Radiance of the Seas Review Nov 5-11/06

[ckrobyn]

I think I am finally ready to start this review - took a few days to get my land legs back! :rolleyes:

 

Let me start by giving you some background information. We booked this cruise 9 months out, and it began with a few ladies from the U.S and Canada who were planning their own "Girls Cruise". A roll call thread was started by Murphy from the States and our Canadian contingent soon joined in. All of a sudden there were over 20 of us chatting away about our upcoming cruise on the Radiance :) Our roll call was the busiest one I have seen yet with lots of laughs and a bunch of crazy ladies chomping at the bit to get on the ship!

 

Those of you who know me (and by now, most of you do!:o ) know that I am an incessant planner.....I plan everything right down to the last detail - so planning for this cruise was no exception. We had originally booked a D1 aft cabin (1104) and were more than satisfied with our choice. At the time I booked 1104, I had also put us on the waitlist for the coveted D1 aft cabin 9256....lo and behold, my TA called about 2 months out to tell me that our name had come up on the waitlist and 9256 was ours! Yippppeeeee!!!! BUT.....lol.......I continued to watch the ship fill and the prices drop, and guarantees offered. When we saw the suite guarantee being offered, we decided to take our chances and give up 9256 in the hope we may end up with a Grand Suite.....didn't happen. We were assigned a JS on the Port side. We were pleased with the JS, but wanted a better location, so we called our TA to see if we could "switch" cabins (not categories) and guess what? We landed aft JS 1100 :D There was no way we were messing with this!

 

It seemed to take forever for November 5th to arrive, but it did and we were packed and ready to go. We flew direct from Toronto to Fort Lauderdale and grabbed a cab at the airport that took us to Port Everglades. There were 7 of us in the van and the total cost was $68.00. We arrived at the port early (with me, that is a must! LOL) it was around 10:25am and we watched all of the other passengers disembark. The ship looked beautiful docked at the port and we couldn't wait to finally get on board. For those of you worried about not having the right luggage tags, no need to fret - the porters have blank tags and we were able to write our cabin # on them (our tags said 9256) Interesting side note....one of the cruisers from the U.S girls cruise grabbed 9256 when we gave it up and we met her at the port and gave her our luggage tags................

[ckrobyn]

My cabin mate was travelling with her disabled mother who needed a wheelchair, so one of the port agents arranged one and we continued our wait to board. Shortly after 11:00am the port agent returned to arrange pre-boarding for wheel chair passengers - myself and my cabin mate joined her mother ( we were sailing in a suite). It should also be noted that there was a specific line for Platinum/Diamond/Suite Guests at Port Everglades....and no-one asked what type of suite we were in. So yes, the JS does receive priority boarding. We were on the ship by 11:20am - the earliest I had ever boarded....I'm quite sure we were the first passengers onboard which was pretty neat :)

 

Lunch in the Windjammer was delicious ( I love the Windjammer anyways!) and the 10 girls from Canada all sat at a table together. The ship was hopping with embarking passengers by 11:45am. Boarding was smooth.

After lunch it was off to the pool area and our first 'Welcome Aboard" drink....you know, the one's they come around with in the fancy glass handing them out to everyone and then asking for your seapass?? LOL Who cares - we were on vacation!

Cabins were ready as promised by 1:00pm - I couldn't wait to see JS 1100!

[ckrobyn]

I had read many, many posts about the LONG walk to the aft.....trust me, it's long! Having said that, it was SO worth it! Look what was waiting for us!

 

Cabin 1100 was everything we could have hoped for and more. If you are sailing on a Radiance class ship and can snag this one - do it! The cabin was a great size....on my previous Radiance cruise we had a Starboard JS and this one seemed just slightly larger.......and the balcony.....oh.....the balcony!!!! We had 2 loungers, 2 chairs and a table - the perfect size for our planned sailaway party with our new friends from the U.S.!

The walk in closet was huge - the bathroom was a good size with a tub. I should mention that apparently the JS no longer qualifies for the upgraded bathroom amenities - there were no bottles of lotion or shower gels......I asked our cabin attendant Vivian if she could provide us with some, and she did. In addition, I asked for a robe and got that too! ( Now that I am Platinum......no more asking right? :D )

Our suitcases were at our cabin by 3:00pm - I was impressed with how quickly we got them. Once unpacked it was back out to the pool deck to officially meet our fellow CC'ers from our roll call!

