Saint John’s 29th Cruise Season Kicks Off Thursday
SAINT JOHN – A very busy cruise season is kicking off in Saint John this week.
The Holland America Line’s ship Veendam will be starting Port Saint John’s 29th cruise season this Thursday, bringing around 1,200 guests to the city.
Port Saint John CEO Jim Quinn says this year’s season has had one of the earliest starts the port has had.
“With last week’s snow, we had our fingers crossed that we wouldn’t have snow to greet passengers coming in on a cruise ship, so Mother Nature has helped us,” says Quinn.
“Getting the season underway earlier is good because we’ve been working so hard to promote our summer season amongst the cruise lines and things of that nature to boost business and to help contribute to that overall building of our New Brunswick economy.”
The rest of the season includes:
- One inaugural call (Vision of the Seas on September 14)
- 12 double cruise ship days (September 5, 12, 13, 19, 20, 21, and 26 / October 5, 10, 16, 18, and 19)
- Four triple cruise ship days (September 27 / October 4, 11, and 17)
- The return of Disney Cruise Line again for 2017 on two occasions (September 30 and October 4); and
- Anthem of the Seas, the largest cruise ship to call Port Saint John to date, will call four times (September 5, September 19, October 5, and October 19)
Much like 2016, this year’s season will be a busy one for business in uptown Saint John.
“It’s going to be certainly keeping our vendors busy, our uptown restaurants and stores. We’ll see a good volume of people. We have approximately 145,000 passengers and 50,000 crew coming in,” says Quinn. “Those folks use our services and I’m so excited for all those folks who are service providers and it will be a good season for them and a good season for the port.”
The cruise industry in Saint John contributes around $25 million annually to New Brunswick’s economy.
“The last study that was done was that average passenger contributes around $80 per person to the economy,” says Quinn. “For a crew member, they estimate about half of that for a crew member, so it’s a significant impact on our economy.”