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Radiance Southbound - June 24 to July 1 w/pre-cruise land - Trip Report


dstein
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I've written up our just-completed (and amazingly awesome) trip on Radiance Southbound here:

http://jumpyip.blogspot.com.

 

This thread is meant to serve as a place to comment or ask questions.

 

Tons of pictures.

 

Our itinerary was:

June 19: Fly to Fairbanks

June 20: Train to Denali, afternoon in the park

June 21: Denali shuttle bus to Eileson

June 22: Train to Anchorage

June 23: Train to Seward, zip lining in Seward

June 24: Kenai Fjord tour, board Radiance

June 25: Hubbard Glacier cruising

June 26: Juneau/Harv & Marv whalewatching

June 27: Skagway/Chilkoot Charters: WP&Y RR to Fraser, bus to Emerald Lake and back

June 28: ISP

June 29: Ketchikan/Island Wings and kayaking

June 30: Inside Passage cruising

July 1: Vancouver and back home

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Loved your review! We were on the same cruise with you so it was fun to follow along with your review. Like you, I had a very extensive spreadsheet and enjoyed the research almost as much as the trip. We had 3 generations in our group, too, and everyone had a fantastic time.

 

We chose to do the southbound route so we could do our land excursions first as they were our highest priority and we wanted to be fresh for those and have backup opportunities if anything was cancelled due to weather. Luckily, everything went exactly as planned. We approached this as a once in a lifetime trip and did everything we wanted to do.

 

We flew to Anchorage on 6/20, took the train to Seward on 6/22 and boarded the ship on 6/24. Prior to the cruise, we did a Flightseeing trip over Denali from Anchorage (Rust's), a helicopter ride to the Godwin Glacier for dog sledding from Seward (Seward Helicopters/Turning Heads Kennel), and the Kenai Fjords National Park Tour from Seward. We also hiked Exit Glacier and went to the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward. During the cruise, we went to the Mendenhall Glacier and Mt Roberts in Juneau (2 did kayaking at Mendenhall Glacier with Above and Beyond Alaska). We did the Chilkoot Tours' White Pass and Yukon Railway tour in Skagway, but just the 3 hour one, which was more than sufficient for us. We went whale watching in Hoonah/ISP (Misty Bay Lodge) and halibut fishing in Ketchikan (Oasis). We also went to the Great American Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan. Everything was excellent and I would highly recommend each of these vendors.

 

I was pleasantly surprised by the Radiance of the Seas as it had some less than favorable reviews on here. Everything was very nice. Compared to other Royal Caribbean cruises we have been on, we were less impressed with the MDR food and service, but it was still good.

 

All in all, we had a spectacular time and enjoyed every minute of the trip.

 

A few things we learned:

1. We definitely over packed and could have left one-third of our clothes home. We packed for 4 seasons. Think spring! Didn't need rain pants, hiking boots, swim suit (although some people were in the pool which was heated, it was too cold with the wind for us - although you could use the indoor pool, we never did). Never wore winter coat. Fleece jacket and waterproof rain jacket are essential.

2. People were definitely dressed up on the formal nights, which we enjoy doing. Other nights were very casual.

3. Seafood is outstanding in Alaska! Be sure to eat at restaurants in ports if you can;seafood on the ship is not as outstanding.

4. We did not use binoculars as much as we thought we would. Glad we only bought one new pair.

5. I wish we had gone a few weeks later in the season to see the Bears.

6. It NEVER got dark in Alaska while we were there, especially farther north. Even at 2am, it was still somewhat light outside. There were room darkening curtains on the ship and in our 2 hotels so it wasn't a problem.

7. If you want to drink wine on the ship, definitely go to the Safeway in Seward to buy 2 bottles per cabin. We went to 2 other stores first, but Safeway has the best selection. It's on the highway, but it's a short walk from the small boat harbor or a quick $5 cab ride (if you don't want to haul your wine down the busy highway).

