Alaska's cruise demand has surged so much since the pandemic that the state's marquee port has tapped the brakes on growth. In addition to a five-ship cap implemented this year, Juneau government officials struck a deal with cruise lines this spring to limit lower berths (a measurement based on a ship's double occupancy) to 16,000 per day and 12,000 on Saturdays beginning in 2026. Robert Morgenstern, senior vice president of Carnival Corp.'s Alaska operations, spoke with cruise editor Andrea Zelinski about how the company plans to navigate that cap while also planning for growth.
Robert Morgenstern
Q: How is Carnival handling these limits?
A: We're OK with the cap. Based on our known deployment, there's some headroom; we're not up against those numbers. There are days of the week when we're well short of those numbers, and there's still some room for growth. If this cap system were to stay in place and you project out, at some point people are going to have to figure out alternatives to Juneau, right? That's just basic math.
Q: What alternative ports are you looking at?
A: We're excited about Port Klawock, because I think that's going to fill a need, for sure. There's been a renewed interest in having ships in Prince Rupert (a Canadian port city), and so they've been working hard on developing more shore excursions and a better off-the-ship experience for guests: self-guided walking tours, a trolley system, those kinds of things. So that's probably a good example of where there was an intentional decision made by city leadership to say, "Hey, we want ships back, and what are the things we need to do."
Q: What are you looking for from these ports?
A: It's one thing to have a dock or a berth or an anchorage and welcome ships. But if guests get off and there's nothing to do or there's no way to get to the cool things, it's a problem, right? Often the next dialogue is, do you have a bus company? If not, can we get one of the existing companies to move some equipment there to help out? Because you have to transfer people to the cool thing you have, whether it be a museum or an attraction, a flight or a boat or whatever. If you don't have something to start with, then cruise lines are like, "Oh, what are my passengers going do for six hours or eight hours in port?" That's really the kind of specificity of the dialogue we have with the destinations.
Q: What is the future for Alaska cruising?
A: It'll definitely remain a top destination; I have no doubt about it. I think to the degree that their climate continues to change, and there's just much more awareness and culture about special places like Alaska, it's going to drive the desire to go there. I don't have any concerns about its durability and demand in the long run. I think the fundamental question around growth is about infrastructure.
In the two primary homeports, Seattle and Vancouver, there's still room for growth in the middle of the week. The problem is Juneau is pretty full. Skagway is pretty full. Ketchikan is pretty full. It's getting harder without these other ports developing to put together a commercially viable itinerary that we'd want to buy. I think there needs to be new opportunities for places to go to support the growth.
Q: What other opportunities are out there?
A: I think we'll continue to see more and more of the longer programs developing. We've had a lot of success with them, and a lot of it is repeat passengers. Alaska is more and more becoming a repeat location, and the longer programs appeal to people who are coming back and saying, "Well, I've been to port A, B and C, but I want to go see something different I didn't see last time."