Radiance of the Seas Review

Northbound to Alaska

Review for Alaska Cruise on Radiance of the Seas
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sailingwithfriends
6-10 Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Jun 2015
Cabin: Large Ocean View Stateroom

I will start off this review to tell you I love cruising. I am not attached to one specific cruise line. When booking a cruise, I look at ports and then cost. This is my second cruise on RCCL. When selecting this cruise to Alaska, I wanted to sail from Vancouver. I think decided on Radiance of the Seas based upon ports visited and the reviews I read about the ship. I was please to read how many windows were on the ship. I was traveling to Alaska for the scenery, so I wanted to be able to see it as often as possible.

We flew into Vancouver two days prior to boarding the ship. We stayed at Best Western Plus Downtown Vancouver. I selected that the Best Western based upon price, location and free shuttle to the port. The hotel was very clean. The beds are very comfortable. There is free internet. It was in a good location. There is a convenience store across the street. There is a really good drug store a block behind the convenience store. We booked the Sleep, Eat and Cruise package for $179.00 a night, plus taxes. It included a $10.00 credit towards our breakfast at the White Spot Restaurant attached to the hotel, plus reimbursement of our cab fee from airport ($35.00). We were able to walk about four blocks to the free shuttle to the Capilano Bridge and the Hop-on/Hop-Off Bus. The bus cost about $40.00 and takes to you to all the major sites around the city. The buses run about every 9 minutes. If you want to get off a spot and stay for awhile, you simple get back on the bus when you are ready to go somewhere else.

We left our hotel at 10:20 AM. We were at the port by 10:30 and on the ship by 11:10. Going through customs and boarding the ship was a breeze. RCCL did provide us with chairs to sit in while we were waiting to board. The first thing we did when we entered the ship was to go to the Short Excursions Desk. We had prebooked at least one excursion at each port. (This is not the norm for us, but this is Alaska and we wanted to see and do a lot.) We had decided to add the zip line in Icy Straits after watching a video on Youtube. However, we discovered that the only slots available would conflict with our other excursion in that port. The employee made a recommendation that we get off the ship early and see if we could purchase an earlier time directly from the zip line company. Unfortunately, it never worked out. After the short excursion desk, we went to the buffet. We found a seat in the back of the buffet. There were six of us and we wanted to be able to see the port area while eating lunch. The food was good. I was a little disappointed in the dessert.

Cabin Review

Large Ocean View Stateroom

Cabin I

Cabin had a lot of storage. There are shelves on both sides of the mirror above the desk where you can hid your stuff. There is also a shelf behind a mirror in the bathroom. There is a full-length mirror. Bed was not comfortable to either my husband or myself. (However, another couple on deck 8 said their bed was great.) The pillows were very flat. Linens were nice and comfortable. There is a full-sized sofa and a flat-screen tv. There is room in the mini-frig for a couple of our personal water bottles. On the two days we were traveling at a faster speed, this cabin squeaked. It actually kept us awake most of the night. On the days we traveled slowly, there was no problem. Twice we were awakened at 4:00 AM with noises above. This would have been the dining room. I'm sure you have read about the horrible showers. I did find that pointing the shower head towards the back corner helped keep the water inside the shower, rather than the bathroom floor. We had a good cabin steward. He kept our room very clean. We had towel animals on 3 occasions (not necessary, but cute). Our steward never addressed us by name, but he was very friendly when we passed him in hallway.

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