Great Lakes cruise, diverted by Detroit Grand Prix, to dock in Toledo

TOLEDO, OH – A cruise ship will visit Toledo next month for the first time since the late 1990s thanks to the efforts of local officials and an auto race that is diverting the ship from Detroit.

Victory Cruise Lines was already planning to run shore excursions to the National Museum of the Great Lakes during its two vessels’ 34 scheduled calls to Detroit’s port during the upcoming sailing season.

But one of those 34 Detroit calls turned out to have a conflict with the Detroit Grand Prix auto race on that city’s downtown streets, which has events May 30 and 31 along with the headline event June 1.

So instead of docking in Detroit, the 296-foot Victory I cruise ship will bring all of its 190 or so passengers to Toledo on May 30, officials with the museum, the city, and the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority formally announced Tuesday.

Between the ship’s 9 a.m. scheduled arrival and 7:30 p.m. departure, passengers will be offered a VIP tour of the museum, including a celebratory lunch on board the S.S. Col. James M. Schoonmaker museum freighter.

Passengers may also take a shore excursion to the Toledo Museum of Art or to the Henry Ford/Greenfield Village museum complex near Dearborn, Mich., which is a shore-trip option for all of the Detroit itineraries.

“We’re thrilled to drop anchor in Toledo for the first time,” John Waggoner, Victory’s founder and chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement. “The port authority’s seamless coordination and the museum’s world-class programming made it an easy decision to make this call.”

Key to the ship’s visit was establishing a suitable docking space: the Holcim Cement dock on the Maumee River just downstream from the port authority’s headquarters. Besides having adequate water depth for the ship, it has a fence to mark off a security zone and the port authority’s adjoining parking lot where buses can pull in for passenger boarding, said Joe Cappel, the port authority’s vice president of business development.

Mr. Cappel said the port authority began conversations about a year ago with Holcim about the potential use of its dock, and the cement company cooperated by filing an amendment of its dock security plan with the Coast Guard.

“We wanted to be ready in case one of these cruise ships wanted to come to Toledo,” Mr. Cappel said.

Kate Fineske, the museum’s executive director, said that opportunity arose as part of a conversation she had in March with a Victory representative during the museum’s training of LakeLorians, cruise line employees who will give onboard presentations about Great Lakes history during the cruises.

During that discussion, Mrs. Fineske mentioned that should Victory need someplace for one of their ships to call on short notice, Toledo had a dock ready for it.

“Their vice president of operations said, ‘Well, actually, we do,’” she recounted.

Lance Woodworth, president and CEO of Destination Toledo, reiterated that the shore visits during the Detroit calls had been envisioned locally as a foot in the door toward future ship calls.

“We didn’t think it would happen this quick, but we were ready, with a plan in place,” he said.

Lunch will be served to the cruise passengers in the Schoonmaker’s captain’s quarters during the port call, Mr. Cappel said, and special activities also are planned at the art museum for the maritime visitors.

“We really want to be good partners with Victory Cruise Lines,” Mrs. Fineske said. “We want to see them succeed.”

Holcim is able to tweak its cement boats’ deliveries “with enough advance notice” to accommodate cruise dockings in Toledo, Mr. Cappel said, while the port authority is working on the potential for future use of International Park’s wharf for that purpose. Funds have been awarded to Metroparks Toledo to perform a structural analysis on the dock wall there.

Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said the upcoming port call will demonstrate “the potential to bring consistent tourism dollars into Toledo” even though this is a one-time visit.

“Part of the vision for the Glass City Riverwalk is to build permanent docking space across from Owens Corning that could facilitate consistent stops from the big cruise companies,” the mayor said. “Even just a few dozen visits a year would bring thousands of tourists into Toledo, so the possibilities are exciting.”

Toledo Blade

Two groups offer raffles for trips on the Edwin H. Gott

The Lake Superior Marine Museum Association and The Soo Locks Visitors’ Center Association are raffling off a round-trip cruise on the 1,000-footer Edwin H. Gott.

Visit these websites or see fliers in the gallery below.

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https://www.lsmma.com/