My wife and I just got home today from our cruise in SE AK. We flew to Ketchikan and then boarded the David B, a small boat operated by Jeffrey and Christine Smith out of Bellingham, WA
www.nwnavigation.com is their website. We had an excellent time. The boat had Jeffrey, Christine, one crew member and one other guest besides my wife and I for a total of 6 people. It was a very intimate group, rather than thousands on board one of the major cruise ships. We anchored in a small cove on Admiralty Island (supposedly Admiralty has the highest concentration of brown bears in the world) one night and the next morning we went for a hike on the island. We saw bear trails, beds and scat but no bears. The big pile we found was very fresh.
Truthfully I was a bit concerned, especially since I did not have my Ruger 45 Colt Bisley in hand. Jeffrey did have a can of pepper spray so we did have some protection. Then later in the trip we were coming back from visiting Dawe's Glacier and I spotted a Brown Bear feeding along the shore. We approached a bit closer and slowed down to watch it for several minutes. It was the first time I had ever seen a Brown Bear in the wild and it was quite a thrill for me.
Overall it was just a super trip.