link below

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g1-i10703-Cruises.html

good luck

American Cruise Lines is a popular one for Columbia River Cruises.

https://www.americancruiselines.com/cruises/columbia-and-snake-river-cruises

Thank you for the suggestions.

I just looked at the cruises forum and unlike Cruise Critic (that it replaced), it does not have sub-forums, so conversations about anything other than the Caribbean are kind of drowned out.

I was going to recommend Un-Cruise's Wilderness Legacy, but I see that their final cruise was last autumn. So that leaves you with

American Queen Voyage's

217 passenger American Empress trips:

Clarkston/Spokane to Portland

Portland to Clarkston/Spokane

Portland to The Dalles to Portland

American Cruise Line's

180 passenger American Jazz,

180 passenger American Song,

110 passenger American West trips:

Clarkston(Spokane?) to Portland

Portland to Clarkston(Spokane?)

Portland to Hood River to Portland

All of these cruises stop at Astoria and I think that would be one of the highlights of any of these cruises. I think it is possible to walk most places in Astoria from the ship. The ships go through several locks. The Gorge, between Portland and The Dalles is quite scenic. The "delta", between Portland and Astoria is also scenic in typical Northwest style. A lot of the other attractions will not be walkable from the ship, and will have to be bussed, with all of the time constraints that entails.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g52024-i238-k14169951-Columbia_and_Snake_RiverCruise-Portland_Oregon.html

Cruise Critic and its subject boards do still exist, including Amercan Cruise Lines, American Queen, etc.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/623-american-queen-voyages/

https://www.cruisecritic.com/find-a-cruise/cruise-line-american-cruise-lines

https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=708913

https://www.americancruiselines.com/free-brochure?utm_source=Cruise%20Critic&utm_medium=Brochure%20Banners&utm_campaign=CruiseCritic

There you go. That shows how closely (or not) I was following CC.

@krystal82004, I hope you get some insight into the available offerings and cruise experience vs a more in-depth experience exploring the same area by car.

Previously. i mentioned that UnCruise, the only small ship experience I was aware of, was leaving the market.

But the other day, i noticed a small ship proceeding up the Columbia, so I looked it up and it appears that, as of late 2024, National Geographic/Linblad is offering small ship cruises on their Sea Bird and Sea Lion.

Our experience on the American Song by this cruiseline was so negative that I wrote to the Vice President of Sales before preparing this review. With no reply after almost a month, I can only conclude that American Cruise Lines recognizes the shoddy provider it has become and doesn’t care.

Lowlights of the trip included: Our room reeked of urine and other odors and the mattress was stained. (See photo). It was apparently adjacent to the employee dining room since we heard parties and other activities, and the hallway outside our room seemed to be a gathering point during shift change, which made it hard to sleep in. On arrival in Portland, cruise personnel stacked all the passengers’ luggage outside, uncovered in the pouring rain, which can’t be an isolated occurrence for Portland. All our clothing was wet and needed to be washed or dry cleaned after we got home. Both the arrival and departure processes were disorganized.

While the itinerary was well designed, the implementation as disorganized as a school class trip, not consistent with the price for the cruise.