Magical Hawaiian Radiance of the Seas Detailed Trip Report with Many Pictures

Hello all! We had the most magical, wonderful cruise to Hawaii. I did so much research on these boards in the year and a half leading up to this cruise that it is only fair to pay it back. I thank everyone who has offered me advice and shared their own reviews. It was so helpful and really enhanced our experience. This will be a very detailed trip report with a lot of pictures and probably a lot of useless information - but, as I found, you never know what tidbit of info will be helpful to someone else.

I am sure there will be a lot of information – especially the start of the cruise – that is not of interest to most people researching this board. However, I will clearly title the different parts so it will be easy to find information that may be of more interest. Our cruise was on the Radiance of the Seas, repositioning cruise from Vancouver to Hawaii. We had 5 glorious days at sea, with stops in Hilo, Kona, Maui, Kauai, and Honolulu. After debarkation in Honolulu, we stayed 1 night in Waikiki and then 2 days in Maui. My only regret is that we did not choose to have 2 nights in Waikiki and 3 days in Maui. :) However, there were time off from work constraints and we did the best we could. I am aware of the various thoughts and discussion on whether to just go and stay in Hawaii, do the NCL Hawaiian island cruise, or the longer repositioning cruise. We love the entire cruising experience so we were all in for the repositioning cruise. I do not regret that at all!! I am going to include those at sea days in the trip report so that anyone thinking about the longer cruises can see what it is like and decide for themselves if that is how they would like to spend their time. I took more than 8,500 pictures… Paring them down has taken a long time!!

As background, we are Phil and Debbie from MD. We try to cruise around once a year. This was our 12th cruise, 7th on Royal, and our 2nd time on the Radiance. Our 1st Radiance cruise was to Alaska from San Diego in 2009. That was a wonderful experience as well! We cruise with my childhood best friend and her husband, Maria and Frank. This cruise was a bribe to Phil. I promised him when we married 10 years ago that if he stayed married 10 years this time, we would take a cruise to Hawaii. (His other 2 marriages ended just before their 10 year marks… :o) Well, the 3rd time’s the charm! I am so proud of him!!

I do most of the research and planning, and then run things by the others to see what they think. I do try to get the best prices and look at all the options, but we don’t mind spoiling ourselves since we know we won’t be going on another cruise for a year. I continually check prices, even after booking and we got a decrease on our hotels and airfare along the way. I started planning the trip as soon as Hawaii for September 2015 opened up. We booked the first day possible in May 2014 and got the cabins we wanted and the lowest price for Hawaii that I had ever seen in my research. We hit a 50% off 2nd person sale on the day the cruise opened when the prices were the lowest. Phil and I got grand suite 1060 (with the extra-large balcony) and Maria and Frank got grand suite 1600 (with aft balcony). We would have stupendous views!

This vacation felt like 3 vacations in one – the sea days, the island ports, and the post cruise stays. It was 2 weeks of amazing sights, awesome fun, delicious food, and gorgeous views. There was excitement and even a bit of danger! There will be a lot of pictures of Phil. I am writing this review also for us to remember our trip. Phil had a heart attack a month after our return. (Good boy to wait until we got home…) He got some stents and is doing well, but through the medical tests for the heart, they found a couple of nodules on his lungs. As I write this, we are in waiting mode and I am a wee bit nervous…

Anyway, here we go! I hope it is helpful to future readers! Maria, jump in anytime if I am forgetting anything or with some pictures!!!! She did give me some of hers that she thought I may not have gotten, so some are hers.

Wow!! What a day this was!!!!! Today was the start of our 10 year anniversary cruise to Hawaii and it was literally the most stressful beginning of a cruise that we had ever had!

I had spent a lot of time researching flights and looking for the best flight from Baltimore (Philadelphia for M&F). As the date that flights would open up neared, I had an epiphany! Why was I looking for the cheapest flights? It was going to be 2 very long flights – both out to Vancouver and home from Hawaii. Phil is a heavy smoker (was – as I write this he has been smoke free for almost a month! The first time in 40 years…) The flights were going to be very tough on him. Why not book first class and be very comfortable??? I had never flown first class before, but this would definitely be the right time to do it! It was September 2014 and the flights would be long paid before next September and all we would think was how comfortable we were! I explained the epiphany to Phil. He said go for it! M&F said yes, great idea! So, we booked United first class. Unfortunately, there were no direct flights (with any airline!) so there would be a 1 hour layover in Chicago. Cutting it close, but doable if the airline thought it was. Fingers crossed! M&F were coming from Philadelphia and we would all meet in Chicago to take the same plane to Vancouver on the day before the cruise.

