Lindblad: 23 entries in our inventory, but the line operates only twelve hulls
Start with what confuses everyone, comparison sites included. Lindblad operates twelve boats, from sixteen to one hundred and forty-eight guests. Our inventory holds twenty-three, and the gap is not an error: the rest are chartered from partners. Oberoi Philae and Sun Goddess work the Nile, Charaidew II the Brahmaputra, The Jahan the Mekong, the Delfin boats the Amazon, Lord of the Glens Scotland, and the two Sea Clouds are sailing ships. Aboard a chartered boat, the service is not delivered by Lindblad. That distinction changes the experience; it is not legal small print.
What we carry, measured
Twenty-three entries, 1,509 distinct departures across 585 dates and 240 routes, from 14 July 2026 to 31 December 2028. Six of the twenty-three carry no departure on our calendar, and they are precisely chartered boats: a charter is negotiated season by season, so an absence with us says nothing about the boat itself.
The house that invented the trade
Founded in 1979 by Sven-Olof Lindblad. His father, Lars-Eric Lindblad, led the first tourist expedition to Antarctica in 1966, brought the first visitors to the Galápagos from 1967 and made the first tourist transit of the Northwest Passage in 1984. The word "expedition" comes from there, long before it became a selling point. The company has been listed on Nasdaq since July 2015, under the symbol LIND: its results are public and checkable.
The National Geographic alliance, in practice
It dates from 2004 and was extended to 2040 in November 2023. It is not a logo on a hull: it is naturalists, photographers and observation equipment aboard, and it is what fills your days. If you are looking for rest and evenings out, this is not the house — the programme starts early and it is dense.
Where the calendar actually goes
To the Galápagos and the Amazon, not the poles. National Geographic Delfina leads with 461 records, ahead of National Geographic Endeavour II with 431, National Geographic Gemini with 372 and National Geographic Islander II with 352. Antarctica and the Arctic are in the catalogue, but they weigh far less than the house's reputation suggests.
