You are not going to get a better Southeast Alaska Wilderness Cruise, if you are looking for wildlife and the chance to get close to nature, period. Plus you will get to visit small Alaskan communities unvisited by larger cruise ships.
I love cruising and have enjoyed Alaska cruises on bigger ships, as well as cruises in other places in the world. But I have lived in Southeast Alaska for 40 years and if I want to really see my backyard it is best to go with a local company. Alaska Dream Cruises is owned by a Sitka family with vast experience in wildlife watching tours. The family has roots in the native cultures of Southeast Alaska and you will gain an understanding of our region that is unsurpassed. To give you an example, the first mate grew up on her father’s fishing boat and knows the area backward and forward. The naturalist is a noted local broadcaster and the captain knows when to change itinerary to find something interesting, or to avoid bad weather.
The Alaskan Dream is a catamaran with 20 staterooms carrying 40 passengers. On our voyage there were 35. They were an interesting and engaged group of travelers. In our week between Juneau and Sitka we saw different groups of whales bubble feeding, breaching and spy hopping. We saw puffins, sea lions, harbor seals and bear. We also visited towns like Wrangell, with its petroglyph beach, and Petersburg, a little Norwegian American town transplanted from Norway to a spot near a glacier that was convenient for packing fish down south. We visited the Native village of Kake to see the world’s largest totem pole and navigated the Wrangell Narrows at night, sometimes called pinball alley because of all the course corrections, sometimes called Christmas Tree Lane because of the red and green blinking lights.
The staterooms are small but designed to enable you to stow your gear without tripping on it. The windows in the staterooms are big and there are hooks outside the room for hanging wet raingear (this is a rainforest.)
The toilets really are water closets. The toilet on one side facing the shower head with a curtain down the middle. Tight but functional. The sink is outside the WC so two people can navigate the room. The room had electric outlets, USP ports and I had no problem running a CPAP machine and charging cameras and phones.