ship needs to get to the other side of the US, they either go through the Panama Canal or via Cape Horn.
They will not go empty - the passage cost a lot of money, cruises that go through the Panama Canal are more expensive than others - so the cruise line can make some money....
Ships are put in 2 categories concerning the Panama Canal - they are either Panamax (they fit) or post Panamax (they do not fit and cannot go through)
Have a look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panamax
The Star Princess was cruising in South America and around Cape Horn (Valparaiso - Buenos Aires) and then they went up to Los Angeles, after that did the cruises to Hawaii and since May 14 they do Vancouver-Vancouver.
Every day there is no passenger onboard a cruise ship the cruise line loses money - so no, you do not want to have days when the ship is empty.
That's a lot of questions! Yes, as far as I know, all the cruises to Alaska leave from Seattle or Vancouver. There are other cruises that do go through the Panama Canal.
Yes, ships sometimes have repositioning cruises. That is, a ship that might be used for Caribbean cruises in the winter, might need to travel to Seattle to do the Alaskan cruises in the summer. But they do take passengers when they do that. Sometimes, it's much cheaper to take a repositioning cruise because they don't stop in many ports. You can use a site like cruises.com to search for repositioning cruises.
They start in Seattle.