Radiance Alaska B2B - my experience

[Bellamariya]

I have been reading a lot of reviews of the most recent cruises on Radiance of the Seas and it has felt overwhelmingly negative. So I thought I would share my experience and that of the 5 people that were on the cruise with me :)

These were cruises 5 and 6 for me so I did have a few other cruises to compare to.

 

There were 6 of us (Australians in our 30’s and 40’s) travelling together (3 couples in 3 staterooms) for a B2B Alaskan adventure and we chose Radiance of the Seas as my previous cruise on RCI had been amazing. Two of our friends celebrated their wedding anniversary on the first cruise. My husband and I celebrated ours on the second cruise.

Embarkation at Canada Place was easy and we were on the ship and checking out the Windjammer in no time. No problems carrying on our 2 bottles of wine.

First impressions of Radiance were good; she is a clean ship with elegant decorations and an easy layout. Staff were friendly and smiling and we were off to a great start!

 

Food and Drink

We liked that Radiance opened up Izumi and Rita’s during mealtimes in the Windjammer, so we never had a problem finding a seat, even with 6 people. As the Doghouse is also adjoining, we occasionally sat there for a late afternoon snack with a few extras brought in from the Windjammer or an amazing beef on weck from the Park Cafe.

We found that mixing the free iced tea and lemonade together made the perfect lemon iced tea and drank that every day :)

We had chosen MTD so were in Cascades dining room. My husband and I went to the dining room just after boarding and scoped out the tables. We found a great table for 6 by the window and spoke to the hostess at the front who managed to allocate this table to us for 6.30pm every night for the first cruise.

On the 2nd cruise we changed this to 8pm as we found that the long days onshore in Alaska, and late afternoon snacks to make up for missing lunch, left us too full to truly enjoy the meals served.

I prefer all meals to be in the dining room but some days this was not possible. We had dinner in Windjammer once and were pleasantly surprised. Late lunch a couple of times and a few afternoon teas as well, could not complain about the range of food on offer or the temperatures, we always found something to make us happy and lots of things we went back for more than once.

I don’t really eat breakfast; most times I will just have a coffee and a glass of tomato juice. The coffee in WJ was awful and juice was limited to orange or apple so I tried to stick to the MDR just for the good coffee and juice. On the days that I did have breakfast in the WJ I mixed a packet of chocolate mix into the coffee and that made it palatable. Have to say I love the hot chocolate mix on RCI, we had one almost every night before bed.

My husband was a big fan of the smoked salmon plate and had it almost every day.

On sea days we couldn’t miss the Tutti Salad in the MDR! I would choose a cruise with extra sea days just to get this!

Dinners in the MDR were consistently good. Our waiters were great and we made sure we got the same table for the 2nd cruise so we could stay in their area.

We chose Samba Grill for our anniversary dinner and were not let down; we would recommend Samba for all the meat lovers out there!

We only got very dressed up for one of the four formal nights and that was so we could get a set of photos of the 6 of us to commemorate the trip. Not that we dressed sloppily for dinner on the other nights!

 

Stateroom

We love to sleep in so chose an inside stateroom, 9017 forward. Our last cruise was in a JS and we found that the light woke us earlier than we liked and with Alaska having barely 4 hours of darkness we didn’t want to risk it.

The stateroom was compact with plenty of storage. Our steward Wilton was very good and we enjoyed his cheery greetings and towel animals. On our anniversary he left a bottle of bubbly in our room for us to share with our friends.

 

Activities and Entertainment

We were never bored on this trip! This was quite a port intensive itinerary with 5 ports in 7 days. From mini golf, playing pool, trivia (we won quite a few times and got prizes ranging from a keyring to a tshirt), bingo, fruit carving, karaoke, stage shows, The Quest, adult comedy….wow we barely had a minute to spare!

The 2nd cruise was a bit slower for us so we had some time to relax, some ports we felt didn’t need a tour on the 2nd visit and some activities were repeated exactly so didn’t need to be done again (The Quest was one and that disappointed me as it is one of my favourites). We used the 2nd cruise to catch up on activities we didn’t have time for the 1st time around like shuffleboard and rock climbing.

