Radiance of the Seas February 13th, 2005

My wife and I are in our late 40s, and unfortunately will not be able to describe ourselves that way again in a review. This was our 15th cruise, 8th with Royal Caribbean.

This cruise was with a small group of 6 family and friends, a total of 8 of us. As always, we began our vacation a day early. Our flight to Ft Lauderdale from upstate NY went very smoothly and our pre-arranged limo driver was waiting with a sign at the baggage claim for the ride to the Intercontinental in Miami. We had a very difficult time acquiring a hotel at a reasonable cost using Priceline. We bid as high as $120 for a cat 3 and were still denied. We've never had this happen in the past. We usually get something for less than $50 so we knew there must be something big going on in town this night. There was. There was a very large Carnevale the day and night of the 12th, and all but the most expensive hotels were sold out. We ended up booking at the Intercontinental for $129 plus taxes. The location next to Bayside eliminated taxi costs so we saved a few dollars there. We opened our room and the view of the ships in port could not have been better. Much closer than any hotel we've stayed in in the past. We were all hungry and went straight to Bayside (only a 5 minute walk) for dinner. After that we shopped for awhile and then headed back to our hotel while others in our group stayed and had a few drinks at one of the establishments. We were quite tired and retired early anticipating our cruise the next day. Read more