According to a schedule published by Discover Kodiak on March 23, as many as 31,181 people could be visiting Kodiak by cruise ship this year. 22 different cruise ships are scheduled to come to town between late April and early October for a total of 32 port calls.
This is a 23% jump in port calls from 2025, when Kodiak had 26 cruise ship visits bringing 24,600 guests total. If all the scheduled ships arrive with max capacity this year, the city’s passenger volume will increase 26% from 2025.
Kodiak’s cruise ship numbers have gone up exponentially since 2023, when 12,600 passengers came to town according to a report from the Alaska Travel Industry Association.
According to schedules posted for other cruise ship ports, Kodiak will still probably be one of the least-visited cruise ship towns in Alaska this year.
Sabrina Hicks, the executive director of Discover Kodiak, the visitor’s bureau for the Kodiak Island Archipelag, said that cruise ships are often the gateway to getting lifelong visitors to the island.
“What we see in our office are people who are coming back to Kodiak years after coming here on a cruise ship," she said. "It's kind of this entryway into visiting where they want to see more, and they realize coming here for a few hours isn't enough, and they want to spend like, five days or a week or two weeks.”
Hicks is in her first year as the head of Discover Kodiak. She said she is excited to see how cruise ship guests enjoy some of the local fixtures, like the Kodiak Harvest Food Co-op’s new storefront in the marketplace or other shops downtown.
“We are already receiving emails from cruise ship passengers saying, ‘Hey, I'm coming in August, I'm coming in May, can you please make sure that I know where The Rookery is, because I need to go get fabrics,’ or they just want to plan," she said. "So it’s nice to see that.”
Hicks said one of the key differences from last year’s cruise ship schedule is the addition of more overnight stays. Last year, one ship stayed in Kodiak overnight. This year, there are two ships staying overnight. One, the 285-guest residential World of Residence, is staying in port for two nights, which is the first time a cruise ship will be staying in Kodiak for more than one night. According to Hicks, overnights give guests more time to spend in Kodiak, which might make them more likely to come back.
Cruise ships scheduled to visit the island this year range in size from 230 passengers onboard the Hanseatic Exploration, owned by Hapag-Loyd cruises, to 2,882 onboard the Norwegian Jade from Norwegian Cruise Lines.
The first ship, carrying 1,432 passengers, will arrive on April 24. The last ship of the season will depart Kodiak on October 6.
