See Inside The Pearl Mist Cruise Ship
210-passenger ship helped put Milwaukee on the map as a cruise ship destination.
Pearl Mist. Photos by Jeramey Jannene.
There might not be a cruise ship that loves coming to Milwaukee more than the Pearl Mist.
The 325-foot-long vessel made its first of five seasonal calls on Milwaukee Monday, bringing 183 passengers to the end of their 10-day cruise. It’ll leave Tuesday with a new set of 181 aboard.
And while Pearl Seas Cruises is not headquartered in Milwaukee, the boat might as well be. The Connecticut-based company has a 10-year lease for the Pier Wisconsin cruise ship dock, located next to Discovery World, which grants it priority usage over any competitor and signage on the lakefront. The marquee location, just outside of Downtown, has led the company to feature images of Milwaukee as the primary image in its marketing materials.
After a trial visit in 2018, the company ditched Chicago as the western end of its Great Lakes cruises. “I think it took just one cruise for us to say ‘okay, let’s change it for all of them,'” said operations manager Kristen Lambert during a tour aboard the vessel Monday. “Once we visited Milwaukee, we couldn’t go back to Chicago just based off of the feedback, the accessibility, and the proximity of all the destinations.”
Milwaukee officials have previously lauded the cruise line for being the catalyst for the city’s growing cruise ship business.
“[Our passengers] are always really pleased when they are here,” said Lambert. She said most of them are seniors from the United States, but many have never been to Milwaukee, which is part of the draw. “[It’s] very passenger-friendly, especially for our demographic.”
Passengers, the average of which is in their mid-70s, are given a choice of four excursions: a tour of the Harley-Davidson Museum, a visit to the Milwaukee Public Market, a sightseeing bus tour or a “uniquely Milwaukee” trip to the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum and Grohmann Museum.
Pearl Seas also brings local musicians aboard to entertain guests, including folksinger David Drake, Briana Greer and Madison-based Harmonious Wail, in its second-deck Atlantic Lounge, which is set up as a small theater. Two levels up, the Pacific Lounge offers great views and a comfortable lounge, with daily cocktail hour. A library, which displays plaques and other ephemera presented to longtime captain George Ciortan, is also located on the fourth deck.
A dining room capable of seating every passenger at one time is located on the main deck at the base of the ship. Diners can sit where they please and select from a menu of options.
A fitness center and sun deck are located on the fifth deck. The sixth level of the ship is an open-air deck with lounge chairs and a stunning view. A series of decks terraces down the rear of the ship to the 4th deck.
Single and double state rooms, which weren’t available to photograph during the tour, run throughout the middle of the ship.
Pricing on the expeditions is approximately $1,000 per person per day. With a growing, but competitive Great Lakes cruising market, Pearl Seas and its sister company, American Cruise Lines, offer a strong focus on customer loyalty, including free excursions starting with your third trip and offering a free cruise after every 10 trips.
Each passenger wears a nametag that indicates the number of cruises they have taken across both lines, and one passenger will board tomorrow for her 43rd cruise. Regular passengers, as Lambert pointed out during the tour, decorate their stateroom doors with magnets indicating where they’ve been.
The crew of 65 that arrived in Milwaukee Monday hailed from more than 10 countries, said Lambert. Twenty-four of the crew have more than 10 years of experience with Pearl Seas and American.
All of the Pearl Mist’s visits to Milwaukee are coveted turnaround visits, where one trip ends and another begins. Beyond doubling the number of passengers, turnarounds generate more spending from passengers in terms of hotel stays or airport trips, off-boat spending from crew members and material sales for area vendors.
Lambert said approximately 100 passengers for Tuesday’s cruise are staying in the Pfister Hotel tonight and will take a pre-trip excursion tomorrow before setting sail at 3 p.m. Similarly, Pearl Seas is offering a post-disembarkment excursion Tuesday for passengers whose trip ends on Monday but don’t fly out until later Tuesday.
The Pearl Mist, due to its size, will continue to dock at Pier Wisconsin even when the city’s new cruise ship dock opens next year. Viking Cruises‘ two Great Lakes vessels, each more than twice the size of the Pearl Mist, cannot dock at Pier Wisconsin near Downtown because of their draft and must currently dock at an industrial dock in the inner harbor. Viking first started visiting Milwaukee in 2022.
Port Milwaukee expects approximately 11,000 passengers to visit Milwaukee in 2025, half of the estimated Great Lakes total, but short of the city’s record of more than 13,600. But in 2026, when the new dock opens, Port Milwaukee expects to see approximately 18,500 visitors.
Pearl Seas’ lease is for 10 years, with the company holding an option to extend the agreement for 10 years. During the life of the contract, which commenced in 2021, the company is required to make a minimum annual payment of at least $42,000. In exchange for the commitment, it pays a lower per-passenger wharfage rate.
The Pearl Mist was put into service in 2014. It spends its summers on the Great Lakes and winters in the Caribbean.
Photos
Exterior
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I think the relationship between the Pearl Mist will be a great benefit to the City of Milwaukee. Now I understand why Discovery World was so interested in moving the Denis Sullivan out of the port. Funding was reportedly the issue. If I remember correctly, costs to Discovery World were $500,000 a year. This is very small change compared to the hundred of millions of dollars that have been funded by philanthropy in the last decade on the new Museum, the Milwaukee Repertory Theater renovation, and all the new school charter/choice building that is going on. The Denis Sullivan was a unique symbol of the maritime history of Milwaukee and the Great Lakes. Now the only existing replica of a three masted Great Lakes Schooner built in Milwaukee is sailing out of Boston.