Ports4 min read
Icy Strait Point: The Tlingit-Owned Cruise Port Next Door to Hoonah
Icy Strait Point is the world's first Indigenous-owned cruise destination — a restored salmon cannery near Hoonah, run by Huna Totem Corporation, with…
Author
Eric Albee
Founder, CruiseMigration
Builder of CruiseMigration. Tracks cruise-ship deployments and writes about the seasonal logistics of the cruise industry.
Writes about
- Cruise industry
- Maritime AIS tracking
- Alaska cruise season
- Cruise ship deployment and repositioning
- Passenger Vessel Services Act
Articles by Eric Albee
Explainers5 min read
Seattle or Vancouver: How to Choose Your Alaska Cruise Homeport
Seattle means easy US flights and round-trip Inside Passage loops with a Victoria stop. Vancouver means one-way Gulf routes, Glacier Bay lines, and no…
Ports4 min read
Sitka Cruise Port Guide: Old Sitka Dock, Tendering, and the 7,000 Cap
Where cruise ships dock in Sitka, why some still tender downtown, and how a voluntary 7,000-passenger daily cap shapes cruise days in Alaska's old…
Ports4 min read
Whittier vs Seward: Alaska's Two Anchorage Gateway Cruise Ports
Whittier and Seward are the turnaround ports linking Alaska cruises to Anchorage and Denali. One sits 60 miles away behind a shared road-rail tunnel…
Explainers8 min read
Shore Power in Alaska: How Cruise Ships Plug In and Why It Only Works Sometimes
Princess plugged in at Juneau in 2001 — the first cruise ship shore-power connection in the world. 25 years later the Alaska grid still can't always…
Explainers7 min read
LNG Cruise Ships Explained: Why the New Hulls Run on Liquefied Natural Gas
20+ LNG cruise ships sail today, and Carnival has six more on order through 2033. Here's how dual-fuel LNG works, the methane-slip nuance, and what it…
Ports6 min read
Seattle's Two Cruise Piers: Pier 91 vs Pier 66
Seattle handles 330 cruise calls and 2.1 million passengers in 2026 across two terminals: Pier 91 (Smith Cove) and Pier 66 (Bell Street). They work…
Ports5 min read
Áak'w Landing: Juneau's Fifth Cruise Dock and the Indigenous Corporation Building It
Juneau's tidelands lease for Áak'w Landing was finalized April 2026. Construction starts summer 2027. Opens for the 2028 season. Built by Huna Totem…
Ships6 min read
Alaska's 2026 Cruise Newcomers: Virgin Voyages and Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection
Two cruise lines launch their first-ever Alaska season in 2026 — Virgin Voyages with Brilliant Lady (adults-only resort), Ritz-Carlton Yacht…
Seasons3 min read
The 2026 Alaska Cruise Season Opens: First-Week Tracker Recap
Three ships, three stories. Noordam first into Ketchikan, Volendam off-script at Kodiak, Coral Princess opening Whittier. Week one of the 2026 Alaska…
Ports3 min read
Coral Princess Becomes First Cruise Ship of 2026 at Whittier
Coral Princess docked at Whittier on April 28, 2026 — the first cruise ship of the season — wrapping a 131-day world voyage from Fort Lauderdale to…
Explainers5 min read
Juneau's 2026 Cruise Passenger Caps: 16,000 Weekdays, 12,000 Saturdays
Juneau's first year under formal cruise passenger caps started with Eurodam on April 27, 2026. Here's what the 16,000 / 12,000 daily limits mean for…
Ships7 min read
Norwegian Bliss and NCL's Alaska Season: The Seattle Pier 66 Model
Norwegian Bliss ran NCL's first Alaska sailing of 2026 on April 25 from Seattle Pier 66. Why NCL anchors on Seattle (not Vancouver) and how that…
Explainers5 min read
The Cruise Ships That Can (and Can't) Enter Glacier Bay
Only ~150 cruise ship entries per season, max 2 ships a day, $8.28 per passenger. Inside Glacier Bay's concession contract — and why most cruise lines…
Explainers5 min read
How We Track Cruise Ships: AIS, Itineraries, and Why Glacier Bay Goes Dark
Cruise ships broadcast their position via AIS — but coverage isn't perfect. Here's how CruiseMigration combines AIS, scheduled itineraries, and…
Explainers4 min read
Inside Passage vs Gulf of Alaska: Which Cruise Route Should You Take?
Inside Passage and Gulf of Alaska are the two main Alaska cruise routes. Inside Passage is calmer and shorter; Gulf of Alaska adds Hubbard Glacier and…
Ports3 min read
Ketchikan's Two Cruise Ports: Downtown vs Ward Cove
Ketchikan has two cruise berths — downtown and Ward Cove, seven miles north. Which one your ship calls at materially changes your day, and not always…
Explainers6 min read
Why Alaska Cruises Stop in Victoria: The PVSA Explained
Alaska cruises stop in Victoria, BC because of the Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886 — not the Jones Act. Here's the actual rule, the 2026…
Ports4 min read
From Seward to Anchorage by Train: The Cruise Connection
Seward is the second cruise gateway to the Alaska interior — but unlike Whittier, the connection to Anchorage runs through the Kenai Peninsula on one…
Ports4 min read
Skagway: Gold Rush History from a Cruise Ship
Skagway was the boomtown gateway to the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898. Today its main street is a National Historical Park, and the White Pass railway…
Ports4 min read
Whittier, Alaska: The Tunnel, the Tower, and the Cruise Port
The cruise gateway to Anchorage shares its only road with a railroad, fits most of its 200 residents into one Cold-War-era apartment building, and…
World Cruises4 min read
Two World Cruises, One Pacific Crossing: Volendam vs Coral Princess
MS Volendam and Coral Princess took opposite paths around the planet, but wrapped their 2026 world voyages with the same Pacific crossing from…
Ships4 min read
MS Volendam in Kodiak: The Off-Script Alaska Port
MS Volendam called at Kodiak Island on April 24, 2026 — a rare cruise stop on Alaska's Emerald Isle, on day 110 of a 133-day Holland America world…