We just experienced our 1st cruise aboard Radiance of the Seas. Cruising were myself (34), my husband (39) and my son (9). We stayed 1 night pre-cruise at Holiday Inn Express Convention Center on 17th St. Causeway. We were able to use Priority Club points for a free night. It was nothing fancy, but was clean and had a decent free breakfast. I would stay there again if I were using free points again. The location was perfect in proximity to the airport and cruiseport. About 10 minutes from the airport and 5 minutes from Port Everglades. We ate dinner at Carlos and Pepe's right up the street from the hotel. A great Mexican restaurant with delicious margarita's, chips, salsa and guacamole. I was more impressed with those items than I was my main course - but it was okay.
Onto the cruise...Embarkation was a very smooth process. We arrived at the pier at around 11am and were onboard, had purchased our soda cards and were eating at the Windjammer by noon. It was crowded, but I expected that since no one could get to their cabin before 1. We then checked out our dining room assignment. We had 2nd dining seating and were assigned to a table of 10. We requested through the maitre'd to be reassigned to a smaller table. We are not anti-social, but this was our 10th anniversary cruise and we just chose to be alone. My son ate in the Windjammer and went up to Adventure Ocean and we got ready and went to dinner at 8:30 every night. We are unable to go out to dinner alone at home very often, so this worked out well for us. Mustava (sp) accommodated our request and had us at a smaller table by the 2nd night. We hadn't planned on dining in Cascades the 1st night anyway, because we were still busy checking out every inch of the ship so we ate in the Windjammer.
We thought the ship was beautiful. Very impressive. She is in dry dock now and I've read a few comments that say she needs improvement, but I didn't notice anything that screamed fix me. We were in JS 1100 located in the aft. Awesome cabin....Huge balcony that we enjoyed every minute of. Our room steward Anack (sp?) was great. He was there for anything we needed, basically before we could ask for it. It was a long walk to the stairs/ elevators (135 steps to be exact, we counted) but helped offset all the eating we did all week!