parry sound cruise ship schedule 2022

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Delightful Cruise Journey With Dinner, Sightseeing & Charter

Intimate Afternoon Cruise Experience

in Georgian Bay

Enjoy a delightful cruise amongst the 30,000 Islands on Georgian Bay.

Morning Cruise

All aboard the historical M.V. Chippewa III! Enjoy a two-hour morning cruise of the gorgeous Georgian Bay.

Our 2.5 Hour Dinner Cruise

Join us for our 2.5-hour dinner cruise, catered by the finest restaurants, as we wend our way through the bays and islands of the Sound, including Hole in the Wall, ending with a spectacular Georgian Bay sunset.

Private Charters

Get a group together to do a private charter (exclusive use of ship) or group cruise, and we can help you plan an individualized, memorable event. We offer a variety of cruises to best suit your needs and event size.

A 2 Hour Cruise Experience

Join us for our evening cruise as we wend our way through the bays and islands of the Sound, including Hole in the Wall, ending with a spectacular Georgian Bay sunset.

Welcome Aboard!

Sightseeing cruises of the 30,000 Islands and Georgian Bay, Morning, Georgian Bay Biosphere Afternoon Cruise, Dinner Cruises, Sunset Cruises, and Private Charters.

What Our Patrons Say

So nice to discover the Chippewa after many years of coming to Parry Sound as a cottager; how did I miss it? The Captain is friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. The staffs are so helpful and accommodating on all fronts. So much better to be close to the water with not more than about 30 friendly!

Our cruise was so memorable. The Chippewa is a decommissioned Maid of the Mist and just bursting with history. She is a pleasure to cruise upon and offers a pure helping of true Canadian pride.

CANADIAN PRIDECANADIAN PRIDE

Great cruise throughout the 30,000 Islands. A more personal level than other larger passenger boats. The meal was delicious and the sunset was spectacular.

SUNSET CRUISERSUNSET CRUISER

Spectacular sunset on calm water, fresh air and great company-it could not have been better! Wrapping up the cruise our landing back at the dock was so smooth that many did not realize we had landed dockside; the mark of a skilled Captain! A most memorable evening, one we hope to do again.

HAPPY SAILOR

Parry sound cruise lines.

M.V. Chippewa III

Sightseeing cruises of the 30,000 Islands and Georgian Bay, including restaurant cruises, dinner cruises, sunset cruises and private charters.

Please join us to celebrate the life of this wonderful little ship and the beautiful northern waters she sails.

Cruise Ships in Parry Sound

Parry Sound has a fabulous freshwater port, that frequently attracts cruise ships travelling the Great Lakes.

This summer, the Pearl Mist cruise ship has been visiting Parry Sound Harbour, and will return for 8 more visits between now and September.

The Pearl Mist, which was launched on June 25th, 2014, is touted as one of the most comfortable and luxurious cruising vessels in the world, with every modern amenity you would find at a top-rated resort. The ship boasts an intimate experience – passengers won’t be sailing with thousands of other guests, but will be one of only a possible 210 passengers.

The ship will be sailing back and forth between Chicago, Illinois and Toronto, Ontario.

When in port, the passengers dis-embark and have the opportunity to see Parry Sound on their own, or on guided excursions organized by the cruise ship director.  The ship is not accessible by the general public for security reasons, but visitors are able to come down to the Town Docks to see the ship while it is in port.

Pearl Mist: Check back for dates.

Summer – Events & Festivals – Things to Do

Stockey Centre Concerts RACH 3-Pitch Tourney Parry Sound Dragon Boat Festival Pedaling for Parkinson’s Canada Day Bobby Orr Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony Art in the Park Festival of the Sound Tuesday Summer Market Bobby Orr Hall of Fame Triathlon Series Optimist Club Santa Claus Parade Winter Craft Show Snowfest Sail Parry Sound Events

Make it a weekend getaway and find a hotel nearby. Add one one of these great tours and attractions to your getaway to the Parry Sound region of Explorers Edge.

Cruise Ship , Georgian Bay , Pearl Mist

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Island Queen Cruise Island Queen Cruise

The flagship, three-hour afternoon cruise.

Georgian Bay’s famous 30,000 Islands offer adventure at every turn! Experience it for yourself with tours that meander through the scenery on our spacious and comfortable Island Queen. Each excursion offers an unforgettable island adventure!

