Malaspina was designed by Philip F. Spaulding and Associates, constructed in 1963 at the Lockheed Shipbuilding yards in Seattle, Washington, and elongated in 1972 at the Willamette Iron and Steel Company in Portland, Oregon. As a mainline ferry, she serves the larger of the Inside Passage communities, such as Ketchikan, Petersburg, and Sitka, but her route spans the entirety of the Inside Passage, beginning runs in either Bellingham, Washington, or Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada, and running to the northernmost Alaskan Panhandle community of Skagway. Since the late 1990s, Malaspina has operated mostly during the summers as a "dayboat" in the upper Lynn Canal, making daily round trips between Juneau and Skagway with stops in Haines.
Malaspinas amenities include a hot-food cafeteria, a solarium, forward, aft, movie, and business lounges, 54 four-berth cabins, and 29 two-berth cabins. She formerly had a gift shop, but it was closed in 2014 as a cost-saving measure.[1]