Harbor Princess fills in for Discovery Cruises in Traverse City

A familiar bay cruise is still on the water in Traverse City, but it is not The Discovery. Discovery Cruises has brought in Little Traverse Bay Ferry Company’s Harbor Princess to keep sailings going from Discovery Pier on West Grand Traverse Bay while its main boat remains in St. Ignace for longer-than-planned maintenance.

The guest residency began June 5 and runs through June 17, 2026. Discovery Cruises is marketing the Harbor Princess as a limited-time cruise experience along the shores of Traverse City, Old Mission Peninsula and Power Island, with narration about the area’s cultural and natural history. For passengers trying to decide whether to book, the key point is simple: the cruises are operating from the downtown waterfront as planned, but the vessel is different while The Discovery is out of service.

Discovery Cruises says The Discovery will be undergoing maintenance during the first half of June. The company describes itself as Traverse City’s only floating event center and says it normally cruises locally from June to October, which makes the temporary swap especially important at the start of the summer season. With downtown businesses counting on early-season foot traffic and waterfront visitors, keeping a boat on schedule helps preserve one of the city’s seasonal tourism draws even when repairs disrupt the regular fleet.

The Harbor Princess is a 49-passenger vessel that Little Traverse Bay Ferry Company added to its fleet in 2020. It is a retired Navy tender that normally operates from Bayfront Park at the Petoskey City Marina in Petoskey on Little Traverse Bay. In its home market, the boat offers scenic cruises around Little Traverse Bay and features an open deck, covered seating and restrooms, though its accessibility is limited because of low water.

For Traverse City riders, the vessel swap means a smaller, more intimate boat with an open-air upper deck and main-deck seating rather than a cancellation-heavy gap in service. It also shows how tightly linked Northern Michigan’s lakefront tourism businesses are: one operator’s maintenance delay in St. Ignace sent another operator’s boat across the region to keep summer cruises moving in Grand Traverse County.