Just back - Radiance SB

[pookeycat]

We just got home from our Southbound RCI cruise on Radiance of the Seas. All I can say it what a week! This was a first ever cruise for us and we had a blast!

 

Check in at the Egan Center was a breeze! THen the train ride from Anchorage to Seward was remarkable!

 

Boarding itself was just as easy - from the time we got off the train, it was less that 15 minutes and we were on the ship! No matter how many pictures that you see of these ships, you never really can understand the size of them until you are actually seeing one for the first time! WOW!

 

Hubbard Glacier was amazing! It was a bright sunny day - the weather was perfect! From what we were told, we were ablet o get alot close to the glacier than they have in the last few weeks.

 

Skagway - We spent the fist part of the day just wandering through town. THe brothel tour at the Red Onion Saloon was great! DH thought it was too cool when we all got red garters along the tour! It was definelty worth the $5! Then we also hit the Days of '98 show about Soapy Smith. Another show that was well worth the money!

 

A quick lunch then on the ship and we were off to our flight seeing adventure with Temsco. We were actually docked right next to their offices, so that made it that much easier! We found out that there were only 6 people on our tour and DH and I had a private tour! It was just us and the pilot going up in our helicopter! The ride up was breathtaking! Just a few clouds and we coudl see for miles. Then walking on the glacier was even better! We did remember to bring an empty bottle with us to bring home some glacier water.

 

Juneau - Whale watching with Orca Enterprises. Captain Larry and Dirk were awesome! We saw quite a show - full breech as well as many photos of double tails. Well worth the adventure and $$!!

 

We also booked the Gold Panning thru the ship and had a blast! granted the water on Gold Creek was a little chilly, but this was exactly what DH had in mind when we decided that we watned to go gold panning in Alaska. Crabby Jack our tour guide was quite a humorus man too - many great stories of the Juneau area.

 

Icy Strait - This port itself was a lazy day for us. We didn't have any excursions booked for this port at all. We actually got off the ship, wandered a few of the trails, walked through the cannery, took the bus into town, ate the crab at the Office Bar and then headed back to the ship. The Office Bar was great! Much smaller place than I had expected, but the food was awesome! $15 for a whole dungeness crab.

 

The port iself was so much different than al the otehr ports...in no way at all even close to as commercialized as the otehr ports. This was actually our least favorite port, but that is just us...we are not as much into the hiking trails and such. From what everyone said that we talked to, the trail system on this island is wonderful.

 

Ketchikan - Really a bummer of a day for us. Very confusing too. We actually got into port earlier than expected. Since we were suppose to meet our excursion in the Theater and then tender across with the tour, we opted to stay onaord until it was time for the excursion (our excursion was actually booked at about the same time we were origianlly scheduled to get into port). When we got to the theater, we were told to go right down and theere was a tender waiting for us...we were to meet our tour on the dock. Well, if we woudl have known that we were meeting the tour on the dock, we would have gone ashore 2 hours before!

 

The excursion itself was not at all what we expected. We had booked the Wonderness Exploration and Crab feed. But that was our fault. The food was great - just relaly bummed that we only got to see about 4 crabs, only 2 people actually got to hodl and/or touch the crabs and then had to get back to the lodge. Not to mention the long bus ride from teh ship to the lodge.

 

By the time we got back to tke dock, we had a little over and hour before the last tender of the day - not much time to do much of anything. Next time we know better! Need more time exploring Ketchikan!

 

I will finish more later - gott ago grocery shopping! If any one has any questions, just ask!

[dizbuster]

Sounds like you guys had fun. And congratulations! Looking forward to more pictures as you get them uploaded.

[jdmss]

Looks like you had a great cruise and thoroughly enjoyed yourselves, congratulations on your wedding.

 

I was wondering how much the Temsco helicopter trip was in Skagway and was it really worth the $$$, we are wanting to do Misty Fjords with Island Wings in Ketchikan which gets rave reviews but dh really wants the heli tour on the glacier.

Thanks for any input.

[pookeycat]

Ok, I am back to finish my review....

 

We loved the Radiance of the seas! This ship was unbelievable!! Granted we did not have anythign to compare it to since this was our first cruise, but everything was unbelievable!

 

The staff on board was awesome! The Cruise director had so much energy that you could not help but feel excited through him! The shows that we did manage to see were super!

 

We ate, then we ate some more and then when we were done, we still managed to eat even more food! When we were on our whale watching tour with Capt. Larry, Dirk made a comment about the snacks that they had available for everyone "because I know how those cruise people need to be fed every hour on the hour" This statement rang very true. The idea of walking into a restaurant (ie the SeaView Cafe) ordering what we want and not having to "pay" for it was just too much fun!

 

The one thing that we really enjoyed was the ship's photographers. DH and I both love picutures and the photos that they tood were awesome! If anyone is on the Radiance coming up and have the chance to meet Clinton (from India) of the photographers staff, tell him that John and Amy said hi! He was super! We actually ended up buying many of the photos that he took of us! We had many great conversations with him. The photos that he took during the casual photo sessions were some of our favorites! We actually spent more $$ on the ship buying photos that we did on everything else combined!!

 

We are already trying to decide on our next cruise venue - we liek the idea of more sea days adn are thinking Hawaii might be our next venture!

 

Like I said, if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask!!! Once we get photos uploaded I will let you know!

[pookeycat]

Looks like you had a great cruise and thoroughly enjoyed yourselves, congratulations on your wedding.

 

I was wondering how much the Temsco helicopter trip was in Skagway and was it really worth the $$$, we are wanting to do Misty Fjords with Island Wings in Ketchikan which gets rave reviews but dh really wants the heli tour on the glacier.

Thanks for any input.

 

We loved this part of the cruise! We paid $438 for the two of us on their "Valley of the glaciers" tour. In our minds, it was well worth the money we spent. It was just DH and I in the helicopter with out pilot - granted this was just by chance as there was only a few people scheduled on our tour. the scenery on the way up to the glacier was unbelievable! on the way up we saw several other glaciers, mountain goats and everything inbetween! Walking on the glacier was better than we expected! We brought home glacier water as well as rocks from the top of the glacier for our son.

 

I don't think you can really get the true sense of how HUGE there glaciers are until you are standing on top of them! This was actually one of our favorite parts of the entire trip!

[Terpnut]

Amy - Glad you had a great cruise! Sounds like you had much better weather than we had! Congrats again!!