10 of the world's most adventurous cruises - PHOTO

"Cruising" -- the word conjures up images of overflowing buffets, arm-wrestling at the soft serve machine and death by deck quoits.But there's another side to this kind of travel that spits in the eye of the stereotypical deckchair-hogging cocktail sipper -- and that's adventure and expedition cruising.It's almost deceptive to call it "cruising."10. Island safari, Hawaii, United StatesExtreme rating: 6/10No, not the land of nodding Elvis Presley dolls and plastic grass skirts. Over at Big Island, adventurous vacationers can get aboard the Safari Explorer with just 36 others and, in between kayaking, hiking among volcanoes and dolphin spotting, engage in a mesmerizing ballet with manta rays.9. Across the Northwest Passage, North AmericaExtreme rating: 6/10Until only a few years ago, the fabled Northwest Passage was just a theoretical shipping route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans across the top of Canada.For centuries, people died trying to get through and some of them are still there, buried in permafrost graves.8. Through ancient Kimberley, AustraliaExtreme rating: 7/10The 16th-century Dutch explorers wouldn't have a bar of it. Australia's northwest is so inhospitable, it's even a challenge for the local Njikena and Punaba people who've lived there for thousands of years.But this remote and harshly beautiful part of Australia is the country's adventure cruise hotspot. Its season is from April through to September, when the torrential rains have eased and water cascades off the plateau.7. Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, the AmazonExtreme rating: 7/10Sure, it's the world's largest river by volume but it's also a major sea lane. You reach the departure point for the Amazon's best cruising by flying to the city of Iquitos, Peru, and then making for the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve where the evocatively named Yanayacu (blackwater) and Ucayali (canoe breaker) rivers feed into the main body.6. 'Jungle Book' tour, IndiaExtreme Rating: 7/10The Brahmaputra River begins in the glaciers of Tibet before winding through India and emptying, 2,900 kilometers later, into the Bay of Bengal.5. Into wild West AfricaExtreme Rating: 8/10The once war-torn republics that form a patchwork across Africa are opening up to seaborne tourists.Countries such as Angola, Sierra Leone and Congo are starting to recover from their devastating conflicts, allowing visitors to explore the former slave ports, wildlife sanctuaries and voodoo markets.4. Following Scott, Amundsen et al, AntarcticaExtreme rating: 8.5/10When your neighbors come home from their heroic Antarctic cruise, chances are they've been on a doddle across to the continent's Peninsula.You can trump them by following in the wake of real explorers such as Scott, Amundsen and Mawson. Sail to the Ross Sea or Commonwealth Bay, where these blokes walked out into the white, and you'll find the huts they left behind, still crammed in some cases with frozen 100-year-old kit.3. Island hopping in the PacificExtreme Rating: 8.5/10The ship looks like a prop from "Gilligan's Island," but the little 12-person Braveheart sets sail from Papeete for some of the most remote, uninhabited islands in the Pacific Ocean.2. Ice-breaking to the North PoleExtreme rating: 9.5/10It doesn't get much more extreme than this (although see below). Just 100 years ago voyagers to the North Pole received equivalent celebrity to the moon explorers Neil Armstrong and team in the 1960s.You could still choose to haul your sled over the treacherous crevasses, hummocks and sastrugi (ice obstacles) or instead get aboard the world's most powerful icebreaker, the Russian nuclear 50 лет Победы (50 Years of Victory).1. Down to the Titanic wreck, Atlantic OceanExtreme Rating: 10/10If crazy Clive Palmer's vision comes to life, you'll be able to sail on a replica Titanic in 2016.But for a glimpse of life (and death) aboard the original 1912 vessel, you can get aboard a specialized submersible for an eight-hour joy ride down to the ship, 12,500 feet below the surface of the North Atlantic.(CNN)ANN.Az