Skarv Lines Skarv Lines is an owner-operated, single vessel, small cruise ship company that offers rugged adventures around Scotland’s incomparable Hebrides. More unusually they also venture to the country’s Orkney archipelago and Scotland’s East Coast. While there is...
Atlas Ocean Tours Atlas Ocean Tours has a mighty powerful name for a company that is the smallest QuirkyCruise ship operator we have covered thus far. One-week trips explore the southern part of Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlotte Islands) in a patch of Canadian...
Tahiti-based ARANUI 5 Compagnie Polynesienne de Transport Maritime (C.T.P.M.) is a French Polynesian shipping line owned by the Wong family who have operated passenger-freighter ships in the remote South Pacific Marquesas Islands for three decades and cargo service...
St Lawrence Cruise Lines This one-ship line, started in 1981, is family-owned and based in Kingston, Ontario. In 2016 Jason Clark took over as president from his uncle, Bob Clark, who once ran it with his brother. The ship, the Canadian Empress, is a composite...
Alaska Marine Highway's Wintry Northbound Passage Jan 4-11, 1980. by Ted Scull Alongside Pier 48 on Seattle’s waterfront, the blue and white ferry liner Matanuska was quietly resting between voyages. There was a light, cold drizzle falling over the city. Awaiting the...
Scenic Cruises COVID-19 UPDATE This luxury river cruise line was founded in Australia in 1986, expanded to the UK and Canada in 2007, and to the US in 2008. Most recently Scenic has broadened from its main focus in Western Europe, to include Southeast Asia cruises....
G Adventures For more than 30 years, G Adventures has been offering affordable adventure travel around the world, including small-ship cruises (about 10-15% of their total annual business) on private yachts, catamarans and oceangoing expedition-style ships. The...
Safari Explorer in Hawaii. REVIEWER Leslie Shepherd from the USA. CRUISE LINE UnCruise. SHIP Safari Explorer. DESTINATION Hawaii. # OF NIGHTS 7. DEPARTURE DATE & PORTS November 2018, from Kona, Hawaii. OVERALL RATING 5 out of 5 stars (5=excellent, 4=very good,...
Blount Small Ship Adventures Update (Aug 2020) COVID-19 news from Blount: The line will not resume cruises in 2021 as had been expected. The line's three existing vessels now docked at the company's HQ are for sale: Grande Caribe, Grande Mariner, and Niagara Prince....
Lord of the Glens Sold By Ted Scull. The Magna Carta Steamship Company (UK) has sold the 48-passenger Lord of the Glens to HP Shipping Ltd. It will sail in tandem with Hebridean Island Cruises’ famed 50-passenger “country hotel-style” Hebridean Princess. The firm had...
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sponsored Cruise Alaska in Winter with UnCruise By Heidi Sarna We asked Captain and UnCruise CEO Dan Blanchard about the genesis of their recently announced winter cruises starting in February and March, 2024. We’re very intrigued to learn more about what seems like a...
sponsored Grand Victoria Barge Cruise Charter By Heidi Sarna We love when travelers want to tell us all about their latest small-ship quirky cruises. Here, Ron Maxwell shares details on his recent charter of the luxury 6-pax Grand Victoria. QuirkyCruise: When did you...
sponsored 3 Small Scottish Ships Looking for a vacation with some personality? St Hilda Sea Adventures is a family-run business that has offered wonderful off-beat Scottish island cruises for more than 15 years. Carrying just 6 to 11 passengers, each of their three...
Croatian Coastal Cruise Review By Susan R. Pollack After being cooped up in the house for 2½ years and weary of our long pandemic pause from traveling, my husband and I decided the time had come to split Detroit — for Split, Croatia. Familiar to many as a film site...
Wine Cruise aboard American Empress By Katherine Rodeghier Update Feb 24, 2024: The three riverboats of American Queen Voyages, including the American Queen, ceased operations earlier this week as will the company's pair of coastal ships, including American Empress....
The Best Small Ship Cruise Travel in 2022 By Heidi & Ted & the Gang For many, 2022 was a year of travel, for getting back out there after two years at home tethered to zoom and youtube doing the virtual travel thing. And so, our QuirkyCruise gang was...
Greg Mortimer Cruise Review By Nicholas Kontis While I never tire of cruising, some voyages are more memorable than others. One such journey was a 10-night Central America cruise through the Panama Canal, from Costa Rica’s Pacific shore to historic Cartagena on...
Why do a Windstar Cruise in Tahiti? By Christine Bottross I spent a week aboard the beautiful 148-pax Wind Spirit in French Polynesia this past September and had a wonderful time. Here are my nine reasons, along with photos and videos I enjoyed capturing throughout...
"Escape Clauses – Getting Away With a Travel Writing Life" We like supporting writers who love traveling as much as we do, especially the more unusual and offbeat stuff. So in that spirit, below we feature a little teaser about a new travel memoir from writer Bob...
Barge Luciole Review. REVIEWER Meme Moy from USA. CRUISE LINE Luciole. SHIP Barge Luciole. DESTINATION France, Nivernais Canal # OF NIGHTS, 6. DEPARTURE PORT Auxerre, France. DATE OF CRUISE Aug, 2022. OVERALL EXPERIENCE RATING 5 out of 5 stars (5=excellent, 4=very...
New Ships for American Cruise Lines By Ted Scull The second incarnation of American Cruises Lines (ACL) began in 1999 with the first ship, American Eagle, appearing a year later to take just 48 passengers along the Eastern Seaboard and inland waters. A year later, a...
