Aug. 31, 2025 at 6:00 am Updated Aug. 31, 2025 at 6:01 am
The Norwegian Joy cruise ship docked at Seattle’s Pier 66 in June after passengers disembarked. The ship had just returned from Alaska after sailing the Inside Passage. (Ken Lambert / The Seattle Times)
The Norwegian Joy cruise ship docked at Seattle’s Pier 66 in June after passengers disembarked. The ship had just returned from Alaska after sailing the Inside Passage. (Ken Lambert / The Seattle Times)
Seattle Times columnist
If a cruise, especially one to Alaska, is your idea of a dream vacation, the Seattle area is one of the most convenient places to live.
According to the Port of Seattle, we’ve grown into the No. 1 cruise-ship port on the West Coast by number of passengers. And there are expected to be 298 sailings from Seattle’s three cruise-ship terminals during the Alaska cruise season, which is from April to October.
But while many people dream of a cruise vacation, for others, being stuck for days on a massive ship in the middle of the ocean sounds more like a nightmare. And some new data suggests that if you live in the Seattle area, there’s a good chance your dream vacation is something other than a cruise.
According to survey data from market-research giant Nielsen, around 17% of Seattle-area residents have taken a cruise vacation in the past three years. That ranked Seattle 39th among the 50 largest market areas in the nation. We effectively tied with Portland, also at 17%. All the markets with a lower share of cruise-ship vacationers were landlocked areas far from a port. The lowest percentage was in Milwaukee, at around 13%.
Seattle ranks low for cruise vacationers
Despite being one of the nation’s major cruise ship ports, Seattle only ranked 39th for the percentage of adults who have taken a cruise vacation in the past three years among the 50 largest U.S. market areas.
Source: Nielsen Prime Lingo (Reporting by Gene Balk, graphic by Mark Nowlin / The Seattle Times)
Some areas far from a port still had a much higher percentage of cruise vacationers than Seattle. For example, in both Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, around 26% of adults had taken a cruise vacation in the past three years.
Florida was at the other end of the spectrum, with the top three markets all in the Sunshine State. Orlando was No. 1, with 39% of adults having taken a cruise in the past 12 months, followed by Miami at 37% and Tampa at 36%.
Florida is known as the cruise ship capital of the U.S. Many people travel to Florida to embark on a cruise, but the data shows Florida residents are also quite fond of a cruise vacation, and take advantage of living near a port.
A separate Nielsen survey question asked if respondents were planning to take a cruise in the next 12 months, and again, Seattle ranked 39th out of 50, at around 13%. Seattle effectively tied with Portland here too, also at around 13%. All the markets with a smaller share of adults planning a cruise were in landlocked areas far from a port. The lowest percentage was in Minneapolis, at 10.5%.
The top three markets were in Florida — in Tampa, Miami and West Palm Beach. In each of these metro areas, around 29% of adults had planned a cruise in the next 12 months.
If not that many Seattle-area residents are taking cruises, there must a lot of folks from out of town flying into Seattle to leave from here. Indeed, data from the Port of Seattle on Alaska cruises from Seattle shows they are quite popular with people not from this area. A 2019 survey found 85% of Seattle cruise-ship passengers on Alaska-bound cruises from Seattle had traveled by air to get here for their vacation.
Nielsen surveyed more than 108,000 adults from July 2024 to April 2025, including more than 2,000 in the Seattle market area, which includes most of the Puget Sound area.