3 cruise ships are in Ketchikan today.

In port today

How busy the port is today

3 ships are due in port today, and Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska publishes no capacity for any of them.

In port over the next seven days

Every month Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska has published

• April 20264 calls
• May 2026125 calls
• June 2026147 calls
• July 2026169 calls
• August 2026155 calls
• September 2026112 calls
• October 20269 calls so far

Provenance: Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska’s schedule reaches Friday, October 9. A month past that is not empty — it has not been published yet.

Where the ships tie up

• Berths I, II, III and IV

  Ketchikan has four Panamax-sized cruise ship berths, numbered from south to north along the downtown waterfront.

  Each of the four has an adjacent float: the Daly Float runs 200 feet on the inboard side of Berth I, the Ryus Float 150 feet at the north end of Berth II, Berth III carries a 400-foot float on its northern inboard side, and Berth IV has two, of 120 feet and 70 feet.

  The port names the berths and their floats and prints no lengths or depths for the berths themselves, so none are given here.

  Source: City of Ketchikan, Alaska, read Sep 18, 2026

• Ward Cove

  Ward Cove is a separate cruise dock outside downtown that the city does not run, and a ship berthed there is not on the downtown waterfront at all.

  Its operator calls it The Mill at Ward Cove and runs a welcome center, shops and a museum at the dock.

  Which dock your ship uses decides your whole day here, and the two are not interchangeable: from a downtown berth you walk into town, and from Ward Cove you ride a shuttle each way.

  Source: The Mill at Ward Cove, read Sep 18, 2026 · The Mill at Ward Cove, read Sep 18, 2026

• Berth codes the Alaska schedule uses

  11A1B234CDDLYB3TNTWDYNWC1WC2WEWWAN3ANDANHANR

  Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska codes the downtown berths 1 to 4, the Ward Cove docks WC1, WC2, WE and WW, and the Daly Float DLY.

  Codes beginning AN are anchorages that say which float the ship tenders to — AN3 to Berth 3, AND to the Daly Float, ANR to the Ryus Float and ANH to the Hansen Float.

  A Ward Cove code in a schedule is the earliest warning you will get that your day starts with a bus rather than a walk. One code is going away: NTW, the Newtown Wharf, is in the 2026 key and not the 2027 one, so expect it on a 2026 document and not on a later one.

  Source: Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska, read Sep 18, 2026 · Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska, read Sep 18, 2026

Getting around Ketchikan

• Ward Cove runs a complimentary shuttle to Berth IV downtown that starts as soon as the ship arrives, and the drive takes about 20 minutes each way.

  Buses run continuously through the day from the far end of the Welcome Center. The operator asks you to allow at least 30 minutes to reach downtown if you have an appointment to keep, and to go ashore early to get the most out of the day.

  The last departure from Ward Cove and the last from Berth 4 are printed on the operator's own ship schedule for your date, not fixed across the season, so read them for your own call.

  Source: The Mill at Ward Cove, read Sep 18, 2026

• The shuttle sets you down at Berth IV, and Ward Cove asks you to allow 15 minutes to walk from there to the middle of downtown.

  For guests with limited mobility, a complimentary bus run by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough leaves Berth 4 every 20 minutes for other parts of downtown.

  Source: The Mill at Ward Cove, read Sep 18, 2026

• The four city berths are on the downtown waterfront itself, so a ship on one of them puts you in town on foot.

  The port says the berths line the downtown waterfront and prints no walking distance or time from any individual berth, so none is given here. The 15-minute figure above is Ward Cove's own, for the walk from Berth IV, and is not a general claim about the other three.

  Source: City of Ketchikan, Alaska, read Sep 18, 2026

What closes when

• Ketchikan's port development fee applies to passenger and cargo vessels from May 1 through September 30, which is the window the port charges its season rates over.

  That is a fee period the city publishes, not an opening and closing date for the town. No official page read here prints seasonal hours for anything ashore.

  Source: City of Ketchikan, Alaska, read Sep 18, 2026

How much traffic this port takes

• Ketchikan charges a passenger wharfage fee of $13.00 per passenger in 2026 for a ship docking at a city wharf, and $10.00 per passenger for a ship that tenders passengers ashore instead.

  The published rate sheet steps both figures up each year through 2029, and its dockage brackets run to a top band of 1,050 feet and over, so the port takes the largest ships on the Alaska run.

  The fee is charged to the cruise line rather than collected from you at the gangway.

  Source: City of Ketchikan, Alaska, read Sep 18, 2026

Something to do ashore