8. Bring a great camera as everything is just beautiful, majestic, stunning!! I took about 1500 pictures over 12 days.

 

Lastly, I am sorry to hear about your experience with the Best Western. We had rooms reserved there, but switched to the Harbir 360 once they started taking reservations. While it was an older hotel, it was being refurbished and the people couldn't have been nicer. I would highly recommend it. They offer a complimentary breakfast, but we didn't eat there so I cannot comment on that.

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Thank you for the trip report - I loved all the detail! We are doing the same trip next year (except on Millennium) and you gave me so much useful information. Quick question for you: what were your best meals of the trip (not on the ship!)?

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We flew to Anchorage on 6/20, took the train to Seward on 6/22 and boarded the ship on 6/24. Prior to the cruise, we did a Flightseeing trip over Denali from Anchorage (Rust's), a helicopter ride to the Godwin Glacier for dog sledding from Seward (Seward Helicopters/Turning Heads Kennel), and the Kenai Fjords National Park Tour from Seward. We also hiked Exit Glacier and went to the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward. During the cruise, we went to the Mendenhall Glacier and Mt Roberts in Juneau (2 did kayaking at Mendenhall Glacier with Above and Beyond Alaska). We did the Chilkoot Tours' White Pass and Yukon Railway tour in Skagway, but just the 3 hour one, which was more than sufficient for us. We went whale watching in Hoonah/ISP (Misty Bay Lodge) and halibut fishing in Ketchikan (Oasis). We also went to the Great American Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan. Everything was excellent and I would highly recommend each of these vendors.

If we ever go again we'd like to try a helicopter ride to a glacier. And agree that the 3h Chilkoot trip would have been enough - particularly since we'd already done many hours on the Alaska Railroad. N&H tried to schedule a fishing trip at ISP, but the only thing available was a catch-and-release river trip and they wanted to do something out on the open water.

 

I was pleasantly surprised by the Radiance of the Seas as it had some less than favorable reviews on here. Everything was very nice. Compared to other Royal Caribbean cruises we have been on, we were less impressed with the MDR food and service, but it was still good.

We kept wondering what folks who claimed that Radiance was "run down" were looking at. We saw nothing that looked old or unkempt. I suppose if we'd looked harder we could have found rust...but where you have sea water you'll have rust, so even the presence of rust wouldn't have signified much to us. Also agree with you re: service. It wasn't bad, by any stretch - but it didn't rise above "extremely competent". We had good service, just not "WOW" service.

 

A few things we learned:

4. We did not use binoculars as much as we thought we would. Glad we only bought one new pair.

Agreed. We had 3 pairs, which was 2 pairs too many.

8. Bring a great camera as everything is just beautiful, majestic, stunning!! I took about 1500 pictures over 12 days.

Truer words could not be written! I'm not a natural photographer but when you take 1200 photos (my count) you get lucky on enough of them to get some good pictures. Or, better yet, follow my example. Travel with folks who *are* good photographers and then get copies of their pictures! :)

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Thank you for the trip report - I loved all the detail! We are doing the same trip next year (except on Millennium) and you gave me so much useful information. Quick question for you: what were your best meals of the trip (not on the ship!)?

 

We ate a total of eight meals off the ship. Of these, the best was probably at Black Diamond Grill in Healy (Denali). All dishes (with the exception of some overbreaded/overfried crab cakes) were pretty solid, and those who had salmon said it was treated more respectfully there than at Chinooks (in Seward, which I'd put in 2nd place). Portions at Black Diamond were huge - one of our group actually took the salmon leftovers, bought a croissant at Miner's Market and turned it into a healthy salmon lunch on the train the next day....and he still had enough salmon left over to throw into his pasta dinner in the dining car that evening!

