“The hope is predictability and stability” – Juneau kicks off its first season with new cruise caps

• Juneau’s cruise season has started with the arrival of MS Eurodam.
• This season will be the first with Juneau’s new cruise caps of 16,000 people per day.
• Local officials say this will add stability and predictability for the small town.

The city of Juneau in Alaska has had various back and forth disputes with the cruise industry, but for now it appears to have struck some level of harmony and is now kicking off the first cruise season with new passenger limits.

Under the new rules, only 16,000 cruise passengers will be able to dock at a time, and only 12,000 on Saturdays. The population of Juneau is about 30,000 people. In previous seasons Juneau had seen upwards of 20,000 passengers on some days.

The town has also had a limit of five ships per day running since 2024.

However, the caps don’t necessarily mean less passengers will visit overall, just that cruise lines have had to make some scheduling tweaks in order to make sure the daily limit is not exceeded. A massive 1.7 million visitors are expected to pass through the small Alaskan town between now and October when the season ends.

The arrival of MS Eurodam of Holland America on April 27, 2026, marked the start of the season, and Juneau appears to feel confident in the success of the new caps in easing over-tourism concerns without limiting industry growth.

CBJ Visitor Industry Director Alix Pierce explained to Juneau radio station KTOO: “So we have a daily passenger cap of 16,000 people, with 12,000 on Saturday. And that’s down from our maximum peak days — about 21,000 passengers — and those weren’t typical. They were a couple of times a year, but that 16,000 number facilitates five ships, with kind of one to two larger ships, and requires an even distribution of people throughout the port. 

“So hopefully, the goal is that we’re able to kind of adjust to operating under those parameters. And the tour operators have a sense of predictability. The city has a sense of predictability. We kind of have a steady volume that we can work towards improving our ability to manage that volume.”

Pierce said this new system should avoid some of the particularly busy days that used to affect the town: “Honestly, I hope people don’t really feel it, that it just kind of feels normal and steady. We are not going to see the crazy, crazy, busy Tuesdays in the same way that we used to on those 20,000-passenger days.

“But other than that, really the hope is predictability, stability, trying to create a sense of, kind of normalcy with the level of tourism that we have.”

Pierce also noted that bigger changes might be felt by other towns in the region, who are seeing increased traffic and don’t have cruise caps in place.

“I think the kind of big surprise shift that doesn’t necessarily affect Juneau, because we have limits and caps, is that the rest of the region is kind of filling up and getting busier. Ketchikan is almost as busy as Juneau this year. 

“There were some rumours early on that they were actually going to have more people than Juneau, but they have slightly less than we do, which is still a real first. So, a bit of a shift for Southeast Alaska, but Juneau is kind of staying the same, which is our goal.”