We wanted to work a half day in order to use less PTO days. Two weeks was a long time to get off work and we would rather have extra days in Hawaii than Vancouver. So, our plan was to get to Vancouver at 9:20 pm and stay at the Fairmont at the Airport. At some point, our flight changed and the time was 10:03 pm. That was fine since we would not even have to leave the airport. The hotel was right there. We thought that we were doing the right thing by flying in the night before…

A few days before the flight, I was looking at the seats on the mobile app and noticed that on the 2nd leg one of M&F’s seats was listed as available. (An unfortunate airline event on a flight the month before from Disneyland had made me anxious about our flights, which was why I was even checking.) Bizarre! I texted Maria and she called United. Apparently, when they changed the flights, they did not carry over the seats for M&F because someone was in her seat already. What? The customer service agent (and I use the term loosely) did not care and said they only have to guarantee you a seat on the plane, not a particular seat! Who knew?? M&F could have been sitting in coach… Anyway, luckily, there were 4 seats across in row 4 of first class so they took 2 seats and I changed our seats from row 1 to 4 so we could sit together. So, I basically saved their first class seats for them!! Remember this!!

The big day dawned!! Well, dawned was putting it nicely. Rain and thunderstorms today… Now, I was regretting our decision to work a half day. It was so dark and stormy out. I got home a little after 12 pm. M&F’s flight was already showing delayed out of Philadelphia. They had an hour and a half layover in Chicago. They were delayed 30 minutes, then 45 minutes, and then 54 minutes. YIKES!

P&I had moved our driver up to 2:30 from 3:00 due to the rain. That seemed to be a good decision as it was pouring by 2 pm. Just before pick up time, we received notification that our 5 pm flight was delayed until 7 pm. We thought that we would still head out to the airport in case any changes for the better. High hopes, LOL!

Then, we were notified that our flight was delayed until 7:55 pm. We would miss our connecting flight. OMG! Shaking, I called United. A half hour later, we had flights on Air Canada at 4:30 pm with a connecting flight in Toronto with an hour and a half layover. It was absolutely the only flight that could get us to Vancouver before our cruise left the next day. As I was on the phone with the rep, I got a text that the freaking Air Canada flight was delayed until 5:10 pm. LOL! This delay was actually good news since we were a little nervous now about getting the airport for the 4:30 flight in this pouring rain anyway. M&F were going to be cutting it tight, but we were all hopeful that we would be meeting up in Vancouver that night. Should they miss their connecting flight, there were no other flights that would get them to Vancouver in time for the cruise from Chicago! (Later, we realized that perhaps we could have flown to Seattle and rented a vehicle to get to Vancouver, but we were all a little tense at the time. You would not think after 12 cruises that we would still be learning, but I did learn a few things on this cruise. Lesson #1 – even getting to the port city the evening before was cutting it too close… Especially if connecting flights are involved!)

Our driver got us loaded into a very nice brand new black Suburban and off we went in the pouring rain. It was raining too hard so I did not get a photo, but I figured I would grab one when he dropped us off. We were about 15 minutes down the busy Route 95 highway when we hydroplaned across the highway. I screamed and closed my eyes! Phil did not have his seat belt on yet and he was thrown around to the floor. BANG, BANG, BANG. Three times we hit the jersey wall. First the front of the vehicle, then the back of the vehicle, then the front of the vehicle. Each time, I closed my eyes and did not know if a truck was hitting us or what we were hitting. Each bang, I thought we were going to die or be seriously injured.

It took forever. Accidents happen so quickly and are so fast, but you are so surprised at how long it takes and how many thoughts you have running through your head in such a short time frame. It was horrifying!! Once, during that hydroplane, when I opened my eyes, I saw the driver’s scared face. When I opened my eyes another time, I saw Phil lying on the floor of the back seat. I was still screaming when we stopped on the left shoulder. (LOL, I asked Phil afterwards, “Was I screaming ‘WE’RE GOING TO DIE’ over and over??” He said yes. I said I thought I was just doing that in my head…) Unbelievably, no one hit us. Unbelievably, no one was hurt. Phil was bleeding a little, but said he was okay otherwise. I whispered to him, “This really happened, didn’t it?” Yes.

