American Cruise Lines Columbia and Snake River Hayden Island to Clarkston WA

[Shannbob1+1]

We are ooking forward to boarding ACL for our Northwest Lewis and Clark Expedition cruise

Please share your cruise experience and expedition choices, must see and don't do?

[CastleCritic]

You may be on a longer version than I did. But i did the 7day reverse trip last year on “queen of the west” now just “American west”. At the time she badly needed a refit and was due to get one about 2 weeks after we left so that part of the review is a bit less useful because the ship itself will have changed they really hadn’t taken care of her during the COVID downtime. Half the paddle wheel was black from algae from sitting around for nearly a year and it was missing a lot of planks.  And obviously you could be on one of the other 3 ships all of which were newer and larger. 
 

All in all a decent trip though not to European river cruise standards. My mother said she was sure that the bus driver (an old grey haired lady named Jodi who has done this job on and off since the ship was launched 20 years ago, the same bus group will chase the ship the the entire way) really made the trip other than the actual excursions. 
 

I may add more later but mt st Helen’s was definitely the highlight by far.  A lot of Lewis and Clark related places so it all runs together. Hiking up multinomah falls. The landscape isn’t like anything we have in the east so just sitting up on deck when the weather was good. 
 

other than that it’s really a lot of fairly small towns and visiting whatever was there. We visited a car and plane museum that was personally interesting but might  not be for everyone. 

[CarolynFH]

When are you cruising?  We did the Northwest Pioneers from Portland to Clarkston in April, and I posted a review which is HERE. The ship was only about half filled, BTW, so staffing was good. A thread containing some questions and answers is here. I'll be happy to answer any other questions, if I can.