This was a first time cruise, involving my wife and I and our 3 children, aged from 16 to 21. We booked everything online via the Royal Caribbean site, which was a relatively easy process - our needs were adjoining staterooms, with one sleeping 3, and we were able to secure this at the time of booking using the online process to pick exactly where we would be on the ship. Despite booking in January for a December cruise, we were not able to secure balcony staterooms due to existing bookings, but never regretted having interior staterooms. The cost was significantly cheaper, our rooms on Deck 9 were very quiet and guaranteed of darkness for an 'anytime' nap or sleep-in, and observation showed that most balconies never seemed to be used on our cruise.

We boarded in Sydney from Circular Quay, and this was a surprisingly smooth and quick process, taking less than 40 minutes from bag drop-off to boarding. The staff were friendly and efficient. Once aboard, we headed to our staterooms for another surprise - they were larger and more 'upmarket' than we anticipated - we had read reviews of shoddy fittings and tiny showers etc, but this was not the case. Everything was clean, functioning and attractively presented. An initial tour of the ship, and the subsequent 8 days of cruising confirmed this standard of maintenance and presentation - the Radiance is essentially a floating 4 star hotel, with high quality fittings, food, service and entertainment.

As first-time cruisers, and with family togetherness as our goal, we were not concerned with the island destination visits as much as the general cruise experience itself, and were not disappointed. We initially had pre-booked My Time fixed dining each night at Cascades restaurant - this is essentially like dining in an upmarket (if slightly crowded) restaurant, complete with silver service etc. Whilst the food and service were excellent, we quickly tired of this, and instead frequented the Windjammer Cafe buffet. We loved the variety of foods on offer (which changed at every mealtime), the freedom of self-service, and the ability to turn up whenever we felt like it. The presence of the Windjammer Cafe, combined with the Park Cafe in the Solarium, meant that food and drink was on tap from 6am to 1am each day, which very much suited our activity and dining style. Read more