 

The Ports

Ketchikan – On the 1st visit we went to the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show and highly recommend it! Creek St had some interesting history. We found a free bus that took us on a loop of Ketchikan and took about 20 minutes.

Too many jewellery stores and being hassled by every single shop owner got a bit tedious so I would avoid the main street unless I actually wanted to buy jewellery.

We have a policy of eating and drinking new local delicacies when we travel so I tried King Crab here, it was expensive but yummy.

2nd visit we took the free bus and went to Walmart, might seem like a strange excursion but as Aussies we wanted to see what it was like ;)

We found Ketchikan was the best place for souvenirs and bought most things from here.

 

Icy Strait Point was great for whale and eagle watching from the shore. We hiked some trails looking for wildlife and walked into Hoonah, not much to see there. The Cannery Museum right at the dock was very interesting and we spent a fair bit of time wandering around in there and learning the history of Icy Strait Point. We went to the cultural show in the afternoon and found it a bit ordinary.

On the 2nd visit I only went ashore for a quick lunch of beer battered halibut as I had never tried it, absolutely loved it, also tried the Cannery Red Ale and really enjoyed it.

 

Skagway – on the 1st visit we didn’t really have anything planned apart from a vague idea that we would book the White Pass Rail, unfortunately we were too late to get onto this tour so we booked ourselves on Dolly’s Wildlife Tour. While Dolly was entertaining I was underwhelmed by the tour. If I had known we would just drive up the road and back again the same way I probably would have saved the $50+. Very little wildlife to be seen from a busy main road unfortunately.

On the 2nd visit we did the White Pass Rail tour that we had reserved on the previous visit. We took a bus to Fraser and caught the train back, a slightly longer trip than RCI’s tour. The scenery was stunning both ways and our bus driver kept up an interesting commentary the whole way.

In the afternoon, after a quick lunch onboard, we went back into town and saw the Days of ’98 show, a burlesque/vaudeville style show about Soapy Smith, a Skagway Klondike Gold Rush character. Really enjoyed this show but would suggest if you don’t want to be chosen to take part in the show, don’t sit at the front or the edges!

 

Juneau – this would have to be my favourite port. On our 1st visit we went to one of the stalls on the wharf and bought tickets ($20 return normally, though we got a group discount for buying 6) for a shuttle to Mendenhall Glacier and our first hike took us to Nugget Falls. We spent hours here just looking at the glacier and the falls and were even entertained by a couple of guys that stripped down to their underwear and jumped into the waterfall!

We couldn’t hike one of the trails as it was closed due to a mother bear and her cubs being spotted the day before, what a shame as I would have loved to have seen them. A bit of shopping in Juneau town rounded out the day.

Our 2nd visit we did the Alaskan Brewing Co brewery tour and this was a bargain! $20 each included transport, a brewery tour and history lesson which was really interesting and 6 (7oz) glasses of beer and 2 souvenir glasses to keep! The first 3 beers were chosen by our guide and we were given 3 tokens to exchange for 3 more of our choice. Some of the standouts were the Oatmeal Stout, the Smoked Porter (tasted like liquid bacon!!) and the Raspberry Wheat, out of 8 different flavours that I tried (my husband chose a couple different to mine) there was only one I didn’t like and I have never been much of a beer drinker so I was pleasantly surprised. We were a very merry bunch on the trip back to town!

Later that afternoon we took the Mt Roberts Tramway cable car to the top of the mountain and did another long hike. Highlight was when we had 6 eagles soaring above our heads at once, so close we could see their individual markings.

 

Hubbard Glacier – just wow! Our 1st visit we got up early as we were scheduled to arrive at the glacier at 7am. We woke up to heavy fog and were worried that we wouldn’t see anything! As we got closer the fog disappeared and the glacier came into view – what can I say but wow!! We didn’t get in very close as the captain said there was too much ice but I was still excited to be so close to a glacier and the scenery was amazing.

