When you sign up for a luxury cruise, you don’t expect to find yourself boarding a rickety hodi boat. A hodi is not the most seaworthy vessel, but with the confidence I had in the officers and staff of the Hebridean Spirit, I was not worried as I stepped into one last year near Fort Janjira off the west coast of India.

The chances of taking a tuk tuk, hodi, or rice barge to a destination near an out-of-the-way port and jetty – from Alexandria to Zanzibar – are slight on most cruises, if for no other reason than the geographic challenges these places pose. But that’s precisely the point of Hebridean Cruises, and why it bills itself as “the small cruise company.” The capacity of the Hebridean Spirit is 58 passengers. Its older sister ship, the Hebridean Princess, carries a mere 49. There’s no way to get lost in the crowd, nor will travelers have to be forced to endure long lines. And they’ll never have to settle for humdrum ports of call. This is in sharp contrast to mega-cruise ships like the Queen Mary 2, which has a passenger capacity hovering around the 2,500 mark.

A Hebridean cruise is a customized experience, with enough amenities to keep a brochure writer busy for days. Standard packages include private chartered or scheduled flights to the cruise departure port from London, routine medical consultations with the ship’s physician, port and passenger taxes, and, most important, all shore visits, including entry fees. As for tipping, it is “actively discouraged.” Rates start at about $6,000 a person for a seven-night cruise.

After perusing a Hebridean directory, which is comprehensive enough to stand in for a few BBC documentaries, I narrowed down the itineraries to one enigmatically titled Return of the Dhows. The cruise traces the ancient trade routes that Arabian dhows sailed across the Indian Ocean. It took nearly six months for me to prepare for it, what with the wait for visas for Oman and India and a series inoculations for diseases rarely mentioned in more familiar latitudes.

None of this dampened my anticipation. To the contrary, it was palpable in the group of around 50 passengers gathered at Heathrow for a group flight to Sri Lanka. (The flight is included in the cruise cost.) I still had some dormant concerns about small ship size: Several years prior, I signed on for a “quirky” cruise originating in Monastir, Tunisia, aboard a small ship optimistically called the Halcyon, operated by Travel Dynamics International. The first night, because of small-craft warnings and a whopper of a storm at sea – which meant we shouldn’t have sailed at all – the good ship Halcyon was impounded by the local coast guard, and all aboard were evacuated in the dark of night on the island of Djerba.

Despite this misadventure, I was sold on Hebridean flair – again, that is, because a year earlier I had explored the Outer Hebrides of Scotland aboard the Hebridean Princess, visiting the remote “Isles at the Edge of the World.” Not many travel buffs, even the diehard among us, can boast of strolling along the Barpa Langass trail on North Uist or gazing upon the stark Black Cullin from the banks of Loch Coruisk.

My small reservations about placing my trust in an anonymous group again proved unfounded. Over the course of 12 days aboard the Hebridean Spirit, the congenial and cultivated bunch proved to be the finest travel companions one could wish for. What I didn’t know at the time was that many had abandoned mega-cruises for Hebridean. Loyal fans and alumni of previous Hebridean cruises spoke of the kinds of places that you’d be hard-pressed to be able to book a flight for on the Internet. As we boarded the ship, which was something like a luxurious floating house party, Captain Mark Dexter greeted us cordially. He was as well-schooled in public relations as he was in navigational skills and guided us to every port with characteristic British aplomb.

Hebridean Cruises also parts ways with conventional cruises when it comes to dining. Forget gluttonous midnight buffets and infinite portions of prosaic pasta. All meals were served in the ship’s one and only Argyll restaurant, with an option to dine al fresco on the bridge deck. One evening is reserved for that inimitable Scottish ritual, the ceremony of the haggis, complete with bagpipes. Special requests, whether for salt-free cuisine or an extra olive for a martini, are accommodated without complication or fuss. And speaking of martinis, those drinks, along with champagne by the glass and house wines and spirits, are on the “included list.” If you lead a fairly alcohol-free life, as I do, the barman can create a seemingly never-ending array of nonalcoholic cocktails. Sipping one of those frothy concoctions was the perfect way to spend lost hours cruising between the Malabar Spice Coast and Panjim.

(More about the ship itself: There are 49 bedrooms in five categories, including two suites to two single occupancy cabins. All of them have sea views and are furnished with handsome maple or cherry furniture. Convenient touches range from DVD-CD players and televisions offering terrestrial, satellite, and closed-circuit channels; minibars, and marble-detailed bathrooms. There are spacious walk-in closets, bathrobes and slippers, Molton Brown bath amenities, and laundry service.)

During the cruise, passengers are briefed expertly on what to expect once the ship is anchored. Most ports of call require local boat transfers. In Malvan, India, the local press was waiting at the harbor to photograph the ship’s arrival. At a remote cinnamon plantation near Cannanore, a group of ladies draped in bright saris greeted us with smiles and flowers. A full-day rice barge tour in Alleppey brought the legendary backwaters of India to life. Overnight passages became opportunities to absorb stimulating lectures, enjoy elegant afternoon tea, or spend an hour or two in the ship’s Espa for a hot stone massage or moisturizing facial.

As we spent two full days at sea sailing to Muscat, Oman, from Mumbai, Josh Garner, a 12-year resident of Oman, gave us an insider’s view of this little-known sultanate, with its fortresses, tribal culture, Disney-esque traffic rotaries, and stunning hotels. Punctual tour buses and local guides made us feel like we were on a college field trip.

Where should I sail next? There’s a Lands of Diamonds cruise that includes a ride on the Outenique Choo-Tjoe steam train between George and Knysna in South Africa, a day on Robben Island (where Nelson Mandala spent 18 years of his 27-year imprisonment), and Kolmanskop in Namibia (east of Luderitz, a boom town that sprung up after diamonds were discovered in Glasplatz in 1908). The Hebridean master planners do their homework – and that just might be this little cruise line’s ultimate hallmark.