[selectone]

Tap, tap,tap. I'm waiting for more. 10 girls at one table in the Windjammer? You all must be mighty skinny. Bet you couldn't fit all 10 by the end of the week :D.

[AFT_LOVER]

I hope we have NEW BEDS!!!!

 

How was the entertainment. Do you remember who performed. How was the Solarium? Did you have the Crepes?????

 

OH I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!

[ckrobyn]

At this point I have to tell you about our new friends - I was completely overwhelmed to meet this incredbile group of women. I had been chatting with these ladies for months - we knew eachother's schedules, home life, work life, health issues, kids issues, in-laws issues and the list goes on......what an absolute thrill to finally meet these girls in person! Thank you to CC for giving us this opportunity to connect online and then in person. To all my new friends.....you guys are awesome and I would cruise with you anywhere anytime! :D

Royal Caribbean does not offer an "official" Meet and Mingle for sailings under 7 days, so we planned several of our own, the first being on the pool deck at 3:00pm on the embarkation day. Special thanks to Murphy for providing us all with T-shirt transfers (mailed all over the U.S and Canada) at her own expense.....now we all had the niftiest T-shirts that commemorate our "Umbrella Drink Tour"!

Once we met everyone, it was time for the dreaded muster......yes, we all hate being interrupted from our various activities on the first afternoon, but folks, the faster we all arrive - the faster we get out of the muster area and back to the fun!

My cabin mate (Shar 27) and I had invited everyone to our balcony for sailaway - I had pre-ordered wine from Gifts and Gear online and it was waiting chilling on ice. We had about 12 on our balcony at various points during sailaway and it was a great experience and amazing view from our aft cabin :)

[cruisenfever]

I hope we have NEW BEDS!!!!

 

How was the entertainment. Do you remember who performed. How was the Solarium? Did you have the Crepes?????

 

OH I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!

How can someone here who just got off the Radiance answer your questions when you are sailing on Brilliance? :confused: I think I'm missing something here!!:confused:

[ckrobyn]

Our entire group had early seating and our table was in the dining room on Deck 5, right next to the window. We were a table of 10 women! Our waiter Brian said it was the first time in his 6 years with RCI that he had ever waited on a table with 10 women...lucky Brian!

The Food: I'm not particularly fussy one way or the other - I don't critique every single dish served. I will however tell you what I really enjoyed. The Vidalia onion tart, the spinach dip, the pasta with truffle sauce and mushrooms, the Norweigian Salmon, the striploin steak, the shrimp cocktail, the flourless chocolate cake, the key lime pie and the dessert sampler. Overall the food in the dining room was very good. I think I can speak for our table that we all enjoyed the various dishes. Our assistant waiter Ramona was excellent and should be promoted! :)

The Food in the Windjammer: I'm a huge Windjammer fan and really liked the choices and selections offered, especially the salad bar! No complaints whatsoever.

[ckrobyn]

The entertainment: I'm not one to go to every show. I did manage to catch parts of 2 shows and from what I could tell - everyone was enjoying themselves. Maybe someone from our group can pop in here and give you more information on the shows?

The Captain: The Captain was a riot! I know there are some that found his daily announcements somewhat "annoying' but I was not one of them! I thought he was funny, charming and full of personality! He was also a very visible Captain and mingled with the passengers a lot. Hurdy Gurdy, Kiss Kiss, Give yourself a hug....:p

The overall appearance of the ship: I tend to look at these types of things with an eagle eye. I manage a luxury 150 suite retirement residence and I am trained to spot deficiencies! I have to say, the Radiance is in wonderful shape. Yes, the carpet is slightly worn in the cabin hallways - but consider how many people (and crew) are up and down those halls every day? The main areas of the ship are in excellent condition and well maintained. The crew are obvioulsy very proud of their ship and take good care of it.

The Ports: This was my first time doing the Western itinerary and although I did enjoy it, I prefer the Eastern or the Southern. Our first stop was Key West - I enjoyed the quaintness of the small streets, pubs - lots of pubs! and boutiques that lined the area.

The ship was docked only until 2pm - tried to see as much as we could in the little time we had. I would like to visit Key West again someday...I thought it was quite unique.

[ALSIGKAP]

Thanks for the review - we are sailing on Radiance 12/3-12/9.

 

Did you do any excursions? How were the ports?

 

Which ports did you dock in and which were tenders?

 

Thanks in advance!!

 

ALSIGKAP

[ckrobyn]

Thanks for the review - we are sailing on Radiance 12/3-12/9.