 

In order, from best to worst:

1. Black Diamond Grill (Healy)

2. Chinooks (Seward)

3. 49th State Brewing Company (Healy)

4. Prospector's Pizza (Denali/Glitter Gulch)

5. (tie) Hangars at the Wharf (Juneau)

Brewsters (Fairbanks)

7. Fish and chip stand (Ketchikan)

8. Caribou Crossing (Yukon)

 

#3-#7 all delivered exactly what you'd expect. For example, you'd expect a decent pizza at Prospector's Pizza and that's what you get. I'd go to any of #1-#7 again, but #3-#7 would simply be places to get fed, not an experience.

 

#8 is a generic picnic lunch that you accept because you have no other choices.

 

The single best dish of the entire trip was the smoked sablefish appetizer at Chinooks. All of us loved that one. I was also extremely pleased with my BBQ ribs at Black Diamond Grill.

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Thanks for your posts! We, too, began planning for 4 and will have 12 on our cruise, including our year and a half old grandson. We are expecting a fun trip based on our past cruises to the Bahamas and the Southern Caribbean.

 

I already have the Harv and Marv trip booked and am excited to see yet another nice comment about sailing with them. Looking forward to reading the rest of the blog and the comments from those of you who were on the Radiance cruise. Again, thanks.

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I am truly enjoying you review as I was relaxing in Anchorage to start our land tour then to cruise on the Radiance of the seas July 8th. We are doing the same tour with your pilot Michelle from island wings. Can't wait to start. Thank you for you review.

Paul

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I am truly enjoying you review as I was relaxing in Anchorage to start our land tour then to cruise on the Radiance of the seas July 8th. We are doing the same tour with your pilot Michelle from island wings. Can't wait to start. Thank you for you review.

Paul

Have a great trip! Usually, no matter how much fun we've had we reach a point in vacation when we're ready to be back home. That wasn't the case for Alaska. We would have gladly stayed longer.

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Love your report/web pages!

 

I'm planning on going at the end of August on the Radiance.

 

You didn't post your experiences eating onboard in MDR. How was it?

This was our third cruise so the MDR menus held few surprises for us. The fact that there were 11 of us meant that we typically had about 50-60% of the total menu ordered each night so had a chance to taste some things we hadn't previously tried. And as the cruise progressed our waiter (Reynato) started bring us extra dishes w/o prompting. For example, one evening there was a meatball appetizer where he brought us 6 portions for shared tasting.

 

One discovery we made mid-cruise was that the Chocolate Sensation (one of the Classic desserts) wasn't being served as written. As per the menu (and my memory from prior cruises) it was supposed to be a sponge cake with chocolate. However, they were instead basically serving chocolate mousse with ice cream...which, for us, was a MUCH tastier choice. C and I started ordering that each night. Of course, if C had realized how good the brownie (from the kids menu) was she likely would have had that instead!

 

As to quality? Well, the MDR is basically banquet food. So how does it compare to other banquet food? As you may have noticed W was a Nobel Prize winner, which means that in 2014 we (D,E,R,A) had the pleasure of joining S&W in Stockholm for the awards, which included the Nobel Prize dinner - which is also a banquet dinner, of extra special quality. So I had advised folks that, on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 = Nobel Prize banquet the MDR would be about a 2.5 to 3, and I think most everyone would have agreed with that by end of cruise. (We've been to some REALLY BAD banquets for other events, so anyone thinking that 3 sounds high hasn't experienced "luke-warm brown meat in brown sauce with gummy mashed potatoes and limp beans" style banquets.)

 

The MDR is never going to earn a Michelin star...but given that they are feeding hundreds of people in a short time frame they deserve a lot of credit for consistency.

 

I think the most enjoyed dish was the lamb shank on the last evening. I'm not a lamb lover so didn't partake, but several others did and liked it a lot. Avoid the "mint sauce" - was deemed to be melted toothpaste.

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Thanks for your posts! We, too, began planning for 4 and will have 12 on our cruise, including our year and a half old grandson. We are expecting a fun trip based on our past cruises to the Bahamas and the Southern Caribbean.

 

I already have the Harv and Marv trip booked and am excited to see yet another nice comment about sailing with them. Looking forward to reading the rest of the blog and the comments from those of you who were on the Radiance cruise. Again, thanks.

