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Hello all,
This past Monday, August 14th, Princess Cruise Lines conducted an information forum at the American Revolution Museum regarding their plans to visit Yorktown starting next year. During this forum, they shared with the audience information on the cruise line and its history. Various Princess Cruise Lines representatives, including their president, also provided details on their planned two year pilot program. Below are the notes I captured that summarizes what I heard that evening.
- Princess invited an estimated 100+ individuals to the forum based on a quick scan of the room. In attendance I noticed:
- Other Board members
- County staff officials
- Candidates for local office
- Local waterfront business owners
- Multiple county residents - many from historic Yorktown but from elsewhere in the county as well
- They plan on visiting Yorktown three times in 2024 and 5 times in 2025.
- The visits will be part of a new history-based tour package catering to guests that want to travel via ship to visit locations of historical significance.
- Visits will occur during the weekdays. Their ship will arrive in the morning and depart in the afternoon/evening.
- Their ship will anchor at a Coast Guard designated anchorage in the river south of Quarter Point in Gloucester - that should put the ship about a 1.5 miles away from our waterfront.
- According to Princess, this anchorage was used by US Navy vessels in WWII so that should place the ship's anchors well outside any known Revolutionary-era shipwrecks.
- The ship will not be docking at our pier and it will not be passing under the Coleman bridge.
- Passengers will access Yorktown via shipborne tenders with only one tender docked at our pier at a time.
- The ship's passenger capacity is 2000 - 2200.
- Princess shared that in their experience they typically see:
- A third of the passengers stay onboard the ship at a given port
- A third will get off the ship and stay around the port town
- A third will get off the ship and travel to a nearby excursion
- Passengers with plans to travel outside of Yorktown will do so via coaches that will be staged at either the American Revolution Museum or the Watermen's Museum.
- Princess Cruise Lines' president and Sustainability Ambassador discussed concerns regarding the ship's potential environmental impacts and how they have controls in place to mitigate them.
After the information sharing presentation, several breakout sessions were positioned in different areas of the room to provide guests access to Princess representatives and county staff for a question-and-answer period. I moved between those sessions while speaking to multiple county residents to help with the Q-and-A.
For the most part, what I heard Monday night was a confirmation of the information I had been receiving up to that point. I'm glad I didn't hear any surprises that evening and that we now have solid details on Princess' plans. The only thing I learned that was somewhat different was the anchorage location. I had shared with some of you that the anchorage would be closer to the refinery instead of the location south of Quarter Point. Regardless, the anchorage still places the ship a substantial distance from our waterfront.
The forum was recorded and it should be posted in the next day or two at our Princess Cruise Line information portal. Everyone should be able to watch the entire presentation there. This portal will also serve as an information conduit where we will collect and share all the information we receive regarding the pilot program.
Ever since Princess Cruise Lines informed us of their plans to visit Yorktown, we've been hard at work to understand what that means for the county and what we would need to do to be ready for when the first ship arrives. There is much we need to learn and do between now and next year.
Regarding the number of ship's passengers; I'm confident that we can accommodate the volume of cruise ship guests we'll see each visit since we often host significantly more people at the waterfront during some of our spring and summer events. With the added benefit of no additional vehicular traffic from the cruise ship guests. Also, Princess Cruise Lines is very efficient at moving their passengers to destinations so I don't anticipate much difficulty in the tender or motor coach traffic.
There are two potential major benefits in Princess Cruise Lines choosing to add Yorktown as one of their new ports.
- Having guests from around the country/world visit our home will give us the opportunity to share our history and culture with a broader audience than ever before. In my professional life I'm privileged to work with team members from across the US, England, central Europe and India. I brag about our home any chance I get but most people I speak with simply aren't familiar with Yorktown. Which is unfortunate considering the incredibly important events that occurred here. Each new guest will allow us to shine a brighter light on what makes York County special.
- There is a great potential that the cruise ships and their guests will create a significant economic benefit for our local restaurants, shops and businesses. We are still exploring what exactly those benefits could amount to but what we've learned so far appear promising.
Regardless of the possible benefits, the Board and county staff will need to diligently ensure the cruise lines' visits are overall a positive experience for York County. That our marine environment doesn't suffer, our unique culture and character isn't disturbed and that the economic benefits outweigh the costs. If at the end of this pilot program we find that the visits are not advantageous to York County then we will need to ask Princess Cruise Lines to consider other ports. However, I am very optimistic that we can make this work to our benefit and I am excited to see what can come from this new opportunity.
As always, please let me know if you have any questions.
Best regards,
Stephen
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