Adventure cruises

Parent Cafe
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<p>I’m just starting to think of a way to suprise my husband and celebrate his 50th birthday in December. Today I got a brochure in the mail for Cruise West and their cruises look very interesting. [The</a> Cruise West Experience](<a href=“http://www.cruisewest.com/cruisewest/experience/default.aspx]The”>http://www.cruisewest.com/cruisewest/experience/default.aspx) They are small ships and specialize in adventure cruising and a casual atmosphere. There’s one cruise in particular that sounded interesting for my engineer husband - a Panama Canal and Costa Rica where an expert talks about how the canal was created and naturalists lead the land tours. Perfect, I thought and then saw the prices are over $5,000 per person. <em>gulp</em> There are discounts for booking early.</p>

<p>I love this concept of small, casual and adventure minded cruises and was wondering if anyone else is aware of any other cruise companys that are similar.</p>

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<p>I don’t know the company names (google or check travel book sections) but there are ones that cruise to Alaska and the Galapagos Islands. The Alaska ones are good because the smaller boats can get closer to the wildlife.</p>

<p>The Galapagos ones I think you fly to Honduras and arrange a cruise from there.</p>

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<p>When researching cruises, I usually head to the cruise critic boards. If you click on “other cruise lines” there are some Cruise West threads.</p>

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<p>mamabear,
I’m familiar with cruise critic and have read some great reviews there for Cruise West but I’m hoping that someone here might know of another similar cruise company. Would really like one here on the East Coast so I wouldn’t also have to pay for a west coast flight too.</p>