Two cruise lines had to find other ways for passengers to rejoin their ships after a landslide in Yukon, Alaska, blocked their route back.
Yukon Highways and Public Works said the landslide occurred on the South Klondike Highway last Tuesday, leaving debris 120 to 160 yards wide and 22 yards high. Rock and earth covered both lanes, including a section of the railroad track operated by the Yukon Route Railway.
When local officials temporarily shut down 50 miles of road, around 150 passengers from Holland America Line’s (HAL) MS Koningsdam and 20 guests from Princess Cruises’ Discovery Princess found themselves stranded on the other side, unable to return to their vessels.
The tourists had earlier disembarked from their cruise ships at Skagway, Alaska, and were looking forward to touring Carcross, a community in Yukon, Canada, approximately 65 miles away.
| Efforts to clear the road have been progressing slowly due to continuous rain and safety concerns. “There have been some delays in the progress to reopen the road because the weather conditions and the risk of further slides prevents that,” Antoine Goulet from Highways and Public Works informed CBC/Radio-Canada. Work crews estimate they will have a single lane cleared by Friday at the earliest. |
Holland America and Princess Cruises get Creative
To help their guests rejoin their cruise ships, Holland America and Princess Cruises coordinated with authorities onshore and arranged buses to take them to a different pick-up area. Canadian and US officials kept the borders open so the passengers could re-enter Alaska and proceed to Haines where tender boats would take them to MS Koningsdam.
All the passengers arrived at the new meet-up point the following day. On Wednesday, HAL Vice President of Public Relations said, “The good news is that as of about 4:30 a.m. this morning Alaska time, everyone was back on the ship.”
Guests who weren’t part of the original Koningsdam cruise spent the night onboard. Coincidentally, Koningsdam and Discovery had scheduled visits to Ketchikan on Wednesday, July 25, allowing Discovery’s 20 passengers to catch up with their cruise.
The parent company, Carnival Corporation, owns HAL and Princess Cruises.
In early 2023, Skagway’s local government enacted measures to keep the local cruise port, Railroad Dock, safe from landslides.
