Review on our Alaska Cruise aboard the Radiance

[jmf123]

Yes it did just come out of dry dock....three weeks worth. I know they didn't do everything. I see what you mean by the couch looking warn. I don't remember noticing so I am thinking it was the light in the picture.

I know the carpet was new and the tvs were new in the rooms.

 

I also noticed the original couch in the photo and was rather surprised. The Radiance apparently received much in the way of reupholstering of furniture on board during drydock, but obviously these worn couches remain. Flooring (including bathroom) was replaced, and nice to see the flat screen tv. Looking forward to seeing more of your review! The Radiance is perfect for cruising Alaska with her three acres of glass, including glass elevators...and that wonderful Solarium. I'm a warm weather person too but loved our Alaska sailings. ;)

[jennat]

Jen, thank you so much for taking the time to give us your review and your honest observations.

 

One question, having been on Radiance 12 times ourselves with 3 more cruises planned beginning this September (can you tell we like this ship :D) ..........there used to be an outside coffee station on Deck 11 where the Boardwalk Dog House is currently located. Did you notice if it is still there or did they relocate it?

 

Can't wait to read more of your amazing cruise.

 

Not there anymore. There is a coffee stand on deck 5 by the Centrum.....that has always been there, right??

 

 

Also a book nook on deck 9

 

 

 

I will always sneak in photos when I have a chance. We came home with around 8000.

[jennat]

While touring the ship, we happened on the Solarium. Such a cool spot. Really makes you want to be in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw that the Park Cafe was opened and decided to give it a try

 

 

This whole 6 photos per post is cramping my style.....hold on....

[cruisenfever]

The coffee location you are referring to on Deck 5 is Latte-tudes which has always been there and it is not complimentary.

 

The complimentary coffee, hot water, lemonade and ice tea station was right outside the WJ where the Dog House is, so I'm just wondering if they relocated it and you might not have seen it.

 

No problem, I'll have 51 days to find it.:D

 

Also, I can't believe that they didn't have Sweet-N-Low as they have always had it in the past. Splenda was the sweetener that was hard to come by.

Edited June 23, 2011 by cruisenfever

[cruisenfever]

I also noticed the original couch in the photo and was rather surprised. The Radiance apparently received much in the way of reupholstering of furniture on board during drydock, but obviously these worn couches remain. Flooring (including bathroom) was replaced, and nice to see the flat screen tv. Looking forward to seeing more of your review! The Radiance is perfect for cruising Alaska with her three acres of glass, including glass elevators...and that wonderful Solarium. I'm a warm weather person too but loved our Alaska sailings. ;)

Cabin furniture was not being replaced or recovered. Furniture in the Centrum areas was reupholstered.

[jennat]

 

 

That is Ken in the blue shirt and glasses in the center.

 

This is where the famed Roast Beef sandwich is located. They also had a salad bar and bagged chips in addition to the menu above. The drink station was only partially opened the whole cruise. Don't know why, it seems like if they can build that enormous ship and make it float, they should be able to get an ice machine to work but I digress.

 

I had a tuna panini, greek salad and salad bar for lunch....hey, be nice, I didn't eat it all. My husband had about 10 roast beef sandwiches....okay maybe 2 but he really liked them. There were a bunch of muckity mucks on board. One of these was Ken Taylor (director of Fleet Restaurant Operations) and by accident we ended up having a conversation with him. It was interesting. I was asking about how they are working the tipping with regards to the main dining vs the pay dining and how all that was working. He said it was a ongoing progression figuring it out. He did say, directly and unequivocally (don't know if that word fits there but doesn't it make me sound smart) that the tip IS included in the $$ restaurants. As far as tipping with regards to your main table when you go to a different restaurant, he mentioned My Time Dining.

Now here is where I am going to go off a little. I wish I had thought of this while I had his ear. I am not a fan of booking a spot in the dining room, eating somewhere else and paying and not still tipping the main dining room waiter as they have no other way to fill that spot. That being said, I am not a big fan of paying $50 to eat at Chops and still having to tip an additional $11 to the waiter who didn't even wait on me. My time dining you say. Yes, that would be a perfect option except for, I am booked on the Oasis this fall and because I booked My time Dining, I had to prepay my tips. Which totally defeats the purpose. If someone goes off on me about how these employees have no money and I should be happy to pay people for no reason at all I seriously will come through this computer and haunt your world. So, I would really like this figured out so that I can eat where I want, tip those that take care of me, and not pay others for doing nothing.

 

Okay, I am back to my not scary self.

