Radiance of the Seas Review
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Although this was our tenth cruise, this was only the second time my husband and I have sailed with Royal Caribbean. The first time was a week prior to our Alaskan cruise on the Radiance of the Seas. The first RCI cruise was on the four day Monarch of the Seas out of Los Angeles. Since the Monarch was still undergoing a remodeling job my husband was not crazy about it, but I enjoyed it. We took my 80-year-old parents on the June 21, 2003 sailing of the Radiance. They had not been on a cruise in 10 years. Other people have done a wonderful job reviewing the Radiance and I am going to try to only touch on those things that might not have been covered by others or things that were special to us.
We flew to Seattle and stayed at the Doubletree Airport. Nice hotel and very good shuttle service to and from the airport. We stayed there again when we returned. The Seaport Restaurant at the Doubletree is not a typical hotel restaurant. We had an incredible seafood dinner there. I highly recommend it. We took Quick Shuttle from Seattle to Vancouver. Great service and it was quick, only three hours to Vancouver (more about Quick Shuttle later). Stayed two nights at the Hyatt in downtown Vancouver. The Hyatt is a lovely hotel and close to interesting places (Robson street, Canada Place and Gas Town). Since our ship departed from Ballentyne pier we took a taxi to the pier. It was only $11 (CAD) for the four of us. Embarkation was very easy and well organized. The luggage people, the information staff and the registration staff were all extremely nice and helpful. We arrived at 11:00 am and we were on board by 12:10 pm.
I had wondered why I had not read many messages on any of the cruise boards about this sailing. I soon found out why. Avon had booked 1500 passengers for a sales award on this trip. This meant that none of the non-Avon people got to eat on the second sitting. In all fairness to the Avon organization, the sales people (mainly women) were very nice and very low key. This was the first time I have been on a predominately "business" cruise.