PORT ANGELES — More than 1,800 visitors are expected to dock in Port Angeles on Wednesday when the Holland America Line cruise ship ms Oosterdam makes a Port Angeles visit, the first cruise ship visit in two years.
As in past cruise ship stops, the tourists will be greeted at Terminal 1 adjacent to Westport Shipyards by volunteers who will direct them to shuttles for shopping and cultural tours of Port Angeles.
The ship is expected to dock at 10 a.m., and depart at 11 p.m.
Lower Elwha Klallam dancers will present a welcoming ceremony reminiscent of the annual canoe journeys, said Mary Brelsford, communications manager for the Olympic Peninsula Visitors Bureau.
Ship’s officers will issue a formal request to come ashore and passengers and crew will be welcomed with song and dance.
Many Port Angeles downtown businesses will offer extended hours to welcome the hundreds of visitors that will come in on the ship, said Barb Frederick, executive director of the Port Angeles Downtown Association.
“We will offer our usual Port Angeles hospitality,” Frederick said.
The visit is part of the ship’s relocation from Hawaii, the base for its winter cruise schedule, to Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, for its summer schedule of cruises to British Columbia and Alaska, said Erik Elvejord, spokesman for Holland America, speaking from the company’s Seattle office.
The Oosterdam is 950-feet long, has a capacity of 1,848 passengers on 11 passenger decks, one of the larger ships in the Holland America fleet.
The cruise is overbooked, so the cruise line expects to have a full complement of passengers when it pulls into Port Angeles.
Elvejord expects at least half of the passengers on the ship to get off to see the sights.
While people living nearby — in Seattle and other Pacific Northwest locations — may not see the attraction of Port Angeles as a cruise destination, passengers from other parts of the world see it differently, Elvejord said.
“It’s different, a new image,” he said. “It’s logging, history, Lewis and Clark.”
Off-duty crew members also will be on the streets, eager to do some shopping and other shore activities not available on the ship, he said.
Cultural tours will leave from the dock beginning at noon.
They will take passengers and crew members to the Lower Elwha Klallam Heritage Center, Olympic National Park Visitor Center, the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center— with a guided tour through Webster’s Woods at 2 p.m. — as well as the Carnegie Museum and the Port Angeles Library.
The Lower Elwha will operate a shuttle from the dock to its casino, Brelsford said.
Shopping Shuttles will begin transporting passengers at 10:30 a.m. from the port’s docks to the Conrad Dyar Memorial Fountain at Laurel and First streets and the Port Angeles Visitor’s Center at 121 E. Railroad Ave.
“We’re hoping for good weather so they can see the Peninsula in all its glory,” Frederick said.
Downtown Port Angeles will be decorated with balloons, said Frederick, and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., The Gateway transit center’s public square will host vendors and live music by Charlie Ferris, Twisted Roots, and Sarah Shea.
Special Gateway presentations will include one at 1 p.m. by Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center volunteers and another at 3 p.m., when a representative of the Olympic National park will speak about what the park has to offer.
A special wine and beer garden — for cruise ship passengers and crew only — also is planned at The Gateway, the only activity not open to the general public.
On nearby City Pier, the Arthur D. Feiro Marine Life Center will be open from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m.
Brelsford said that a map is in the works for a ‘pub crawl,” a self-guided tour of local brew pubs.
At 1 p.m., the Heritage Center at 401 E. First St., will host First People of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, “an in-depth tour of the history, culture and traditions of the Elwha Klallam People.”
The afternoon of storytelling oral history and demonstrations will cost $40, with tickets available at the dock and at the door.
Advance tickets can be purchased at http://nwperformingarts.com/
At 8 p.m. the Heritage Center will host Voice of the Peninsula, a free open reading by members of the community, including members of the Indian Voice Group.
The cruise line has scheduled several excursions so that passengers can visit Hurricane Ridge, Lake Crescent and Marymere Falls or take a tour of the Olympic Cellars, Camaraderie Cellars, and Harbinger wineries.
A second cruise ship is expected next month.
On May 11, the Oosterdam’s sister ship, the ms Zuiderdam, carrying up to 2,272 passengers on their way to Hawaii from Seattle, will be the second ship to visit.
A third ship may visit Port Angeles this fall, Elvejord said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345 ext. 5070 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or at leah.leach@peninsuladailynews.com.
