Small ship Mediterranean cruises

Small ship cruises offer a very different experience from the mega-cruise-liners. Time is far less structured. Forget the daily calendars promoting hairy-leg contests at the pool, spa and shop sales, bingo, napkin-folding and other activities on the big ships. You won't find a frenzy of programming on the smaller ships. The emphasis is on what you're seeing off the ship rather than on it.

In the Mediterranean, Sea Dream yachts often spend the night in the bay of St. Tropez so you can be ashore into the wee hours, when the French Riviera jumps to life. In the day, the captain may spy a bay with a swath of uninhabited beach and stop for everyone to swim. While Sea Dream has elegant surroundings and top-quality service and food, it adopts a more relaxed dress code, like country-club casual, with no tux needed. Seabourn Cruise Line, which has three ultra-luxury yachts on exotic itineraries on the seven seas, has some formal nights.

Among the small ships, those with billowing sails most conjure images of the romanticism of cruising into private places. Mixing modern elegance with the bygone era of sails, the Windstar cruisers and the graceful tall ships of Star Clippers seek out the lesser-known islands and still turn heads when they arrive.