Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Splendor

We get cruise ships visiting the city throughout the summer, but activity really picks up in mid-September. These days it's time for the big ships. This past week alone we've been invaded. Eight ships in port this week bringing in 12,000 passengers, including the
Norwegian Dawn, Explorer of the Seas, Brilliance of the Seas, Carnival Spendor and Eurodam of the Holland America line. Overall passenger visits are up 15% this year with 82,000 total tourists visiting the popular spots around the city and southern Maine hotspots. Yesterday, wasn't the best Maine tourism day. Thanks to light rain falling throughout the morning and gray skies filling the rest of the day, our guests were piling out of the Carnival Spendor early in their blue Splendor rain slickers. Now, here's the number that counts. Each passenger, who steps foot in the city, drops on the average $200 bucks.
It really is all about the Benjamins!

18 comments:

  1. When we used to live in Mazatlán during the winter, one of my pleasures was watching the docking of those huge ships and the tourists as they raced off the ship to sample the wares of the city. Despite knowing all the economic advantages, I can't help but worry about the environmental damage of those cruise ships. I hope that your city has tended carefully to avoid that.

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  2. geez, louise! a floating city just parked in your spot!

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  3. What a great photo! That ship looks like it's parked in the parking lot between those two buildings.

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  4. That's an awful lot of dollars Birdman.. very good for the city, shame about the tourists that come with those dollars :)

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  5. Same thing here : people shared between the fact to stay quiet and the fact to earn money ..

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  6. The port looks a little overwhelmed by that ship.

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  7. Probably some of these ships are back from the Mediterranean. I know that a few spend the summer here, then go back to the warmer waters of the gulf of Mexico...

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  8. Norweigan Dawn's a good name for a ship.

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  9. I knew that Portland hosted a lot of cruise ships, but those numbers are far more than I expected. It must add a lot to the local economy.

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  10. Like Jack, I didn't realize so many cruise ships docked in your city.

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  11. Phew! Those cruise ships are s-o-o-o big! Sequim's neighbor, Port Angeles, has worked to get some of these monsters to stop in a while on the Olympic Peninsula on their way to or from Alaska. A few smaller ones have. The City fathers have been tickled pink to have the tourists roaming around. The ones that go by on the the Strait have to stop for local pilots. They're so big and cumbersome it's hard to think of them as ships.

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  12. Wow,I had no idea!! You need to figure out a way to join in the bonanza and get your share of the $200.

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  13. Holy bleep, it looks like that ship is running right up onto the street.

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  14. I had no idea either! We love tourists down here in Florida. It's why we have no state income tax!

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  15. A Godzilla ship! :-) Great capture.

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