Businesses in Valdez still reeling after major cruise ship pulls out

VALDEZ, Alaska (KTUU) – Norwegian Cruise Line’s decision to pull its ship, the Norwegian Spirit, from calling in Valdez for the rest of the season has taken many in the Prince William Sound community by surprise. Interim City Manager Nathan Duval said the city got word late Monday night the ship would not be returning.

“There had been some rumors that we had heard; we hadn’t heard anything official,” Duval said. “So we reached out and asked specifically, ‘Hey, are you guys going to be coming back on Thursday?’ And that’s where we got the official word that they weren’t going to be coming back on Thursday.”

With three days notice and no explanation, Norwegian Cruise Line pulled its ship the Norwegian Spirit from the Valdez Port for the rest of the season, taking with it the 15,000 visitors that were expected to visit the port city this summer. Duval said the Norwegian Spirit wasn’t the only ship scheduled to visit Valdez, but it was the largest, and the impacts are already being felt.

“We’ve got some folks who started up new businesses to cater to these endeavors and they are going to be hurting,” he said.

One of them is Brian Rhodes. Rhodes purchased a new tour bus for his business Keystone Tours offering sightseeing trips to glaciers and waterfalls just outside of town. He said he was fully booked with passengers from the Norwegian Spirit when he got the news. Now he’s in the hole for sending out thousands of dollars in refunds.

“I have to refund hundreds of people, tens of thousands of dollars over the course of the next 60 to 90 days,” he said.

Rhodes called the blow devastating, but others are experiencing losses too. Colleen Stephens, owner of Stephens Cruises, said the company put one of their sightseeing ships on reserve at the request of the cruise line, specifically for Norwegian passengers. Now, she said, the ship isn’t going anywhere during that time.

“The impacts are we now have 11 mornings in which we have no departures scheduled,” she said.

Another business owner said he feels both deceived and angry over the cruise line’s decision.

“They could have given us two or three months’ notice, or a month or a few weeks, but three days?” questioned Jim McCay, owner of Valdez Stay and Play.

McCay said he and his wife have invested more than $100,000 dollars beefing up their tour business with new vehicles they aren’t sure they can keep. He said they’ve already had to lay off workers when they realized visitors they were promised won’t be coming.

“Ninety percent of what was to come is now gone,” McCay said. “So whatever we had this season, that’s it, and our season is another two and a half months long so we’ve got to fall back on other stuff.”

Interim City Manager Duval said the city has yet to receive an explanation from the cruise line as to why it pulled out but added that the company did tell them some months ago that it wouldn’t be returning for the 2024 season.

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