Radiance of the Seas Review
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I don't like to leave poor reviews, but here goes and hopefully this will help out someone trying to decide on a cruise line in the future. My husband and I have always sailed Carnival and after many times of hearing from other cruisers that Royal Caribbean is so much better we decided to give it a try on our trip to Alaska. We did a northbound inside passage cruise package leaving from Vancouver with the land tour afterwards. We stayed in Vancouver for a couple of days before the cruise. We did the Capillano suspension bridge and Grouse Mountain, both of which we loved. GO TO SCOOZI'S for breakfast!! The Egg's Benedict was phenomenal and the honey bun to die for!!
Let me begin with the positives...the ports were all amazing and our excursions awesome. The best part of the trip was the 5 day land tour behind the cruise. The weather was amazing, the people were friendly and welcoming, everything to do with Alaska was perfect. I will elaborate on which excursions we took in a bit.
The cruise...it left a lot to be desired. First of all, since when do pool bars close at 7:00 p.m.? That was the first thing we noticed that was odd for a cruise ship. We went down to the casino and yes the bar was of course open, however, I never once saw a waiter or waitress coming around asking for drink orders while gambling. It was the same with the pool area...no staff coming around for drink orders. In the casino I had to quit playing and go to the bar when I wanted something to drink. I am a smoker and there wasn't one single bar anywhere on the ship that allowed smoking, even on the pool deck. I could smoke at a slot machine 2 feet from the bar, but not at the bar.
Cabin Review
The room was nice. We enjoyed the balcony as always, but there was a seating alcove in the Solarium on the floor above us that jutted out from the side of the ship and we could see people sitting there and they could see us. Interesting, but a little annoying in that the balcony should be a private area like the room in my opinion. I would've asked for a different room upon booking if I knew I'd be watched every time I went on the balcony. The room seemed smaller to me than our rooms on Carnival, but I haven't actually researched it to see if that is true, but it appeared smaller. We had plenty of storage space regardless and one thing I liked was that the underneath of the bed was an open space and we were able to store our suitcases under there which really helped with space saving. Overall, the room was fine, bed was comfortable, and curtains thick enough to block out the Alaskan sun at midnight (c: Oh, the sliding glass door was very tough to open though. It doesn't slide smoothly and makes quite a racket sometimes. On the balcony the roof angles down towards the sliding glass door so with rain it just ran down that angle and dropped rain pretty close to the door. It made it hard to even go out there when it was raining. I ordered coffee to the room twice, but had to wait til after 5 a.m. so as to not get the $4.00 surcharge, but it was good coffee and arrived quickly.