Duluth waterfront expecting heavy traffic over holiday weekend

Duluth officials are asking weekend visitors to park downtown to avoid congestion near the city's waterfront this weekend. Construction at the city's harbor-front DECC entertainment complex has taken a good deal of the normal parking.

Meanwhile, a lot of visitors are expected to view both a tall sailing ship and a luxury cruise ship that arrive Saturday. The cruise ship might create congestion, according to Gene Shaw, with Visit Duluth.

"The crowd problems could come Saturday when the Clelia II, the new cruise ship comes in, since homeland security will be closing off harbor drive with that big ten foot fence," Shaw said. "So that'll congest the area a little bit, but that should be down shortly after 7 o'clock Saturday night so that the crowd going over to the fireworks and everything won't be impaired."

The cruise ship is making the first of six calls on Duluth this summer. Meanwhile, the Milwaukee-based three-masted schooner, Denis Sullivan, is in Duluth through Monday, with public tours Saturday and Sunday.

"It's a 137-foot cargo schooner, and it's three masted," Shaw said. "It does some cruises on the Great Lakes, but it's mainly with Discovery World in Milwaukee, so it does a lot of day sails out of the Milwaukee harbor."