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2010 tourist season kicks off as cruise ships arrive Published: 05/06/2010 18:25:00 The two-thousand and ten tourist season kicked off in Juneau on Tuesday when NCL’s Norwegian Pearl, the first cruise ship of the year, arrived in town at 8am. The boat was met on the chilly morning by a group of Dock Reps, Tour Operators, and other companies and organizations ready to welcome the visitors to town. One of the tour companies is M&M Tours, who has 17 employees ready to serve the tourists. Mike Cummings, Owner of M&M Tours told us about their preparations. “We do a 3 hour tour of Juneau. We do a tour basically in a 15 passenger van that goes through the city; we take you out to the Glacier, and then we go all the way out to the Shrine of St. Therese. We are the only ground tour that goes that far. And we charge $45 for that. So we’ve got our vans all top shape, got all new signs, ready for the season to start, so we are looking forward to them unloading. Also have whale watching, with Whale Tales; we have a little 6-pack, brand new catamaran - it’s a C-dory - and we do a 3 hour tour in that, we guarantee them to see whales. So that’s another item we have to offer, we basically sell all the tours here in town; all the helicopters, float planes. You name it, we sell it. We are out here looking for a good season again.” Another company, Juneau Tours, has also developed a new product for this season; A Jet-Ski whale-watching “adventure” operating out of Auke Bay under the guidance of a former Coast Guard member. Monty Tuha of Juneau Tours elaborated: “It’s gonna be just a tour that takes them out, they’re gonna get fully set up in full dry suits, they’re gonna go out on the water. And depending on their level of experience, they’re gonna go out, and go out by the whales kinda, they can get out close for some photo ops. Pretty amazing stuff.” Five hundred and fifteen ships, with a total capacity of eight hundred and twelve thousand visitors are scheduled to visit Juneau this summer. http://www.traveljuneau.com/ By: Mikko Wilson - mikko@kath.tv |