These are the tours that put the Island Queen Cruise on the map around the world. On these non-stop three-hour tours we follow in the wake of early explorers as the captain’s bring the ship surprisingly up-close to the rugged shoreline of the Bay’s remote outer islands. Passengers enjoy a captain’s eye view of these outer islands as the ship meanders into narrow channels within an eco-system so unique that it has earned World Biosphere status from the United Nations. We offer two routes for these tours, both of which travel through the famous Hole in the Wall channel and Killbear Provincial Park.  The Outer Islands Route around Parry Island, home to the Wasauksing First Nation, will be offered every day except for Tuesdays and highlights include the outer islands, the Massassauga Provincial Park, the Rose Point Swing Bridge and charming summer cottages.  The North Channel Route will be offered each Tuesday and highlights include the inner islands of the North Channel, the outer islands, spectacular views of Georgian Bay’s open water and rugged cabins and summer retreats.  Don’t forget your camera for these tours!

“I rarely award five out of five but the Island Queen Cruise merits it. This is maybe the best tourism cruise in Ontario. The scenery is truly spectacular – you could just keep taking photographs the whole time.” Cam P.

2024 SCHEDULE

May 28, June 8 & daily from June 15 to Oct. 14

Prices Before Tax

Adults $ 65

Kids 6 - 12 $ 35

Kids 5 & Under Free

Parry Sound Cruise Line

Top ways to experience Parry Sound Cruise Line and nearby attractions

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

Parry Sound Cruise Line - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

• (0.43 km) The Birches Cottage Resort
• (0.13 km) Lovely cozy cottage on north end of Lake Joseph Muskoka
• (14.47 km) Shamrock Lodge
• (0.23 km) Lake Joseph 3 Bedroom Cottage and Bunkie
• (14.23 km) Sherwood Inn
• (13.23 km) Crossroads Restaurant
• (7.04 km) Chef Henrie Bistro & Cafe
• (14.25 km) Sherwood Inn
• (11.14 km) JW Marriott The Rosseau Muskoka - Muskoka Chophouse
• (9.29 km) Blakes Memories Of Muskoka

Viking Cruise to focus on Nature and Culture

A unique pilot project has started between the Georgian Bay Mnidoo Gamii Biosphere (GBB) and Viking. The Viking Octantis is an expedition cruise ship taking an 8-day route in the Great Lakes that includes three days along eastern Georgian Bay, with a focus on the UNESCO biosphere region and local excursions for guests.

“As educators, we want to welcome visitors and teach them why this area is so special,” said Madyson Taylor, Sustainable Tourism Manager for GBB. “We also want to ensure that local livelihoods in tourism are being supported and that Indigenous culture, Anishinaabek territory and the Great Lakes are being respected. Visitor education is something we’ve always done but this year it’s on a larger scale.”

Viking plans to offer tours with local guides, including landscape painting classes, hiking in Killbear Provincial Park, kayaking and zodiac tours, Anishinaabek youth teaching about their birch bark canoe, bike tours along the waterfront, a cranberry farm and winery tour, and a Biosphere tour of butterfly gardens, honeybee apiary and turtle lab.

“The Great Lakes have been opened to the cruise industry. We want to share our values with new partners and to help their guests understand why we are a world biosphere region designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),” said Ron Chase, chair of GBB.

Dr. Becky Pollock, executive director of GBB added: “This pilot is designed around education, science, culture and support for our local economy. We are experimenting with ways to create a travel experience that fits our smaller communities and provides guests opportunities for enrichment and learning that is unique to this place. We also benefit from scientific information gathered by Viking’s equipment, that will help us to understand the health of Georgian Bay and how it is changing over time.”

“In creating ‘the thinking person’s expedition,’ we are offering curious travelers the opportunity to visit some of the most pristine destinations on earth in the most responsible way possible,” said Torstein Hagen, Chairman of Viking, in a company press release.

Ben John is Climate and Energy Programs Manager for GBB. He said: “The Viking Octantis seems to be an excellent example of how sustainable operations can have economic and environmental benefits. Along with heat recovery systems and an electric propulsion system, the vessel has an integrated bow that creates a longer waterline. Together, these features reduce water resistance, create more efficient propulsion, and in turn results in less fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Overall, these features allow the ship to exceed the International Maritime Organization’s Energy Efficiency Design Index by almost 38%.”

Through a zero-emission chemical incineration process, Viking is able to treat its waste onboard. John explained: “From a lifecycle perspective, this is a major achievement as it eliminates the need to offload and transport waste, avoiding the additional emissions produced during transport and while waste decomposes in our local landfills. While in port, the Viking ship has also been designed to operate solely on electricity, eliminating the need to idle and operate on fossil fuels. Together, all these systems and processes reduce operating costs and avoid the production of GHG emissions in the Biosphere region.” Other ship features include bird-safe lighting developed by Cornell Lab of Ornithology, a science lab, and two small submarines that can detach from the ship.

Tour operators see it as a win-win for their business and for tourists. “Offering bike tours is a new avenue for Parry Sound Bikes,” said owner Aleesha Mullen. “Working with Viking has allowed us the opportunity to grow our business and hire new staff. Our guides love this area and look forward to sharing that love with visitors while showing off our waterfront by bike.”

