Federal customs officials denied Tuesday that cruise ship passengers coming into ports such as Bar Harbor will be delayed for hours because of a new inspection policy.

Beginning with the 2005 cruise season, customs inspectors will no longer do “en route inspections,” whereby they stay on a ship for days checking people out. Under that scenario, by the time the ship docked in an American port the customs officers had completed their work.

Only cruise ships coming from Canada will be affected. In Bar Harbor, where 84 ships plan to stop next year, about half come from Canada rather than up the coast of Maine, according to the town’s harbor master, Charlie Phippen.

Phippen said he was unaware of the policy change until a reporter called him.

“I have not received official word,” he said.

A 2002 University of Maine study estimated that the cruise ship industry pours about $13 million a year into the Bar Harbor economy.

The resort town on Mount Desert Island attracts more cruise ships than even Portland, the state’s largest port.

Danielle Sheahan, spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Washington, D.C., was surprised by the reaction to the policy change.

She said most of the ships that required en route inspections were those carrying mostly foreign visitors. More-over, she said customs officers would not be stopping every passenger disembarking from a ship.

The only passengers that would get scrutiny are either foreigners or illegal aliens, she said.

“People are vetted at the beginning” of the cruise when they first get on the ship. When getting off, “Americans hold up their documents and walk right through,” Sheahan said.

None of three customs officials contacted Tuesday in Portland and Washington could say why the policy had been changed.