Viking this week announced that Cleveland, which hadn't been included on the cruise line's itineraries since the company expanded to the Great Lakes in 2020, will be added as a stop in 2023.
With the addition of two new ships, Viking will be offering 15-day trips starting at $13,995 per passenger that will include stops in Toronto, Welland Canal, Georgian Bay, Thunder Bay and Niagara Falls in Canada; Detroit, Alpena, Mackinac Island and Sault Sainte Marie in Michigan; Duluth, Minnesota; and Algoma, Wisconsin.
Cleveland has previously been a stop for Victory cruises, but not Viking, and the high seas of Lake Erie await.
“Most people in the U.S. probably know Viking from their intra-Europe tours,” David Gutheil of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority said in a statement to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “Now they’re coming into the Great Lakes. It’s not only great for Cleveland but great for the region.”
Presumably when Viking begins its Cleveland service in 2023, it will have figured out where Cleveland is, something that might be in question given that the cruise map currently shows the stop somewhere east of Painesville. In reality, Painesville is about 30 miles northeast of Cleveland, which itself is situated about 250 miles up I-71 from Cincinnati.
When passengers disembark in Cleveland to enjoy the usual offshore excursions, they'll be more efficiently processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection thanks to a new $600,000 facility.
This story was originally published by CityBeat sister newspaper Cleveland Scene.
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