 

Did you do any excursions? How were the ports?

 

Which ports did you dock in and which were tenders?

 

Thanks in advance!!

 

ALSIGKAP

 

Yes we did an excursion in Cozumel - the Deluxe Beach Break at Playa Mia beach park. Not all that impressed with the beach or the park....:( Made our own fun anyways!

 

Did our own excursion in Montego Bay to the Sunset Beach Resort - paid $40 for the day inlcuding food and drink - the place was outstanding!

 

Docked at Key West

Tendered at Cozumel and Grand Cayman

Docked at Montego Bay

[ckrobyn]

Cozumel: We booked an RCI excursion, the Deluxe Beach Break - it wasn't very deluxe and we were somewhat disappointed. The beach chairs were a hard, non-flexible plastic that were so low it was hard to get in and out of them (unless you were a 5 year old :rolleyes: ) There was a pool at the beach park and that is where I spent most of my time. There were a bunch of rowdy drunk cruise passengers from another cruise line...I won't mention any names....NCL......and there were a bit obnoxious. I did enjoy Cozumel, I just wouldn't book this particular excursion again.

Grand Cayman: Lovely island. We tendered to the port ( tenders were a bit of a hassle at Cozumel and here, but we dealt with it!) It was really HOT this day in GC...must have been at least 95 degrees......I spent my time walking around the shopping area and stopped by Jimmy Buffets Margaritaville for a cold one!

I would definitely like to visit Grand Cayman again - I didn't see enough of the island.

Montego Bay: We had an outstanding experience here. We had done research on CC about the Sunset Beach Resort and decided we would get off the ship, hop in a cab and head to the resort - that is exactly what we did. The resort was beautiful, and for $40 we ate, drank, swam, ate, drank, sunned ourselves, drank some more and enjoyed fabulous sunshine and warm hospitality. Our cab driver was amazing - his name is Patrick and he gave us a tour of the area when he came to pick us up at the resort to take us back to the ship. We had arranged for him to pick us up at 2:30pm and he was there to the minute. We bought some great souvenirs and Patrick took us to buy the famous Blue Mountain coffee at a cute little gift store..

[cruisenfever]

Great review and since we just got off the ship October 22 after 29 days, you were spot on with everything you reported. We had Fannie as our cabin steward as we were in 1596 right around the corner from you, but we did get to know Vivan, who was Fannie's friend and she was wonderful. I was quite surprised also that the amenities were dropped from the JS cabins but Fannie made sure that we were taken care of. So glad that you all had such a great time.........now, when's your next cruise on Radiance. Why not join us on the C&A Member's cruise next September 14 for the Alaska repo cruise.

[ckrobyn]

Overall comments: I had a wonderful cruise with some very special new friends....you know who you are.....Murphy, Shar, Lisa, Shirley, Linda, Kim & Pam. Linda and Kim...welcome to the "core" group...LMAO!

I love the Radiance - she is an absolutely beautiful ship in every sense of the word. My DH prefers Voyageur class, so it may be a while before I sail on her again.....

The Casino was not good to me, although Shar won $250 and a few others in our group came out ahead..

The weather was incredible - hot and sunny...did I say HOT and sunny? LOL

I have been blessed with wonderful weather on each of my cruises.

One last thing......Please remember to check under the carpet in your safes when you board ( I knew to do this, but forgot!) and there were dozens of coupons waiting for us that other guests had left (no doubt fellow CC'ers!) needless to say, we added our unused coupons to the mix, and the next person in 1100 that checks under that carpet is in for a big surprise! :)

Lastly, a special thank you to my cabin mate Shar for decorating the cabin with decorations she brought all the way from home to celebrate my Birthday - that was a really thoughtfull and special thing to do. I won't ever forget it.....

To all the Umbrella Drink Cruisers raise a glass! Cheers to all of you, you are truly a fabulous group! :p

[Puffinater]

I hope we have NEW BEDS!!!!

 

How was the entertainment. Do you remember who performed. How was the Solarium? Did you have the Crepes?????

 

OH I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!

 

Strange reply to a post concerning the Radiance!

 

Great review.

[Shar27]

Hi All,

 

Robyn asked me to pop in and fill in any of the empty spaces in her review. I will just state that I had a fabulous time. I really enjoyed this cruise and any "little" items that weren't perfect, are almost all but forgotten.

