A cruise ship in Victoria in 2017.
Victoria set a record this year with 239 cruise ship calls this year, the largest number ever recorded in the city, the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority says.
According to the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority (GVHA), from April to October, almost 600,000 passengers and more than 239,000 crew members visited the city on the cruise ships. Last year, the city saw 224 calls and about 550,000 passengers.
“This higher number of ship calls reflects a growing interest in our city not just during the peak summer season, but in the shoulder months of late spring and early fall as well,” Ian Robertson, CEO of the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority, said in a statement.
During this cruise season, the harbour authority also welcomed the seven millionth cruise ship passenger to visit the city since the Ogden Point cruise terminal became a destination in 1978. The passenger came on the Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas in June.
Smaller cruise lines, including National Geographic’s Lindblad Expeditions, have also been making more frequent visits to Victoria and the GVHA says they expect the trend will continue as the Pacific Northwest and Alaska destinations grow in popularity.
GVHA will be building an extended mooring dolphin during the next cruise season to accommodate the new 330-metre Norwegian Bliss, which is scheduled for regular calls to Alaska via Victoria starting in June 2018.
Arrival and departure schedules are available at victoriacruise.ca.
Alexa Huffman
