More and larger cruise ships, with passenger numbers that are more than three times the city’s population, are scheduled to arrive in Eastport this year. While the visits are spread out more than during this past year, with a few in July and August, some residents and business owners are now wondering whether the small island city is hosting too many ships with too many passengers.
The visits this year will be by cruise ships that range all the way up to the 1,082-foot Majestic Princess, with 4,450 guests. That’s the same size, but more passengers, than the largest ship this past year, the Enchanted Princess, with nearly 3,500 guests. The driver for much of the greater interest in Eastport by the cruise ship lines is the 1,000-passenger-a-day cap that Bar Harbor has imposed on ships visiting there.
During the past year, eight cruise ships with more than 7,000 passengers visited the island city. In November, the number scheduled for the coming year was 16, with 26,000 passengers. Now that figure has jumped again, to 23 ships, with a total of 55,000 passengers, with that number also subject to change. Most of the ships will be docked at the breakwater, with perhaps a third at anchor in the bay.
“The numbers are growing, but we’ve expanded our season,” Chris Gardner, executive director of the Eastport Port Authority, said in response to concerns about the increase. “There are now cruise ships in all the months of the season. That’s a first for us.” He pointed out that 17 ships came in 2022 and that all but two were in port after mid-September. This coming year the ships will be visiting from April through October.
Gardner added, “Regardless of the number of ships we want to come, we’re not a multiple-cruise-ships-a-day port, and we will never be.” While Bar Harbor and Portland may have more than one cruise ship on a particular day, Gardner said the Eastport Port Authority is committed to having only one vessel at a time, and he said the port authority has refused requests that would mean multiple ships on the same day.
Also, he said, “We won’t see anything larger than the Enchanted Princess,” pointing out that the port authority has since learned about how to better manage that number of passengers on the breakwater and in the downtown area. And he states that cruise ships with 5,000 to 6,000 passengers will not be coming to Eastport. “We want to see the impact on the downtown to be metered.” He noted that the passengers are mostly in the area from the breakwater to the fisherman statue and that they don’t all “hit the ground at once.”
“We will work with the downtown community and the city to make it fit for the community,” he said, adding that the port authority has spoken with the Eastport Area Chamber of Commerce and business owners about the impacts of the cruise ships.
Noting that Eastport doesn’t want to become like Bar Harbor, he pointed out that town’s downtown is packed whether there is a cruise ship there or not. Eastport is dependent on tourism, but he said, “We don’t want a Fourth of July every weekend.” And he observes that bringing 3,000 visitors to town would result in a great deal of congestion if they came by vehicles. But with cruise ships, there are no vehicles and “by 6 o’clock you can fire a cannon down Main Street and not hit a soul.” He added, “If you wait until 6 p.m. you will still have a seat at the bar and the two seats next to you will be empty.”
The cruise ships, though, allow the city to market itself, and some passengers may come back to live in Eastport. “It’s the best of both worlds right now,” he said.
In handling requests from cruise ships, he said the port authority will be mindful of what is going on in the community at different times, so the visits do not conflict with an event like the Pirate Festival. “We want to be an augmenter, not something that overtakes us. And the messaging will be key. He have to hear and address any concerns — any real concerns, not just burn it down for the sake of burning it down.”
He said the city’s economy depends on tourism, fishing and the cargo pier, and all three must remain healthy. The cruise ships help pay for the city’s infrastructure and allow the port authority to be financially solvent. “It helps us maintain all of our infrastructure,” including the cargo terminal at Estes Head. He noted that the port authority is still paying off the loan for rebuilding the breakwater, which has had “zero impact on property taxes.”
According to the $1.2 million budget for next year that the port authority board approved at its Dec. 16 meeting, cruise ships will bring in an estimated $360,000 in revenue to the port authority, with the potential “for another couple of hundred thousand dollars,” Gardner said. The port authority charges $10 per passenger, along with a dockage rate of $3 a foot per day and $45 per hour for security.
Among the port authority’s expenses for handling the cruise ships are a new 80-foot ramp that will be installed at the breakwater’s inner basin in the coming months and an expansion of Internet capabilities to serve the needs of U.S. Customs and Border Protection when clearing the passengers on the ships. The port authority will be contracting with GreenMark IT LLC in Presque Isle to not only cover website hosting but also provide IT service so that CBP can have broadband connection not only at the breakwater but also out on the bay. The cost will be a couple hundred dollars more a month than what the port authority has been paying for IT services. In addition, the port authority has formally engaged with regional partners at Campobello and Saint John for cruise marketing and planning.
While the port authority’s focus has become more on cruise ships, Gardner said, “We’re still a cargo port,” although the volume has dropped in recent years. Last year, the wood pulp tonnage shipped through the cargo terminal was about 75,000 metric tons. But he said, “I think that cargo is making a rebound.” The budget for next year includes 90,000 tons of cargo being shipped through the port, and Gardner has a goal to top 100,000.
“The port authority has weathered the COVID storm, and the strength to maintain our waterfront assets is returning,” he said. Of the cruise ships coming to Eastport, he stated, “Before it was about growth. Now it’s about management. We will now only take what works for us.”
