Almost 1 Million Tourists Cruise Onboard in Seattle, Zero In Fort Worth

When I was up in the Pacific Northwest for a long month last summer, I spent only one day in downtown Seattle. I was at a thing called Art in the Park, in Pioneer Square. When I grew bored with the Art in the Park I took off and walked around downtown Seattle, through Pike Place Market, down to the waterfront, up to Westlake Center to ride the bus tunnel back to Pioneer Square.

I remember my first few days in Tacoma my sister remarking that Seattle had changed. That people seem to be all dressed up real nice. The grunge look had gone bye-bye.

Well, what I noticed was there were so many people wandering about, as in huge throngs. Now, Seattle has always been flooded with tourists in summer, but not like this. Pike Place was as crowded as it is around Christmas. The waterfront sidewalks were walls of people. When you live in a zone that really is not much of a tourist attraction, it is really noticeable when you're at a place that is.

I was perplexed by what appeared to be such a huge increase in the number of tourists. This morning, in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, I think I got the explanation.

Since I moved to Texas, 10 years ago, the cruise industry came to Seattle. There have always been boats to take you places, like a cruise up to Victoria, or the ferry boats across Puget Sound. But not those big cruise ships that sail the Caribbean. Since I moved, that has changed.

Both Seattle and Vancouver have become big cruise ship towns. 11 cruise ships sail out of Seattle, operated by Norwegian Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises, Holland America, Princess Cruises and Royal Caribbean. In 2008, 210 sailings brought a record 886,039 visitors to Seattle.

That is a lot of people. In 2008 Seattle led Vancouver in passenger numbers for the first time. That is likely to change. The reason being the reason the P-I had an article about Seattle cruise ships this morning.

Under the headline "Disney Cruise Lines Snubs Seattle," the article went on to say that Disney Cruise Line would launch 18 seven night cruises to Alaska on the ship Disney Wonder. And that the ships would sail from Vancouver.

Jeff James, vice-president of sales for Disney Cruise Lines, told The Vancouver Sun, "Seattle is a great port, however, we listened to our guests and believe that Vancouver will provide the experience they are asking for."

Well, I have been to both towns. I've always liked Vancouver a lot. It is very similar to Seattle, yet has some unique differences. Vancouver has a way funner Chinatown than Seattle's. Seattle now has light rail, Vancouver has had SkyTrain since around 1986. Both towns are surrounded by water and mountains, with Vancouver's mountains closer, but Seattle's bigger. Both towns have great downtowns and waterfronts. Both towns put on 2 of the most successful World's Fairs in history.

I'm thinking the best reason to sail out of Vancouver is it's closer to Alaska by about 100 miles.

I wonder if there will be any cruise ships docking at the little $1 billion lake Fort Worth thinks it is building in a project known as the Trinity River Vision? I suspect not. Maybe cruises could go from the little lake, up the unneeded flood diversion channel and back. I think Fort Worth should add a fake mountain to its fake lake. The original propaganda for the Trinity River Vision said it would turn Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South. I remember when I read that in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram thinking that that was the nuttiest thing I'd read in that paper yet. And that covers a lot of nuttiness.