Hope your large group trip is as great as ours was! For Harv and Marv you have enough folks to qualify for their private boat - that makes for a great family-only trip. IIRC there was no additional cost for this - you just had to request it.

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I am back on the Alaska boards starting to plan for a 14-day cruise next May and found your review/blog. I was flattered to see my name mentioned in the intro to your review! :o

 

I take a lot of ribbing for my obsessive cruise planning, but after looking at your spreadsheets, I realize I'm not even close to being in your league! You are my hero!!

 

I'm headed back to your blog to read some more, but wanted to thank you for sharing your trip with the rest of us!

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Thank you for the trip report - I loved all the detail! We are doing the same trip next year (except on Millennium) and you gave me so much useful information. Quick question for you: what were your best meals of the trip (not on the ship!)?

 

 

Here are the restaurants we enjoyed while in Alaska:

 

Anchorage: Snow City Cafe (excellent breakfast - make reservations), Glacier Brewhouse, Simon & Seaforts (expensive - great halibut cheeks)

 

Seward: Ray's Waterfront, Chinook's. We went to The Cookery, which was highly recommended, but it was a bit too eclectic for us. We had a good breakfast at the Breeze Inn and an awful breakfast at the Lighthouse Restaurant and Bakery.

 

Juneau - Tracy's King Crab Shack, Red Dog Saloon (interesting and fun atmosphere and entertainment, but so-so food)

 

Skagway - Skagway Brewing Company

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We ate a total of eight meals off the ship. Of these, the best was probably at Black Diamond Grill in Healy (Denali).

 

The single best dish of the entire trip was the smoked sablefish appetizer at Chinooks. All of us loved that one. I was also extremely pleased with my BBQ ribs at Black Diamond Grill.

 

Thank you so much for the reply and info! I have a few more questions for you... I too am a compulsive planner, and like you, I enjoy it immensely. :) Would you share your general booking time frames with me? We have the cruise booked (July 30, 2017). At what points in planning did you book hotels, airfare, tours, etc? We are planning 5 days land-based pre-cruise (Denali, Seward) and then the 7 day cruise.

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At what points in planning did you book hotels, airfare, tours, etc?

 

Cruise: the 1st day Royal opened up bookings. Had asked TA to try to get us neighboring afts + a nearby triple. Never expected to luck into 9256, but TA came through. All aft balconies and MOST port side balconies had holds placed on them by the end of the first day of release. A lot of those went right back on the market in a few days, as the holds ended. Aft balconies on Deck 10 seemed to be less popular than other decks...I think I saw a bunch of those still available for some # of weeks after sales were opened.

 

I did continue to price track until day of cruise. Price on opening day was (by far) the lowest price through final payment date. (Also helped that we booked 5 cabins and TA was able to give us a better group rate.) Post-final payment up until 2 days before cruise I kept seeing balcony cabins pop up at reduced prices and disappear every few days. I assume there were cancellations putting a small # of cabins back into inventory at various times. The best price I ever saw in this period was USD $100-$150 less than original debut price...so if you aren't picky and are a bit of a gambler you could theoretically end up with a balcony at the last minute.

 

Airfare: End of January. I didn't try to track fare pricing after original booking, so not sure how pricing may have changed. Given that we were trying to schedule 9 people on the same return flights we decided to book early to ensure we all had seats. In mid January we could do this, but even then not as a block of nine neighboring seats. We had to split up on the plane.

 

Hotels: Just prior to Christmas 2015 (i.e. about 6.5 months in advance). We needed 3-4 rooms at each place. No problems, although we nabbed the last 3 rooms at Denali Dome Home. I did see that someone trying to book the major Glitter Gulch hotels (I assume Grande Denali, Denali Bluffs, and/or the various Princess places) in January (for a June trip) was complaining about no vacancy.