2nd visit we were visiting in the afternoon, from 2pm – 6pm, once again there was heavy fog and it was much closer to the glacier so the captain took us in as far as he possibly could. We got so close that we witnessed at least 5 calvings! Absolutely breathtaking! A tender boat was sent out to collect a chunk of ice and that was used for the afternoon ice carving, an added bonus!

 

Seward

We booked RCI’s Kenai Fjords tour which was only available for B2B cruisers. This included a visit to the Sea Life Centre and a boat tour with an all you can eat salmon and prime rib buffet lunch. Again I found the tour underwhelming. The food was not the best quality, with the cheapest salmon served and very little sides to go with it and the wait for food was very long, about 2 hours from the first people served til our table was called.

We spent a lot of time chasing apparent sightings from other boats but the wildlife seemed to disappear before we got to each site, with an occasional whale fin seen in the distance or small speck on a mountainside that we were told was a goat. We did see plenty of sea lions and birds, but again, only from a distance.

 

Guest Services

We had very little interaction with guest services but the small amount we did have was very positive. One issue that I brought to their attention was remedied quickly and without fuss.

 

All in all this was a great cruise. We had what was apparently unprecedented amazing weather, with 14 straight days of blue skies and sunshine. Every port we stopped at the locals were marvelling at the weather and the lack of rain! Wildlife sightings from the ship were many and varied and exciting for people from the southern hemisphere that don’t usually see these creatures.

 

But of course nothing can be perfect. If I’m telling the good then I should also tell the not so good! There was nothing major but I wasn’t on the cruise with rose coloured glasses either.

 

First was receiving my suitcase with one of the wheels completely torn off rendering it useless. It made for a rough trip home with 3 flights and trying to drag the case around all the airports as it could no longer stand on its own. I have contacted RCI and am waiting for a response.

 

As a first time B2B cruiser I was surprised and disappointed that the CD didn’t have a couple of different spiels. Everything she did and said was word for word identical on both cruises. Activities such as Quest were identical and it was ironic that she even warned people not to cheat because they knew what the quests would be! Even her introduction for two completely different headliner acts was identical. I know it must get boring for a CD to do the same things over and over but practicing 2 different intros or coming up with 2 sets of quests couldn’t be that hard?

 

On night 12 we arrived for dinner to be met by the hostess telling us that she had given our table away as someone else wanted it and she ‘couldn’t say no’. I was dumbfounded that this happened. This was the table that we had booked and turned up for on time, every single night (apart from the one night that we cancelled early and went to the WJ) and she couldn’t say no to someone else that wanted it? Why?? We were told that our waiter had objected and asked that they be placed at another table but they were still sat at the table we had reserved.

We were placed in another section but the hostess still had our regular waiters serve us, the impact of this was that they simply had another table to serve that was close to, but out of their usual area, slowing down service to everyone and making them rush from place to place and placing extra stress on them.

 

Toilet problems had some people very angry but we were largely unaffected. There were always toilets out somewhere and lines in the ladies could get pretty long, especially straight after shows. One afternoon our stateroom toilet was not working and one evening all the public toilets were closed dues to issues. We have a ‘no elevators’ rule so this meant extra stairs each time I needed to use the bathroom, not exactly a negative on a cruise where there is 24 hour food and we ate plenty of it ;)

 

Getting off at Vancouver was quick and painless, we had a leisurely last breakfast and did the self assist debarkation. I was sad to be leaving after such a great trip but am I consoling myself by planning my next cruise and yes, it will again be on RCI :)

[sg1phileshipper]

Thanks for sharing. Aren't B2B's fun? Fun enough to get you hooked :)

Cindy

 

 

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[MrsK]

Thanks for your review.

 

We are doing a back to back on the Radiance starting in mid-August.

 

We've never done a back to back before (although we have done over 30 cruises), so it is new to us.

 

What can you tell me about how the process goes?

[molsonschooner]

Nice review. You did some of the same things we did when we were there in 2013 We had a great time and it sounds like you did too

[impatientlywaiting]

We had Wilton on the Rhapsody out of Sydney to Hawaii in 2009 (I wonder if it was the same guy - widowed with two children in boarding school). He was the best cabin attendant and we loved him!

