Great Rivers Explorer

This vessel was constructed as an overnight cruise vessel. George Schneider (Email to Nauticapedia 01/04/2025) stated "The NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SEA LION (648350 / IMO 8966456) has been up at the Marine Group boat yard in Chula Vista (for several months, it seems) and with the advent of two new deliveries last year, I thought maybe she and her sister SEA BIRD had been sold. But no, there's still a place for them, working locally doing glacier tours in Alaska, whale tours in Mexico, and Columbia / Snake River tours in the continental U. S. Both boats were built by Nichols Brothers in 1982, as GREAT RIVERS EXPLORER and MAJESTIC EXPLORER respectively.

They were bought by their present owners, Special Expeditions of Seattle, in 1990 as simply SEA LION and SEA BIRD. The arrangement with National Geographic started in 2007 and their names modified to reflect that. "