I was still really scared because the shoulder was so small the SUV almost did not fit and it was still pouring. I was so afraid we would still get hit. Shaking, I called my son, who is a police officer who works near that area of Route 95. He was not working, but he sent officers there. I called M&F and I was still shaking and crying. The limo company was sending out another vehicle, but I could not imagine moving all our luggage (and there was a lot!) on this small shoulder. The police officer took a report and we told him that we were not injured. While we were waiting, the driver took a look at the damage and said that, although it was very damaged, he thought he could still drive it the rest of the way to the airport. It was a Suburban so it was big and was able to handle the damage and also its size helped in not sending us spinning back out into 95 when we were hitting the jersey wall SO MANY TIMES. We would have certainly been dead or in the hospital had that happened. Thank you, God! We said onward!! Let’s do this!!

I asked Phil if he were okay and he said yes, he just needed a cigarette and a beer ASAP! :) The driver said well I can’t help you with the beer but please feel free to smoke. This thing will be going in the shop after I drop you off and a little smoke won’t hurt it! Yes! I apologized to the driver for screaming so much. I am sure I made it worse. But, I was very traumatized because one of my sons was killed in a hydroplaning accident when he was 19. All I could think of was whether or not Jake had been thinking he was going to die and did it take that long for him to know all would not be well? The driver assured me that I was not screaming too much and had every right to be traumatized. He said that he had never had an accident in the 17 years that he had been doing this. I felt really bad for him. He did an amazing job keeping that thing on the shoulder. I told Phil at that point that if we missed the ship that I would not care because I really thought we were dead. We would meet it in Hawaii 5 days later. We lived and so who the heck cared!! Seriously, it was that traumatizing. Thank you, God!

M&F got to the airport and were told that they should still be able to make their connecting flight, but it was going to be very close. We got to the airport without further incident and thanked and tipped the driver handsomely! He did a great job! (I was a little surprised that the limo company never contacted us to make sure we were okay or anything, but I guess they are afraid of lawsuits. Ummm, no, we lived and were on our way to Hawaii!)

When we were at check in – at the desk in the airport because we had to go get the new boarding pass now - we got the news that when we land in Toronto, which was now our connection to Vancouver, we would have to get our luggage, go through customs, and then board another plane for Vancouver. Uggghhh!! Plus, there were no first class seats available on the flight from Baltimore to Toronto, although there might be on the flight from Toronto to Vancouver. Plus, we had to pay the luggage fees because we were no longer in first class. Plus, my suitcase was 6 lbs. over the weight limit and there would be $75 charge unless I moved some of the contents from the heavy suitcase to a lighter one. For our United first class, the weight was 70 lbs. so I had not worried about being over. I opened the suitcase and started trying to put some of my clothes into the other. My pretty shirts started spilling all over the floor. I was still shaking and almost crying and said I can’t do this!! We’ll just pay it!!!! But the nice boy, who was our porter when we were dropped off, saw my issues and came running back and said, “Don’t worry, I will help you!!! He put a few things over until the weight evened out and closed them up and said, “See! All fixed!” He told Phil, “You were really good to me!” :) I asked Phil later how much tip he had given him and he said, “Let’s just say I made his night.” I was glad he did! :o

We got our boarding passes and assigned seats. The counter girl said we were seated in emergency seats and were we okay with that responsibility? I said we already had a couple of emergencies today! I think we can handle it!! :)

Phil smoked a few cigarettes and I called my daughter to tell her what happened (and started crying again…). We went through the TSA precheck line. We had gotten that just before our Disney trip and it was worth every penny of the $85 and time and effort spent going to go get fingerprinted. There was a separate line with no wait, no taking off shoes, no issues. They are even a little nicer to you. :cool: Very nice!

When we got settled, I went to a phone charging station for a while. When I came back to where Phil was sitting, he looked at me and shook his head and grinned. I said what’s wrong?? You okay??? (I was still a little worried how he had gotten thrown around in the accident!) He said you are not going to believe this… What? Did we get delayed again?? Nope! Our plane is here. Go look at it… Oh dear!!!! I had never seen a jet this small. I was laughing and could not stop. Not sure how many seats there were, but not many on this Bombardier Dash 8-1000. It didn’t look very safe, but you don’t really hear of too many Air Canada crashes… Of course not – not enough people to make the news! LOL! I was pretty sure that we had already had our share of excitement.