 

Anyway, it was interesting to talk with him, the food was fantastic and we set off to check to see if any of our bags were there (3 suitcases and a back pack) Nope, not yet.

 

If you walk through the casino on deck 4 (5?) you hit the Quill and Compass. A pub like they have on the bigger ships. This is the biggest pub they have in the fleet (a fact I got from a different muckity muck later). They smoking section is in the back. Another nice thing is that the windows are fake and there is a sitting area outside so if the smoke is bothering you, you can retire out there.

 

 

 

This is our favorite hang out on the bigger ships. It was never crowded at all here, kind of lacking energy. I think the problem was two fold. One, it is in an out of the way location and two, I think the guitar player/ singer wasn't a big enough draw. He was fine but I think they needed someone outstanding to draw a crowd, esp in a new, out of the way venue. Maybe they could have hosted an event here.....

 

There is also a movie theater in this area that had shows running all the time. The same movies were playing on the tv in your stateroom.

 

 

The dining room was beautiful.

 

[01Sweetpea]

I'm really enjoying your review...keep it coming.

[jonbgd]

Thank You for taking the time to do the your review with photos

We were on her last cruise before drydock and it is nice to see the changes.

 

I have a couple questions.... How did they do the cover charge in Ritas? Was it when you walked thru the door or when you sat down?

Also was the surcharge taken off your bill @ the end or was that just an extra charge?

Were people still able to sit in the aft and bring food from the WJ?

[jennat]

Thank You for taking the time to do the your review with photos

We were on her last cruise before drydock and it is nice to see the changes.

 

I have a couple questions.... How did they do the cover charge in Ritas? Was it when you walked thru the door or when you sat down?

Also was the surcharge taken off your bill @ the end or was that just an extra charge?

Were people still able to sit in the aft and bring food from the WJ?

 

Yes you could eat in the aft part of the deck.

 

The sweet n low shortage was in Vancouver, not on the ship.

 

They had hot teas, coffee, water and lemonaide available, hypothetically, in the Solarium.....half the stuff was out of order all the time. I don't think there was any available by the hotdog stand. I would have to go into the windjammer from that side of the ship.

 

You are right, the Latte-tudes is $$....I thought maybe that is what she was referring to.

 

As far as Rita's...they bring you a bill at the end of the cruise, like in the other $$ rest. you give them your sail card and they charge it. The surcharge is an extra charge....$3 for the privilege of eating there on top of the price of food. Really quite reasonable though overall.

[cruisenfever]

Yes you could eat in the aft part of the deck.

 

The sweet n low shortage was in Vancouver, not on the ship.

 

They had hot teas, coffee, water and lemonaide available, hypothetically, in the Solarium.....half the stuff was out of order all the time. I don't think there was any available by the hotdog stand. I would have to go into the windjammer from that side of the ship.

 

You are right, the Latte-tudes is $$....I thought maybe that is what she was referring to.

 

As far as Rita's...they bring you a bill at the end of the cruise, like in the other $$ rest. you give them your sail card and they charge it. The surcharge is an extra charge....$3 for the privilege of eating there on top of the price of food. Really quite reasonable though overall.

Thanks so much Jen. I must have misread about sweet-n-low.:o Looks like they relocated the complimentary beverage station to the Solarium. Makes sense since they have had any type of beverage available there when it was the Solarium Cafe.

 

Do you possibly mean that they bring you the bill at the end of your meal like in the other restaurants?

 

Now, if they would only bring back the crepe machine.:p

Edited June 23, 2011 by cruisenfever

[jennat]

 

 

This planner was something I had never seen before but I really liked it. Especially on a ship like the Oasis where you are trying to plan. here is the compass from day 1.

 

 

 

Here are some photos of the sports deck

 

[jennat]

 

 

 

 

We actually forgot about this area of the ship and didn't spend any time here at all so I don't know about crowds or if the kids pool was open.

[Choochala]

It certainly was the “nicest” city I have ever been in. Both in friendliness and cleanliness. It was gorgeous and very safe feeling.

 

This is so nice to hear in light of the fiasco of the Stanley Cup. I'm so glad that was your encounter. We are really a great bunch of people if I may say so myself :p And I love Vancouver - One of my favorite places to go every year as a child.

[jennat]

We continued to explore and then went up to the room to unpack.....no bags yet. We headed out to the front of the ship to watch sail away. They have these glass partitions about face level. I didn't like them. we kept going down a level and down another. It was "I don't like it here, let's go there", "I don't like it here, let's go there" Finally, we ended up on the helicopter pad. I liked it there. It is a wonder my hubby didn't throw me over board. I'm sure he had hateful thoughts but like a good man, he kept them to himself. One of my favorite of all his traits.