Parry Sound will see 20 ports of call from cruise ships in 2022, according to Vladimir Shehovtsov, Economic Development Officer for the Town of Parry Sound. “Tourism recovery from Covid-19 is a priority for our community,” he says, “and is supported by federal and provincial agencies. Cruise ships represent an opportunity for Parry Sound to grow and to showcase the Biosphere internationally.”

One of the tours is led by the Georgian Bay Anishinaabek Youth (GBAY) – an Indigenous youth-led grassroots initiative for cultural land-based learning. Kyla Judge is Anishinaabekwe and a founding member and she said: “This summer, we have a really unique opportunity to share our stories, our experiences as Anishinaabek youth – and to gain some compensation as reciprocity for the value of that knowledge and our work to revitalize our culture.”

Judge said visitor education in the region has been lacking in Treaty education, cultural knowledge, history, and awareness. “GBAY has the opportunity to change and rewrite the narrative. We have the opportunity to share our love for Mnidoo Gamii (Georgian Bay), to share the stories and the language of the land as told by the original caretakers. Through this work, we are building leadership among youth. I can’t think of a better way to spend the summer than to be out on the bay paddling Oshkinigig, our birch bark canoe.”

We want to hear from you! We know that there are concerns about our involvement in this pilot project with Viking Cruises; we share some of these concerns and respect your views. Please connect with Becky Pollock, our executive director, to share your questions and thoughts about tourism in a UNESCO biosphere region. She can be reached at 705.774.0978 or by email.

Thank you, Miigwech.

Support Your Biosphere

With your support, we can expand our impact in the Georgian Bay region through conservation and education.

We are a registered Canadian charity #87100 1335 RR0001

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Parry Sound prepping for record number of cruise ship visits

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The Town of Parry Sound is preparing for a busy cruise ship season, with a record number of vessels set to arrive in port this year.

Six ships, operated by four different lines — from the United States, France, Germany, and Norway — will collectively make landfall 33 times between May 21 and October 20.

That number marks a 40 per cent increase in cruise ship visits from 2022, and will extend the area’s tourism season by a full month, noted Vladimir Shehovtsov, the town’s economic development officer.

“The fact that we will have five cruise ship visits in October alone is very encouraging,” he said.

Cruise ship activity on the Great Lakes is big business, generating an estimated US$125 million in overall economic activity in 2022, according to the industry association Cruise the Great Lakes .

Passengers typically board a vessel while it’s docked in a larger port city like Toronto or Chicago before spending seven to 14 days cruising the Great Lakes, stopping at various ports for day visits along the way.

As they go, passengers spend money on experiences and tours, transportation, food, and souvenirs, among other things, giving a big boost to the economies of the communities they visit.

Plus, the ships themselves serve as “tourism magnets” for local and out-of-town visitors who may have never before encountered such massive vessels, Shehovtsov said.

“These new, big, very high-tech ships, they actually attract visitors from southern Ontario who come, in many cases, specifically to look at those fantastic, huge ships come into Georgian Bay and dock at our waterfront,” he said.

This season kicks off on May 21 with the arrival of the Viking Octantis , a Norwegian Polar 6 Class ship, newly built in 2022, with capacity for 378 guests.

It’s one of a handful of European ships to have recently “discovered” the Great Lakes as a region worthy of exploration, Shehovtsov said.

With destination tourism trending among operators, demand has risen for travel to areas that are still considered pristine and fairly untouched by human activity, he noted. The Great Lakes area is considered by many operators to fit into that category.

Ships will sail to places like the Arctic during the high-activity season, and then dispatch their vessels to the Great Lakes in the off-season — that’s summer for us — enabling the ships to operate year-round.

And as the Ukraine-Russia war continues, limiting operators’ access to the Black and Baltic Seas, the Great Lakes offer an unhampered alternative.

“Those operators are reallocating their cruise ships from Europe to new destinations, and the Great Lakes offer a new opportunity in a safe, predictable market, which is basically shared by Canada and the U.S.,” Shehovtsov said.

Upon arrival in Parry Sound, passengers will be greeted by attendants at an information kiosk chock full of pamphlets, flyers, maps, and other helpful documents that assist passengers in planning out their visit.

Interpreters fluent in French and German are available to provide translation services, and a shuttle bus runs downtown every 20 minutes to transport passengers between the dock and locations throughout town.

“We make life easier for the cruise ship operators, and they like to bring their ships to town because they know that they and their passengers will be well taken care of,” Shehovtsov said.

Last year, the town worked closely with local small enterprises to engage passengers and bump up business.

Trestle Brewing , a local craft brewery, offered beer tastings on board some of the ships, while Parry Sound Bikes , which had previously solely provided bicycle sales and service, began hosting guided bike tours along the waterfront.

