It was built in 1984 at Jeffersonville, Indiana for Clipper Cruise Lines by Jeffboat Corporation, and operated on the East Coast of North America, from the Caribbean Sea to the Canadian Maritimes and into the Great Lakes as far as Chicago.

The vessel struck a submerged, uncharted object and the captain ordered for the ship to be driven into the shallows to avoid settling on the bottom in deeper water.

[citation needed] After her grounding, Spirit of Glacier Bay went back to Seattle, where she laid up at Jacobsens Terminal in the Ballard neighborhood.

In 2010 Cruise West announced plans to rename the vessel either Spirit of America or Spirit of Adventure, give her the extensive shipyard work necessary to make her structurally sound and operational again, and to run the vessel on a series of itineraries in eastern North America similar to her original routes, including the Mississippi, the New England coast, and the Great Lakes / St. Lawrence River.

[3] Cruise West ceased operations on 18 September 2010, before beginning the work necessary to return the vessel to service.