The first big cruise ship of the season tied up in Juneau on Sunday morning.
It was the Ruby Princess’ first of 20 scheduled visits this season. Its combined crew and passenger capacity tops 4,000.
The Yées Ḵu.oo dance group and Travel Juneau’s Vicki Logan, armed with a stack of walking maps, were among the many locals greeting the ship and its disembarking passengers.
“Welcome to Juneau, so glad you’re here. Welcome. Would you like a walking map?” Logan said, hundreds of times.
The 12-day cruise began in Los Angeles. It’s Freddie Quevedo’s second cruise to Alaska.
“The first time that we came in here, there were no glaciers at the time, because we came (in) late September,” Quevedo said. “So we’re here just to see those glaciers.”
The glaciers are here year-round, of course. He rephrased and said he didn’t see any glaciers last time. For this trip, the Angeleno said he was hoping to take a helicopter ride and walk on a glacier.
The last ship of the season, the Norwegian Jewel, is scheduled to arrive on Oct. 2.
Jeremy Hsieh is the deputy managing editor of the KTOO newsroom in Juneau. He’s a podcast fiend who’s worked in journalism since high school as a reporter, editor and television producer. He ran Gavel Alaska for 360 North from 2011 to 2016, and is big on experimenting with novel tools and mediums (including the occasional animated gif) to tell stories and demystify the news. Jeremy’s an East Coast transplant who moved to Juneau in 2008.
