Our family of five sailed on the 04/04/04 Radiance sailing to Key West, Cozumel, Roataan Island Honduras, and Belize. The stops at Honduras and Belize were changes from the original itinerary of Costa Maya and Grand Cayman. We had been to Honduras and Grand Cayman two years ago, but we still enjoyed all the ports.
Months ago when planning the trip, we wanted to cruise on RCCL. We had previously been on the Nordic Empress, Carnival Paradise, NCL Sky and NCL Sun. My preferences were to sail on the Serenade (southern), Radiance (western), Adventure (southern) or one of the other newer Voyager-class ships if a good price came up. I know the larger ships are nice, but I tend to favor the smaller 2000+ versus 3000+ passenger ships. The Adventure was a viable option because we hadn't been to the Southern Caribbean and it had only 4 ports of call versus the more prevalent 5 ports. Being from Minnesota, the ice skating rink isn't a big novelty for us. I also wanted to avoid the mass of children likely to be on the Voyager class ships during spring break. Although we had our three kids (ages 11, 15, 17) there is always the fear of kids running wild. Our kids do not participate in any of the organized ship activities, but never have a problem finding things to do. Wanting to book early, the Radiance price dropped to a reasonable rate, while the cruises out of San Juan remained higher. Carnival had some comparable prices for the Triumph and Conquest, but the design of the Radiance won out easily. After booking the Radiance I was also able to use the Crown & Anchor magazine discount coupons to further reduce the price of our two inside cabins.
In the end, our choice of the Radiance was a great choice. The ship was beautiful and classy. We enjoyed the ship's design and layout. The 90,000-ton size was spacious and not crowded. I think there was an unusually high number of kids onboard (700+), but unruly children were not a problem. Some of the reason is that the children's areas and activities are located at the rear of the ship (rock wall, miniature golf, kid's pool, adventure island) and the fact that age limits were posted and enforced for the Solarium and lounges. For a spring break cruise, kids were not a problem.