 

Exception: Best Western in Seward: August 2015. The fact that we couldn't get reservations at what was then the Holiday Inn spooked us. We were worried that things were filling up. The hotel was sold out when we were there.

 

Tours: 6.5 months out (Mostly done last week of Dec 2015 and first week fo Jan 2016). No problems getting desired bookings. IIRC, some of the early morning Denali Shuttle departures (pre-9AM start times) were already showing as sold out...but we were looking for a 10A departure and had no issues.

 

Exception: Seward Zipline - January 2016. They run 4-5 different trips each day. Our first choice (I think it was 130P?) was already sold out. We had to take a later trip (the 300P start).

 

Alaska RR: mid-Dec 2015 (about 7 months out). Assuming they fill out cars front to back, this got us into the front of Adventure Class for Fairbanks to Denali (clearly not a heavily booked train), front of 2nd car of Adventure Class for Denali to Anchorage (which happened to be EXACTLY what we would have requested based on what we learned on the first leg of the trip), and back 1/3rd of car A on GoldStar Class Anchorage to Seward. I assume if we'd waited much longer we would have been in car B....which wouldn't have mattered. If you REALLY want to be close to the front of Car A (where the 1st several rows benefit from view out the front windows in addition to side windows) I assume you'd have to book earlier than we did.

 

Note that, for excursions, (I think) there are several folks here at CC who successfully book right at the port on day of event. I think BudgetQueen may be one who regularly does this. That kind of uncertainty does NOT work for me, but if you're a bit more free-spirited it sounds like you can always find /something/ on "day-of".

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I am back on the Alaska boards starting to plan for a 14-day cruise next May and found your review/blog. I was flattered to see my name mentioned in the intro to your review! :o

 

I take a lot of ribbing for my obsessive cruise planning, but after looking at your spreadsheets, I realize I'm not even close to being in your league! You are my hero!!

 

I'm headed back to your blog to read some more, but wanted to thank you for sharing your trip with the rest of us!

Thank YOU for sharing your trip. Between you and LJ we ended up accelerating our Alaska trip from 2017 into 2016...we just couldn't summon up enough patience to wait any longer having read your trip reports! :D

 

As to the spreadsheet...I'm just a humble computer nerd in real life. "Go with your strengths", as they say. ;)

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  • 3 weeks later...

I am loving reading your trip report! I am about half way through it right now. I do have a question regarding the train. I am working on planning a cruise and land tour for 6 of us next August. I had thought about doing basically the same itinerary: Fly into Fairbanks and take the train down to Anchorage. What I'm wondering is, if we want to make an overnight or two stop in Denali would we have to purchase 2 different train tickets: Fairbanks to Denali and then Denali to Anchorage? Or can we just purchase the Fairbanks to Anchorage ticket and have an overnight stay without voiding the rest of the ticket?

 

It looks like you all had a great time and I can't wait to continue reading!

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I am loving reading your trip report! I am about half way through it right now. I do have a question regarding the train. I am working on planning a cruise and land tour for 6 of us next August. I had thought about doing basically the same itinerary: Fly into Fairbanks and take the train down to Anchorage. What I'm wondering is, if we want to make an overnight or two stop in Denali would we have to purchase 2 different train tickets: Fairbanks to Denali and then Denali to Anchorage? Or can we just purchase the Fairbanks to Anchorage ticket and have an overnight stay without voiding the rest of the ticket?

 

It looks like you all had a great time and I can't wait to continue reading!

Afraid I can't give an "official" answer on the train ticket question. I purchased our tickets as 3 separate trips: FAI to Denali, Denali to ANC, and then ANC to Seward. Hadn't even thought about the possibility of trying to purchase as one long trip with stopovers. I suspect a call to the AKRR folks would give the answer.

 

Enjoy your trip - Alaska was staggeringly beautiful!

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Really enjoyed reading about your trip! Two of us are leaving in mid-August and will do a 5 day land tour and then our cruise. Really looking forward to it!

I'm certain you'll have a great time. Would love to hear about it when you get back!

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