Cruise ships are just bus tours that happen to be on the water.
Their ace in the hole is Eastport s underutilized deepwater pier, originally built to serve as a freight port. A meeting hosted by the Machias Bay Area Chamber of Commerce Friday introduced local business owners to the idea. This time the advocates hope to make it stay. That means a town has only to convince the tour operator to have the captain stop there in order to get a whole load of willing consumers. His proposal to add cruise ship visits to the list of Washington County assets has to work at two levels.