We had to walk out onto the tarmac, place our carry-on bags on a rack. The inside of the plane was very small. There was one flight attendant and she sat on a small seat up front. We kept hearing large bangs against the windows. One brave person asked the attendant what was that noise (most of us were too afraid to ask!). She said that ice forms on the propeller and then the rubber expands and pushes the ice off and the ice comes back and hits the plane. Oh, okay! You can’t make this stuff up!!!

This whole flight Phil and I are thinking of M&F in their comfy first class seats with their free alcohol and delicious meal. We did get soda and pretzels… In the seats that I saved for them!! :rolleyes:

We debarked, got our carryon and went into the airport.

The journey to our connecting flight was an experience. First, we had to get our carry-ons and waited by the plane for them to be unloaded. Once we got those, we walked what felt like miles to customs. A very surly young man at customs awaited us. Then, we went the wrong way to get our bags. Finally we found them and got a porter to help us and bring them to the conveyor belt where we put them back on and had to go through another customs. The porter told us we were late, but maybe our plane would be delayed. We were unclear on the time because of the time changes. He was wrong and we had not missed it, but our blood pressure went up in fear and trying to hurry. He was very nice, though. We went through security and walked another mile to our gate. No TSA pre check here! :rolleyes: We got there right as they were boarding! But also got a shot of a beautiful sunset…

So, now we went from one extreme to the other - from a 1950s plane to a futuristic plane – a Boeing 777. First class (business class) was amazing!! It looked like space ship. The flight was going on to Australia after stopping in Vancouver. The seat turned into a bed. There was a television with head phones. Each person had their own little area.

The menu was extensive, such as beef tenderloin, chicken breast, salmon, mushroom ravioli. Dessert was fresh fruit or a fresh baked chocolate chip cookie.

I could not get a signal at the airport or before we took off. We had no idea if M&F made it!!!!! And, they had no idea if we made it!!!! :eek: :eek: Fingers crossed!

This plane ride was a lovely experience. I cuddled up in the bed with the oh so cozy blanket and made myself comfortable and watched the flight path on the tv the entire time.

When we landed, we got our luggage and 2 complimentary carts (yes, we had that much luggage). I called M&F right away and they were at the hotel!!!!! They had landed just a few minutes before us!!! Yeah!!! They had gotten to their gate just as their plane was finishing boarding. Woah!! We all made it!!! We were going on a cruise to Hawaii tomorrow!!!!!!

We pushed our carts through the long airport and took the elevator up a floor. We were dragging at that point. We got to the stairs where the hotel was. We were nervous that we were going to have to carry our suitcases up there. However, the bell boy greeted us from a station off to the side, gave us our room card keys, and took our luggage to our room!!! Wonderful service!

We met M&F at the bar and had a few libations to celebrate our survival and arrival! We laughed and laughed and had a nice night. I was being a bit forgetful and we joked that I now had the 50 First Dates memory syndrome. We went up to our rooms after midnight (which was after 3 am at home!). I loved the hotel and our room. It was beautiful. I was very impressed and very happy that we had decided to stay there. We did not have to leave the airport. It was so convenient, but luxurious!

Up next, embarkation of the beautiful Radiance of the Seas!!

EMBARKATION DAY

We went to bed late, but I still got up very early! Embarkation day is no day to be sleeping late!! No matter the circumstances. :) I loved the view from the room of the planes and the mountains. I had called the hotel the day before to make sure they knew we would be getting in late and the girl asked if we wanted a smoking room as she saw our preferences. YES!! I didn’t know they offered smoking rooms. I asked her if the room would still have the view and she said it wasn’t quite as good a view, but she knew smokers and felt that Phil would enjoy the ability to smoke more than the little better view. So best wife in the world downgraded our view room so Phil could smoke. I had had no idea how much he would need it! The view was still very nice!

We were meeting our transportation at 10 am. The walk out of the hotel was exciting. Very nice and you went over a walkway that looked over the airport check in. Pretty cool!!

