The amount and variation of wildlife amazes passengers such as Richard Walker, 58, of Perth, Austral

LYNN CANAL, Alaska Somewhere in the distance, on the giant cruise ships that hold thousands of people, cheap tickets to netherlands from new york the splashy evening entertainment is just beginning: elaborate production shows in glitzy cheap tickets to netherlands from new york theaters, comedy acts, karaoke cheap tickets to netherlands from new york backed by live bands.
Yet on Alaskan Dream Cruises' small Admiralty Dream, passengers are watching a spectacle of a different sort, one more distinctly Alaskan: a pod of orca whales frolicking in the waves just off the bow.
Two years after the collapse of Seattle-based Cruise West eliminated the largest operator of small-ship cruises in Alaska, three companies have jumped into the resulting void, offering a new crop of off-the-beaten-path, wildlife-filled adventures on vessels that hold fewer than 100 people.
In addition to year-old Alaskan Dream Cruises, which operates the Admiralty Dream and a second vessel, Alaskan Dream, cheap tickets to netherlands from new york another new brand called InnerSea Discoveries is operating three small vessels in the state this year.
Like the Alaska cruises offered by big-ship lines such as Princess and Royal Caribbean , the new small-ship cheap tickets to netherlands from new york sailings focus on Southeast Alaska 's glacier-carved "Inside Passage," a beautiful cheap tickets to netherlands from new york region of snow-capped mountains and icy fjords. But the similarities, for the most part, end there.
Starting in remote Sitka, cheap tickets to netherlands from new york the Admiralty Dream's seven-night itinerary mostly avoids traditional stops such as Ketchikan and Skagway, where the big ships disgorge thousands a day. Instead, it heads into remote bays and fjords in search cheap tickets to netherlands from new york of wildlife and to such little-visited Southeast Alaska outposts as Petersburg, a scenic fishing town of just 3,000 people.
In Petersburg, a lively local named Hoopie Davidson tours passengers around in a yellow school bus (she's also the town's cheap tickets to netherlands from new york school bus driver), eventually depositing them at a nearby trailhead to hike through the spongy muskeg. The next day the Admiralty Dream heads to the native Tlingit community of Kake, which has a population of just 600 people and where tourism is even rarer. Passengers visit with a totem pole carver and tour a locally run fish hatchery begun in the 1970s as a school project. Afterward, they head to the town's gymnasium for a demonstration of Tlingit cheap tickets to netherlands from new york dances.
As with other small-ship cruises in Southeast Alaska, a big draw of the Admiralty Dream is its ability to get passengers up close to wildlife in a way the big ships can't. In Tracy Arm, an icy fjord backed by a glacier, the captain steers the vessel toward shore for a better view of a giant brown bear lumbering along the waterline. Later in the day, he shifts course again to approach a black bear.
An entire day is spent in normally off-limits, Native American-owned Hobart Bay, where passengers kayak for hours along rocky shores and take turns in two-person motorized watercraft in search of wildlife. Some spot bears; others moose and black-tailed deer. The shallow shoreline is full of unusual cheap tickets to netherlands from new york starfish and urchins and other critters.
The amount and variation of wildlife amazes passengers such as Richard cheap tickets to netherlands from new york Walker, 58, of Perth, Australia, who is traveling with his wife, Monica. In addition cheap tickets to netherlands from new york to bears and whales, the voyage brings almost daily sightings of sea lions, sea otters, seals and eagles, he notes.
Like Walker, a small-business owner, cheap tickets to netherlands from new york many aboard the Admiralty Dream are in their 50s and 60s, although some are as young as 21 and as old as 80. They come from diverse backgrounds cheap tickets to netherlands from new york and professions from doctor and lawyer to show lighting designer and dancer but they all share an inquisitive mindset and a penchant for avoiding crowds. Big-ship cruisers, they aren't.
"My husband and I had taken a Royal Caribbean cruise and said 'never again,' " says Betsy Smith, 63, of Forest, Va., who is here with her husband and three grown children. "What we wanted was something that would show us the parts of Alaska that the larger cruise lines can't get to. We were interested in the small villages and the true nature cheap tickets to netherlands from new york of the people. Also the adventure."
The only port call on the Admiralty Dream sailing that is on the standard cheap tickets to netherlands from new york Alaska cruise circuit is Juneau, the glacier-backed state capital, and even there the trip leaders mostly avoid the crowds. Arriving early in the morning at a dock several miles from downtown, they lead passengers to nearby Mendenhall Glacier before the big-ship tours arrive, when its lakeside trails and waterfall overlooks are empty save for a few locals walking their dogs.
Still, even a few hours in Juneau is too much for some. "I could feel myself tensing up," Spillman notes after passengers are given a couple of hours to wander around the town's tourist-mobbed, souvenir shop-lined center pretty much the only time they come in contact cheap tickets to netherlands from new york with other travelers.
Though Alaskan Dream Cruises is new, its ships aren't. Originally launched in 1979, the Admiralty Dream shows signs of age. Cabins are small and simple some might say Spartan with modest twin beds in most rooms and basic showers packed cheap tickets to netherlands from new york into the same compartments as toilets. Cabins lack TVs, alarm clocks and other modern amenities.
The tiny Admiralty Dream also lacks the flashy public areas of big ships: no showrooms, spas or deck-top pool areas. The public spaces consist of several deck-top viewing areas and just two interior spaces: a lounge with a (newly added) bar and a small dining room with about a dozen tables.
Walker, the Australian, agrees. "This has been absolutely beyond our expectations," he says near the end of the sailing. "Coming cheap tickets to netherlands from new york to Alaska cheap tickets to netherlands from new york was a 30-year dream for both of us, and the trip has been a dream fulfilled."