 

I saw most of the shows. I personally did not really enjoy the first production show, "City of Dreams". The singing and dancing were very good, it just wasn't my kind of music. There were some wonderful acrobatic stunts hanging from the ceiling by their hands on a long ribbon that were really well done.

 

The second production show, "Piano Man", is more my style and I really enjoyed that one. The opening and closing shows were great. They had a really good and funny juggler on the last night. He was very talented.

 

We missed the magician as we went to the Murder Mystery that night. That was really a lot of fun with a wonderful dinner and wine included at Portofino's. Well worth the $50 cost.

 

I went on a Pub Crawl in Key West with some of my CC buddies. That was a blast and we had the bartenders all sign our t-shirts. Never did get my Key Lime Pie on a stick though:( , but we did manage to find our way back to the ship, so all was well.:D

 

Cozumel was the Deluxe Beach Break that Robyn already told you about. I didn't think it was that bad, but I'm not very picky either. Now the tendering, that was another story. The waves really picked up on our return trip and we had to wait for another tender to empty before we could pull up to the ship. We were really rocking and rolling. I'm pretty sure I was a lovely shade of green by the time I stepped foot back on the ship, but I managed to hold it together, barely.

 

Grand Cayman, I was booked on the Racing Catamaran Sail & Snorkel City Cockatoo which was cancelled at the last minute. I managed to rebook myself onto the Stingray City Adventure which was only $45.00 and was an absolute hoot. The group on the excursion boat were fantastic. They were very funny and really knew their stuff. I would really recommend it. I had my picture taken holding a stingray, so I am thrilled. The only sad part was that alot of the group that I was supposed to go with originally did not have a chance to get onto this excursion. They really didn't give us much notice.

 

Montego Bay, Sunset Beach as Robyn stated. A must do.

 

As I said before, fabulous cruise. Made a lot of new CC friends who really made my holiday. Hopefully we will all be friends for years to come. I really love them all.

 

Sharonna

[ckrobyn]

OOOOPS! Forgot to mention the Murder Mystery dinner at Portofino's. We had a great time :) The cast were hysterically funny - one of them kept forgetting her lines but we thought it was a real hoot. The dinner itself was delicious, this was my first time in a specialty restaurant on any ship and in my opinion, everyone should try it.

We had a table full of our CC group, so there were almost 20 of us and it made the evening even more special......

Yes - we figured out who the killer was....

Okay, so the waitress told us....

Ssssshhhhhhh!

[ckrobyn]

How could I forget to tell you about the QUEST??? :eek:

This was the very first Quest I attended and it was a load of laughs! We managed to get a # and pulled together a pretty amazing team. Special thanks to our Captains - Kim and Craig - they ran around like lunatics for us and Craig undressed down to his scivvies all in the name of the team spirit!

Here are Kim and Craig - Hats off to you both for a great evening!

[ckrobyn]

Our Cruise Director was Keiran and the Activities Manager was Simon. Both of these guys along with the entire Cruise Director's staff were terrific! :)

[KatWI]

We really appreciate that AMAZING review!

 

We are booked for Jan - our FIRST cruise!

 

THANKS! :)

[nanfromatlanta]

Thanks for the great review of our favorite ship. We board her again for the third time on December 23 for the Holiay cruise.

[nanfromatlanta]

Oops... Sorry for the double post

[ckrobyn]

We really appreciate that AMAZING review!

 

We are booked for Jan - our FIRST cruise!

 

THANKS! :)

 

Kat - enjoy every moment of your cruise on the Radiance...

Remember nothing is perfect, but the Radiance is pretty darn close ;)

Glad you enjoyed the review!

[CleoPat]

Just read your review for nostalgia. Sailed on Radiance in May (Alaska). Was in love with the Hurdy Gurdy Man. "It's a ship, not a boat";) It was my first cruise on Royal and enjoyed myself so much that I am going on Royal again next week on Enchantment. Thanks for the tip re coupons in the safe:D

[ckrobyn]

Just read your review for nostalgia. Sailed on Radiance in May (Alaska). Was in love with the Hurdy Gurdy Man. "It's a ship, not a boat";) It was my first cruise on Royal and enjoyed myself so much that I am going on Royal again next week on Enchantment. Thanks for the tip re coupons in the safe:D

 

CleoPat - You're very welcome! I really enjoy writing reviews, I just keep forgetting all the good little details and end up having to go back and add them!

Yes - check under the carpet in your safe......you never know what may be waiting for you!

Have a wonderful cruise! :)