This year, the town will set up five waterfront kiosks featuring local small businesses and artisans, including Indigenous creators, selling their wares. Shehovtsov is also in talks with the organizers of Festival of the Sound , the region’s signature summer music festival, to see if the times of some performances can be adjusted to accommodate cruise ship passengers.

Yet the town believes there’s more it can do to fully harness the potential presented by the industry, including encouraging more overnight visits to keep the ships in port longer. This year, the Pearl Mist , a U.S. ship that’s visited Parry Sound before, will overnight for two visits.

The town is also currently in talks with new entrants to the region, hailing from Europe, Australia and Asia, to include Parry Sound on its itinerary.

“I think in two years, the Town of Parry Sound may see up to 40 cruise ship visits per season,” Shehovtsov predicted.

Looking four to five years ahead, the economic development officer said his goal would be to secure Parry Sound as a turnaround port — the starting or finishing point for a cruise where passengers arrive one to two days ahead of their trip.

That will require a significant financial investment on the part of the town, however, since it would need to upgrade its power and wastewater services to accommodate the needs of the massive ships.

Shehovtsov said inspections on the existing infrastructure will get underway this summer to give the town a clearer picture of the feasibility of that plan.

“When we only have 10 to 12 visits of cruise ships per season, the town thought of it as secondary,” he said.

“Now, with the explosive growth of cruise ship visits to the town, we are starting to look into the cruise ship industry very, very seriously.”

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Traverse City MI (Michigan)

Cruise port schedule, live map, terminals, news.

Region Canada and USA Rivers

Local Time 2024-04-27 14:55

Port Traverse City MI cruise ship schedule shows timetable calendars of all arrival and departure dates by month. The port's schedule lists all ships (in links) with cruises going to or leaving from Traverse City MI, Michigan. To see the full itineraries (ports of call dates and arrival / departure times) and their lowest rates – just follow the corresponding ship-link.

Traverse City is a Lake Michigan cruise port and city in the USA's Michigan state (Grand Traverse County) with population around 15,000 (metro around 145,000). The 2004-opened Cherry Capital Airport is Michigan's 4th-largest and serves regularly scheduled flights linking to Chicago and Detroit. Seasonal flights connect to Texas (Dallas, Fort Worth), Minnesota ( Minneapolis-Saint Paul ), New York ( NYC ), New Jersey (Newark), Georgia (Atlanta), Colorado (Denver).

The last native American settlement (Wequetong) was in the area currently occupied by Clinch Park (downtown). The village was established by French colonists in the 18th-century and named after Grand Traverse Bay's long crossing (between Norwood and Northport). The area was initially owned by France, then Great Britain and after 1776 - by the USA. The first permanent settlement (Grand Traverse) was founded in 1839 and incorporated as a city in 1895. In the late-19th century, Traverse City was connected via railroads with villages in Southern Michigan. The trains served mainly lumber companies transporting logs from Northwest Michigan to the sawmills in Traverse City.

The city's current economy is based on tourism, insurance (Hagerty), healthcare (Munson Medical Center, Grand Traverse Pavilions), education (Northwestern Michigan College/Great Lakes Maritime Academy, Interlochen Center for the Arts), food processing (Tyson Foods Inc). The surrounding region is the USA's largest producer of tart cherries (Prunus cerasus). Near the harvest time (July's first full week), in downtown is hosted the National Cherry Festival which attracts ~0,5 million visitors. The region also produces grapes and wines. The tourism industry benefits from popular attractions like premium beaches, National Lakeshore (one of the USA's all 10 protected areas), vineyards, skiing, hiking, camping.

As cruise port, Traverse City was included in the 2021 schedule of Hapag Lloyd Cruises with the ship Hanseatic Inspiration (2019-built). Next table shows the 14-day itinerary from Chicago to Toronto.

In 2022, Viking Cruises USA (via the brand Viking Expeditions) starts a Great Lakes seasonal program. The ship deployment is for one-way itineraries (between homeports Toronto, Thunder Bay and Milwaukee) and includes regular visits to ports and destinations in Canada's Ontario state ( Thunder Bay , Toronto , Welland Canal, Niagara Falls, Point Pelee NP) and the USA's Minnesota-Michigan-Wisconsin states ( Detroit MI , Alpena MI , Mackinac Island MI in Lake Huron , Apostle Islands MI, Houghton MI , Traverse City MI, Milwaukee WI on Lake Michigan , Duluth MN ).

All Viking Great Lakes cruises feature passing through Soo Locks at Sault Ste Marie (Lake Superior - Lake Huron transition). The 8-day voyages are themed "Niagara and the Great Lakes" (from Toronto to Milwaukee), "Undiscovered Great Lakes" (from Thunder Bay to Milwaukee) and "Great Lakes Explorer" (from Milwaukee to Thunder Bay).

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