After 15 years of service, Allen Marine Tours announced on Feb. 4 the closure of Alaskan Dream Cruises, the company’s long trip overnight cruise subsidiary. The company is processing refunds for guests holding reservations for the 2026 season.
Alaskan Dream Cruises operated four ships on five to eight day excursions with a capacity of 40 to 80 passengers. The company employed 95 seasonal and around 10 year-round workers, offering hiking, kayaking and paddling excursions between Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan.
“The small ship overnight industry carries particularly high overhead [costs], and there’s complex logistics,” said Zakary Kirkpatrick, Allen Marine’s corporate director of marketing and public relations. “In recent years, we’ve seen an expansion in cruise capacity, and that includes our niche expedition market.
Jamey Cagle, president and CEO of Allen Marine, told the Empire that closing Alaskan Dream Cruises will allow the company to “responsibly focus our resources where they will have the greatest impact.”
Bob and Betty Allen founded the family- and Native-owned Allen Marine Tours in 1970. The Allens’ grandson Jamey Cagle began working at the company when he was 10 years old, becoming the division manager in Sitka in 1999 and vice-president five years later. Cagle played a crucial role in launching Alaskan Dream Cruises in 2011.
“The other thing that was really neat was being able to share as an indigenous owned company, the culture of the family and all of the Tlingit, the Haida, the Tsimshian cultures,” said Kirkpatrick.
“We still have an opportunity with our day tours throughout the region and all of the people that we get to work with to continue to make sure that our priority is to share that culture, in addition to the wonderful wildlife.”
Allen Marine Tours will continue to operate 30 vessels for day tours this season, employing 305 seasonal and 100 year-round workers between Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan.