 

We are doing our first b2b on Radiance next year - Vancouver, B.C. to Hawaii to Sydney and can't wait! Was glad to read your review. I get so tired of reading all the negative - there are just too many complainers. I understand things don't always go as planned but not very many people post the positives any more. Thanks again!

[Bellamariya]

Thanks for sharing. Aren't B2B's fun? Fun enough to get you hooked :)

Cindy

 

Definitely hooked on the B2B, especially for cruises that have ports with too much too see and do in one day :)

 

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Thanks for your review.

 

We are doing a back to back on the Radiance starting in mid-August.

 

We've never done a back to back before (although we have done over 30 cruises), so it is new to us.

 

What can you tell me about how the process goes?

 

The process was very simple. Closed our cash account on the final day of the first cruise, then the next morning picked up our new room keys/cards and an 'in transit' card from Guest Services. Our luggage stayed in our stateroom as we had the same room.

We went and did a tour booked through RCI and dinged out for the final time with our original cards.

When we came back to the ship we waited in line as usual and as we dinged in with the new cards our new photo was taken. Easy!

[Bellamariya]

We had Wilton on the Rhapsody out of Sydney to Hawaii in 2009 (I wonder if it was the same guy - widowed with two children in boarding school). He was the best cabin attendant and we loved him!

 

We are doing our first b2b on Radiance next year - Vancouver, B.C. to Hawaii to Sydney and can't wait! Was glad to read your review. I get so tired of reading all the negative - there are just too many complainers. I understand things don't always go as planned but not very many people post the positives any more. Thanks again!

 

I would love to do a long repositioning like the Hawaii to Sydney! All those Tutti Salad days ;)

I agree about the negative reviews, I have read so many that said Radiance was worn out and desperate for a refurb but wracking my brain and looking through some of the (over 10,000!) photo's taken by our group I seriously cannot see what they were talking about!

[barbeaujo]

Thank you so much. Will be on it July 17th from Seward to Vancouver with our kids. Can't wait and appreciated the time you took to write this.

 

Thank's again

 

The barbeau family

Edited June 13, 2015 by barbeaujo

[MrsK]

Thanks for the information.

[bumbletigger]

As far as your suitcase is concerned, don't settle for anything less than what is a fair price for replacement of your luggage. On our last cruise, the handle was broken off of our large suitcase when it was delivered to our stateroom. The handle was in working order when we dropped it off with the porters. We took the suitcase down to guest services, filled out a form, and they said they would get back to us. They did the next day by offering us replacement piece of luggage. The piece they offered us was comical. It was cheaply made, flimsy and a crappy zipper. We turned down since it was not comparable to what they broke. After going back and forth for 2 days, we settled on $150 replacement cost. In the end, we got what was deserved. They will try to low ball you. Don't fall for it.

[Bellamariya]

As far as your suitcase is concerned, don't settle for anything less than what is a fair price for replacement of your luggage. On our last cruise, the handle was broken off of our large suitcase when it was delivered to our stateroom. The handle was in working order when we dropped it off with the porters. We took the suitcase down to guest services, filled out a form, and they said they would get back to us. They did the next day by offering us replacement piece of luggage. The piece they offered us was comical. It was cheaply made, flimsy and a crappy zipper. We turned down since it was not comparable to what they broke. After going back and forth for 2 days, we settled on $150 replacement cost. In the end, we got what was deserved. They will try to low ball you. Don't fall for it.

 

Thanks for the advice :)

I have never had an issue like this before and I wasn't really sure how to handle it.

[reallyhooked]

Great review. We did Radience last year in Alaska. Will be on her again this year, VC to Hawaii.

hope there won' t be issues with the toilets.I've learned not to sweat the small stuff.

 

Happy cruising

[Bellamariya]

Just a quick update on the broken suitcase.

A couple of days ago RCI contacted me with a resolution that I was very happy to accept :)

No fuss, no arguing or back and forth negotiation at all, it was quick and painless and I'm glad I waited until I was home to address it rather than waste precious holiday time trying to resolve it on the ship :)

[bumbletigger]

Glad to hear the result was satisfactory to you. [emoji2]