Princess' Alaska Deployment for 2019

Princess has announced their Alaska deployment for 2019...

While Princess has shuffled some ships around and brought the Royal to Alaska for the 2019 season, the total capacity is basically the same as last year.

 Table showing Princess Cruises passenger capacity since 2006 (double occupancy)

	SEA	SFO	VAN	Grand Total	% Change
2006	4,030	1,950	9,384	15,364
2007	4,648	2,014	10,054	16,716	8.8%
2008	5,228	2,014	10,054	17,296	3.5%
2009	5,228	2,014	9,384	16,626	-3.9%
2010	5,980	2,014	6,706	14,700	-11.6%
2011	5,310	2,014	6,706	14,030	-4.6%
2012	5,228	2,014	9,384	16,626	18.5%
2013	5,228	2,602	9,384	17,214	3.5%
2014	5,234	2,596	7,946	15,776	-8.4%
2015	6,122	2,632	10,082	18,836	19.4%
2016	6,122	2,602	6,810	15,534	-17.5%
2017	6,126	2,602	6,810	15,538	0.0%
2018	6,126	2,602	9,442	18,170	16.9%
2019	5,656	2,602	10,406	18,664	2.7%

The devil is in the details however with Seattle actually losing a good amount of capacity.  Much of this could be pegged on the Royal cruising from Vancouver for the first time and the Star replacing the Emerald out of Seattle resulting in a 7.5% capacity drop - taking capacity numbers almost back to 2014.

Here's the information visualized.

As you can probably see, this is the first year in a while that Seattle capacity has dropped.

One of the really interesting things is just how crowded Canada Place will be in 2019 with ships AND pax up.  Canada Place was designed in the early 80s for considerably smaller ships will take on more and more loads, more frequently.  And with the Ballantyne pier (overflow) port closed to cruise access as of the beginning of 2017, Canada place is going to get very crowded.  While the port can handle the size of these ships, the traffic circulation and overall size of the facility struggles with just one 3000 passenger ship doing a turn around.

Our outlook for the 2019 season is higher prices for Seattle combined with lower prices from Vancouver - particularly on the roundtrip Vancouver sailings, which have shown as a better alternative to RT Seattle sailings.  This of course is not a positive change for Victoria who has also seen reduced passenger counts from HAL.  HAL is currently down to one signature class and one R class vessel each week with a bi-weekly visit from the Zaandam.  Time will tell how all these adjustments affect prices in the region.