To get to the heli pad you go out on deck 5, walk forward and climb the stairs.

 

 

 

It was 5pm and we were ready to go......still ready to go......are we gonna go?

It is now 6pm, they said they were waiting on paper work but I found out later they were waiting on people. Apparently, a plane out of Chicago had bad weather and was late getting in. Our table mates were on this plane. Here were about 30 other people on here also. Luckily, some of them had booked through the cruise line so the ship waited. Our table mates hadn't so they lucked out. They had called earlier to see their options and were told that you couldn't catch up during this cruise. If you didn't make it on board in Vancouver you missed the ship and the trip. Can you imagine. we couldn't figure out why but with our experience disembarking, we may have an idea. No customs.

Finally because I was FREEZING, we went back to our cabin to watch sail-away and hopefully unpack.

 

 

 

 

 

It was very pretty sailing out of Vancouver....you can see land for a long time.....at least until we stopped watching.

 

Still waiting for our luggage....6pm, 7pm, 8pm.....I am starting to get worried. What are the odds that NONE of our 4 bags will be here. I am okay until I call down to guest services and they sound concerned that I don't have them yet. Mike went to look for them and low and behold, he found them here and there, in the hallways, etc. Strange.

 

I unpacked quickly, ran a comb through my hair, threw on some lipstick and head to dinner. We had late seating which was at 8:45 that night.

We had booked a large table and were really looking forward to sitting with adults (sans our kids) and visiting. It had been 6 or 7 years since we were cruising without friends, family or kids. We ended up having 5 others at our table. A couple with their well behaved 13 yr old son and another couple. The second couple was the one who was on the Chicago flight. Their bags hadn't made it yet and were supposed to catch up with them in Ketchikan. I felt sorry for them.

We finished dinner at 10:45, went to the shops to buy some souvenirs and went to bed. We were tired!

 

I know some people are "food" people, I will try and remember what I ate.....vidalla onion tart (fine), yeah, can't remember. The food was fine.....not great at all, just fine. The service was great except, I had to ask for a refill on tea 3 times which is odd for a cruise ship, I thought. you know how I like my tea.

 

Another thing that happened on this cruise was a lot, a lot, a lot of people had requested early seating and they either got late seating or no seating at all. There were "discussions" going on all over the ship (maitre d, guest services, etc) This wouldn't have been a big deal to me but man o man was it a HUGE deal to some people. We ended being friends with a couple of these food nomads. One couple was very upset and they ended up getting all of there food comped (including $$ restaurants and drinks with dinner). The couple heard about this and went and spoke with guest services and got their meals comped to. I guess the squeaky wheel gets the oil. It kind of sucked going to dinner with the two couples and being the only one who had to pay but I think it was the right move for RCCL to make.

[jennat]

It certainly was the “nicest” city I have ever been in. Both in friendliness and cleanliness. It was gorgeous and very safe feeling.

 

This is so nice to hear in light of the fiasco of the Stanley Cup. I'm so glad that was your encounter. We are really a great bunch of people if I may say so myself :p And I love Vancouver - One of my favorite places to go every year as a child.

 

We sailed out before the riots, I was sad to hear about them but hey, there's one in every crowd, right......

[jennat]

Inside Passage

 

We woke up and went to breakfast in the main dining room. Had lovely dining companions and an okay breakfast. I ordered poached eggs and needed to be more specific. I got poached hard boiled eggs. I'm sure 99 times out of 100 it would have been fine.

We left to go to the meet and mingle. It was not a terribly active board but still wanted to put faces with names.

 

There were probably 15 to 20 people there. We also got to meet the cruise director Keith Williams (not sure of the last name, I will double check). He was interesting. He is a little older and not as quick witted as some of the others but I grew quite fond of him throughout the week. He is very accessible, friendly, kind and I felt like I had the opportunity to interact with him quite a bit during the cruise.

The spread they laid out for the M&M was nice. Cheeses, drinks, pastries.....maybe this is right, maybe it is wrong. Just go with it. I can't remember. I just know it was nice. We all visited for a while. I got my first taste of marine wildlife off in the distance and then it was time to go back to the balcony to sit, read and watch the sea and islands go by.

 

 

We ate lunch at Rita's Cantina. Had the very potent Mango Marg and fajitas.