We were picked up by Aerostar Limo Company at 10 am in a very nice stretch limo. The porter at the hotel was very nice. The driver had a cool attachment that allowed him to put most of our luggage in the trunk! I didn’t get a picture, but it was pretty neat and meant we didn’t have to sit with some of the luggage like you usually have to do in a limo and a lot of luggage.

Traffic was pretty heavy. We got to the port around 11 am. The driver, who was also very nice, said I had to pay. I had already been charged back when I booked it. I was sure because it was in Canadian money and when I was charged, it was a few dollars less than I had thought it would be. But for some reason, the invoice I printed out said “pay driver” and did not show that I had already paid. He called the company and they had no record of me paying. This was getting really embarrassing because the port area was crowded and I was getting frazzled trying to figure this out and give our luggage to the porter. I wasn’t going to argue about it at that point so I paid and said I would take care of it later. The driver wanted cash, but luckily Maria said, no use your card so you have a record. Good point!! Lesson #2 – carefully check all of your invoices to make sure they are accurate!! It did all work out and I was credited my overpayment, but it took about a month to work out and then they shorted me and I had to contact them again. I ended up making a couple of dollars on the exchange by the time they got it back to me… :)

Our first view of the beautiful Radiance of the Seas:

Hahaha, we were a little taken aback by the confusion regarding double payment. The porter was there loading our luggage, I was trying to figure out what was going on, Phil was trying to figure out what was going on. The porter was standing there. We figured he was trying to figure out what was going on… No, he was waiting for his tip. :o Maria nudged us and said I think he is waiting for his tip before he takes the luggage. Oh yeah!

We went into the lobby and got into line. We were sent right up to check in due to the suite status. There was a fairly long line otherwise, but we were very lucky! Then, they sent us down some kind of sketchy, narrow, steep steps to Customs. I was not sure how anyone with any kind of mobility issues would be able to maneuver those steps, especially as most people have some kind of carry on with them too. The man in front of us had a cane!

We went through screening and then were directed to a line for the customs kiosk. Cool – it was my first time for a kiosk. I filled that out for me and Phil and then we went to a border agent, then to ship security, and finally boarded the ship. I thought that because all of our ports were in the U.S. that the customs would be on the easy side. We have never had to show our passports so many times on a cruise!!

I had hoped to go to Giovanni’s for lunch upon embarkation but it was not open. We were told that it would only be open on sea days, but most times we checked during the cruise it was closed for special events. I was sad because I love Giovanni’s lunch menu, but since (spoiler alert) we were at one of those events, I wouldn’t complain…

We went to the Windjammer for the more traditional lunch. :) Yummy! I stopped at one of the tables to see if I could fix my spa appointment for the next day. I had booked online prior to sailing for mani / pedi. However, the manicure was at 8 am in the morning and the pedicure was at 2 pm because it was not possible to book the pedi in the morning online. :confused: The girl at the table told me that I should go to the actual spa because she did not have access to that and that I should go ASAP because it would fill up fast. We went there and got that fixed so I could get both done at 8 am, something that I have been doing for the past few years.

We went to check on our table in the main dining room. We have late seating. I had eMailed royal dining a couple weeks before the cruise to request a private table for 4, which I also typically do. I received a reply with our table number confirmation and a ‘have another great cruse’! Unfortunately, our jaws dropped when we saw our table. It was that table. You know that table right by the entrance of the restaurant. Right where everyone walks in and looks at the poor saps sitting there. Right where everyone walks out after dinner and looks at the poor saps sitting there and say: I would never want to sit there! (Or maybe we just think that??) We asked the maître d if we could change and all they had was 1 table by the kitchen right behind a wait staff station. This was like the 2nd worst table in the place. The maître d said he would check and let us know tomorrow if he had another table. This was a full cruise so he could not guarantee it. So, we stuck with what we had – for now. Lesson #3 learned – ask the royal dining person check on the location of the table!!!

Grand Suites 1060 and 1600

It was now after 1 pm and the doors to the cabin areas were opened. We went to our respective rooms. M&F had suite 1600, the aft grand suite and Phil and I had 1060. Ours was right by the elevator, while theirs was on the other side down the long hallway to the aft. I felt badly because Frank was having awful hip pain. I had offered to switch cabins before the cruise, but Maria said no, they would stick with the aft. We went to see our room and told them that we would come down to theirs to see theirs in a bit.