Cruise Town

This year, cruise ship passengers to Juneau, Alaska, outnumbered local residents 35 to 1. Cruise Town is a podcast from KTOO News. It’s about how Juneau became a Cruise Town, what it’s like to live in a Cruise Town and what the city’s future holds in light of the industry’s explosive growth.

Season 3, Episode 1: 'Cruise ships are back, baby!' 07/21/2021

Season 3, Episode 1: 'Cruise ships are back, baby!' For more than six months, Alaska’ cruise towns have been staying hopeful for cruise ships to return, but also realistic about the fact that getting around Canada's border closure and the CDC's strict rules seemed pretty much impossible. We're back with a new season of Cruise Town because -- spoiler alert -- large cruise ships are coming back to Alaska in July. /episode/index/show/ktoojuneau/id/19888379

Season 2, Episode 4: The season that wasn't 12/31/2020

Season 2, Episode 4: The season that wasn't This summer was slated to be Juneau’s biggest ever for cruise ship visitors. Instead, 1.4 million cruise ship passengers and hundreds of millions of dollars never arrived in port. In May, we couldn’t imagine what an entire year of off-season would be like. It ended up feeling like summer never came. But, how bad was it? Will the industry bounce back? Will Juneau bounce back? We discuss the cruise season that wasn’t and what Cruise Towns might expect for next year. /episode/index/show/ktoojuneau/id/17375693

Season 2, Episode 3: Uncruise 08/11/2020

Season 2, Episode 3: Uncruise Since this spring, we’ve been following along as the biggest cruise season in Juneau’s history got canceled. In August, Juneau did see some cruise visitors after all. But it was a far cry from the 1.4 million visitors we were expecting -- it was 36 to be exact. The first and only cruise ship to sail in Southeast Alaska during the pandemic left Juneau on Aug. 1st and returned to Juneau just four days later, after a passenger on the ship received a call that he had tested positive for COVID-19. /episode/index/show/ktoojuneau/id/15577100

Season 2, Episode 2: What's in a plan? 07/29/2020

Season 2, Episode 2: What's in a plan? For the past several months, it’s been a lot of “will they or won’t they” with regard to the cruise industry coming to Alaska this year. And now that it’s clear that they won’t, cruise towns in southeast Alaska are thinking about next year. The hope is that by the time April rolls around, the pandemic will be on its way out or cruise ship companies will at least have figured out how to operate safely despite it. /episode/index/show/ktoojuneau/id/15393158

Season 2, Episode 1: They're Not Coming 06/17/2020

Season 2, Episode 1: They're Not Coming A lot about Juneau’s future is up in the air still, but one thing is certain now: more than a million cruise ship passengers will not be coming to town this summer. Local businesses are already struggling to get by without tourists. By next year, Juneau could look like a very different place. It all depends on how the industry, and the world, recovers from COVID-19 and its economic fallout. /episode/index/show/ktoojuneau/id/14863925

Episode 6: Five Stars 03/25/2020

Episode 6: Five Stars An Alaska cruise is all about the scenery. And Juneau doesn’t disappoint. There’s a glacier in town and some of the best whale-watching in the world. But, this episode is about how Alaska can make some people squirm. Because climate change is so in-your-face here. And at some point, tourism is just going to be too much, but no one knows when exactly that’s going to happen. And some people worry that we’re not going to know that it’s happened until it’s way too late to stop it. /episode/index/show/ktoojuneau/id/13704497

Episode 5: We Almost Lost Yanni 12/03/2019

Episode 5: We Almost Lost Yanni Safety at sea is serious business. And as the industry continues its explosive growth in Juneau, safety concerns are at the top of everyone’s list. In this episode, we ask what’s the worst thing that could happen? And we talk to the people who have thought about how to prepare for it. /episode/index/show/ktoojuneau/id/12270800

Episode 4: The Weight of the World 11/27/2019

Episode 4: The Weight of the World What we know as Juneau has been the home of the Aak’w Kwaan since time immemorial. Some cruise ship tourists are curious about the people who were here long before Cruise Town and long before Juneau. In this episode, we’ll meet the cultural interpreters with the difficult task of explaining their history, their culture, their art — their existence — to someone who just got off a cruise ship. /episode/index/show/ktoojuneau/id/12195965

Episode 3: Camp Cruise Town 11/20/2019

Episode 3: Camp Cruise Town Juneauites are a lot like whales. Some are year-round residents -- enduring or even thriving during the cold and wet off-season. But some migrate in for the summer -- making a splash when they arrive and then leaving again, chasing prey or love or something else equally magnetic. On this episode, we’ll meet some of the year-round and part-time residents of Cruise Town. /episode/index/show/ktoojuneau/id/12107303

Episode 2: The Whale and the Head Tax 11/13/2019

Episode 2: The Whale and the Head Tax Juneau has a new park featuring a life-size statue of a humpback whale breaching from a reflecting pool, complete with water works. The statue was privately funded, but the park where it lives was almost entirely paid for by a controversial per-person tax on cruise ship passengers. It was one of the first taxes of its kind and the cruise industry actually sued the city over it. /episode/index/show/ktoojuneau/id/12017231

Episode 1: The Making of a Cruise Town 11/06/2019

Episode 1: The Making of a Cruise Town On this episode, we go back -- not to the 1880s when Juneau was founded and steamships started coming north, but to the 1980s when Juneau made a conscious decision to change its destiny. We meet two people who were there when an old mining town sold its history and transformed itself into Cruise Town. /episode/index/show/ktoojuneau/id/11925410

Coming this November: Cruise Town 10/22/2019

Coming this November: Cruise Town This year, cruise ship passengers outnumbered local residents in Juneau 35 to 1. That’s why the KTOO news team is making a podcast about how we got here, what it’s like to live here and what the city’s future holds in light of the industry’s explosive growth. /episode/index/show/ktoojuneau/id/11744432

Cruise Town

TOPICS