 

[negc]

I've been enjoying your review and the great pictures of the Radiance. One of your comments did puzzle me a bit. I'm not sure why you consider the location of the Pub, which lies directly between the casino and the theater to be "out of the way". Obviously there is no Royal Promenade like the larger ships, but the majority of the public lounges are all located in a direct line on deck 6 of Radiance class ships and it is difficult if not impossible to get to the cinema or the theater from the Centrum without passing through the casino and by the Pub, which was formerly the Sports Bar. Perhaps the guitar player wasn't as big a draw as the piano player performing in the Schooner Bar and that might account for the smaller crowds, but the pub does look wonderful. Will miss all of the tv monitors in the Sports Bar when an NFL football game was being shown. Are there any TVs in the Pub?

If Keith Williams was your CD, I think you will find him to be quite good though not as over the top as some CDs. He has been the CD for several of our Jewel cruises and is very approachable.

[karodavis]

Thanks so much for taking your time to give such a detailed review. Our group of 4 couples will be spending an extra day in Vancouver and then this cruise on Aug 19th. You are providing alot of valuable info for us!

[Arizona Cruz Chic]

Great review and pictures.

 

Sorry to hear there isn't a beverage/coffee station outside the WJ!!!

 

The stateroom upholstery looks pretty bad!!! Maybe if they took away just one of the new restaurants they would of had enough money for upgrading the staterooms!

 

Keep the pictures and review coming!!! ;)

 

***

[cruisenfever]

Great review and pictures.

 

Sorry to hear there isn't a beverage/coffee station outside the WJ!!!

 

The stateroom upholstery looks pretty bad!!! Maybe if they took away just one of the new restaurants they would of had enough money for upgrading the staterooms!

 

Keep the pictures and review coming!!! ;)

 

***

That is going to be missed. Jen did mention that there was a station now in the Solarium where Park Cafe is located so maybe they just flipped it from one side of the ship to the other.

Edited June 23, 2011 by cruisenfever

[Arizona Cruz Chic]

That is going to be missed. Jen did mention that there was a station now in the Solarium where Park Cafe is located so maybe they just flipped it from one side of the ship to the other.

 

 

Oops, I guess I missed that....kind of a long walk to Park Cafe!

 

***

[flames]

Jen, Thanks for the great review and pictures:cool:

 

Carol:)

Edited June 23, 2011 by flames

[wannasail4ever]

Hey Jen, Macy here! You're doing a great job on this review! You'd have had a whole lot more fun in that bar if the rest of us Freedomflyers had been with you. :D Ya know what I mean???? Butch says hi. Can't wait to see what all you did. We loved Alaska more than anywhere else we've been. Hi to the family! (I can't believe how OLD T and N are!)

[jennat]

I've been enjoying your review and the great pictures of the Radiance. One of your comments did puzzle me a bit. I'm not sure why you consider the location of the Pub, which lies directly between the casino and the theater to be "out of the way". Obviously there is no Royal Promenade like the larger ships, but the majority of the public lounges are all located in a direct line on deck 6 of Radiance class ships and it is difficult if not impossible to get to the cinema or the theater from the Centrum without passing through the casino and by the Pub, which was formerly the Sports Bar. Perhaps the guitar player wasn't as big a draw as the piano player performing in the Schooner Bar and that might account for the smaller crowds, but the pub does look wonderful. Will miss all of the tv monitors in the Sports Bar when an NFL football game was being shown. Are there any TVs in the Pub?

If Keith Williams was your CD, I think you will find him to be quite good though not as over the top as some CDs. He has been the CD for several of our Jewel cruises and is very approachable.

 

I guess I said that because I felt it was kind of out of the way. You are right, you do see it going to the theater but you are usually on a mission to get the theater at that time. I can't remember ever having to walk through the casino to get to anything before and honestly I try to avoid that area because of the smoke and the fact that for me gambling is no fun because it is over before it begins. Not luck in game!

Also, I think because the area outside of the pub that I mentioned before has no pictures or anything so it seems abandoned or something, that combined with the fact that it was always empty, probably contributed to the abandoned feeling for me. Like I stated earlier, I can only give my impressions, I'm glad you feel differently because I definitely want to see it succeed. Love the pub concept on the ships.

There are still tvs in the pub, didn't count but in my brain there were 4???

Also, there is a dart board. BTW, the entertainer in there was very nice and good.....just wondered if someone with more personality would have drawn a bigger crowd.

[jennat]

That is going to be missed. Jen did mention that there was a station now in the Solarium where Park Cafe is located so maybe they just flipped it from one side of the ship to the other.

 

I hope I am right.....actually, I hope I am wrong, that way you guys will get your drink station :D