During the time I spent at Acadia, the main road into Bar Harbor, ME was undergoing repair and repaving. It became a temporary one-way street, with a major detour through the park when one wanted to go the other way. Traffic was severely congested, and parking a nightmare. I only went into town once and that was enough.
Bar Harbor is well known as the place where the rich and famous live or spend their summer. In the fall of 1947 a giant fire was fanned by wind and lasted more than a month. It completely burned many cottages, hotels, and over 10,000 acres (4,000 ha) of Acadia National Park. Regrowth of the forests occurred naturally, and it is said that the park looks better now because of the fire.
Here’s a view of a part of Bar Harbor from Park Loop Road above it.
View of Bar Harbor from Park Loop Road.
In this next shot, you can see three cruise ships anchored along Bar Harbor water front.
View of Bar Harbor from Park Loop Road with cruise ships anchored in the distance.
Cruise ship at Bar Harbor.
Cruise ship at Bar Harbor.
Cruise ship at Bar Harbor.
There is currently no pier or terminal for the cruise ships, and small boats are used to ferry their passengers to Bar Harbor and back.
The town expects 230,000 cruise ship passengers in 2018, a 257 per cent increase from 2003. In the fall, one big cruise ship alone can disgorge as many as 6,000 passengers into Bar Harbor, which had a total population of 5,434 in 2017. Naturally, the natives are grumbling! Although the tourist season has been extended and benefits business as a result, issues about congestion, pollution, and quality of life have been raised. A recent proposal to build a terminal for cruise ships has met with local opposition and it may never be built.
Interesting story, and well presented, with the photos showing how beautiful the surroundings are, and how enormous the ships are. I haven’t been to Maine since the early 90’s, and I don’t remember any ships at all. What a difficult situation!
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Cruise ships are a more recent phenomenon. At the beginning of this year there used to be one ship a day, then two, and now three. A few come from as far away as Iceland!
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Just when you had me all fired up over visiting Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor along with it, you did this post on the congestion and overcrowding in the area. I avoid many of the more popular and photogenic places in Michigan because they’ve become overcrowded as well.
Seeing those huge cruise ships in the harbor and thinking about the number of passengers each one holds is a huge turn off to me, but I don’t know what the answer is either.
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I read that China has imposed a 25% tariff on lobster imports from the US. It is expected to negatively affect the lobster industry in Maine, so they will need to depend more on tourism going forward. There are always trade-offs between what the locals wish and what economic reality imposes. There is no easy answer.
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Beautiful fall foliage that EVERYONE wants to see! Nearly all national parks have congestion problems, but add cruise ships and road construction to the mix, I expect you have a huge problem! Crowding is one of the things that keeps me away. I’m a bit agoraphobic, so thanks for suffering the crowds for us armchair travelers. 🙂
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Thanks for commenting Eliza!
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Nice captures. Bar Harbor was one of our favorite vacations. It’s odd seeing cruise ships in the harbor there. They look out of place.
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I was totally surprised to see those cruise ships!
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We went from Lima Peru to Buenos Aires Argentina by way of Cape Horn Chile and, for many ports, the ship docked in the harbor and tenders took us to shore. It was a good experience, although great feature of the ship was the smaller size, about 670 passengers.
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670 passengers is a good size, but 6,000+ is a threat, and when you have three of them at a time, it’s unspeakable! 🙂
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