A 2,100 passenger cruise ship is scheduled to detour to Haines on Wednesday after high winds will likely complicate docking in Skagway.

The Nieuw Amsterdam is expected to port from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., according to an email from borough tourism specialist Kiara Hylton. Hylton wrote that the Haines shuttle service will begin running at 8 a.m. to help move people throughout the community.

The American Constellation was already scheduled to be in Haines on Wednesday adding another 175 people to the thousands who will be in town.

The scheduling shift is part of a series of schedule adjustments in Southeast Alaska communities due to a high wind warning for the outer coastal areas of Southeast Alaska from late Tuesday until Wednesday night.

All three ships scheduled to arrive in Juneau on Wednesday — the Sapphire Princess, Ruby Princess and Discovery Princess — have cancelled their stops, according to an email from Travel Juneau sent to members on Tuesday afternoon.

A ship already in Juneau on Tuesday, the Caribbean Princess, is now scheduled to remain overnight and depart at 6 p.m. Wednesday rather than its originally scheduled departure of Tuesday evening. The Viking Orion — which was scheduled to sail from Ketchikan to Sitka on Tuesday and then to Glacier Bay on Wednesday — will instead arrive in Juneau on Wednesday morning and depart at 8 p.m.

Sea surface temperature departures from normal across the oceans as of Sept.14, 2025. (Map provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

The warning issued by the National Weather Service Juneau calls for gale-force winds up to 60 miles per hour along the outer coast and islands of South Alaska, including Annette Island, Prince of Wales Island, Baranof Island and Western Kupreanof Island.

Similar cancellations and rescheduling occurred last year due to an Oct. 1 storm that resulted in winds peaking at more than 80 miles per hour near Ketchikan. Two cruise ships remained in Juneau overnight as a result and a third made an unscheduled stop instead of continuing its voyage to Skagway.

This story was originally published by the Juneau Independent. Local information for the Chilkat Valley was added by Rashah McChesney.

Rashah McChesney is a multimedia journalist and editor who has reported and edited newsrooms from the Deep South to the Midwest to Alaska. For the past decade, she has worked in collaborative news as the...