|
Radiance
Of The Seas
July, 2002
This will not be a blow by blow account of our trip since
weather and personalities dictate much of that, but rather things I’m
glad we did, and things I wish I’d known before we left. Well, and a few
things I couldn’t resist adding...
I’m a fan of RCI, but have also sailed on Carnival, NCL,
Disney, and way back, Chandris and Celebrity. I’m more of a fan of
cruising than my husband, and he loves warm weather much more than I do. He
only went because I really, really wanted to see some of
Alaska
<thank you John>. I definitely enjoyed this cruise more than he did. Oh, well.
We picked mid-July, hoping that the weather would be good,
and it was - for
Alaska
. Low to mid sixties and little rain. A week or two earlier and it was solid rain from what I hear. Luck of the draw. We
picked the Radiance because I wanted a round trip cruise, and I wanted to see
the newest style of RCI’s ships. We were on the Voyager last December when
we booked, and I had done zero research because I never expected John to
agree to
Alaska
. It worked out well; we got a good cabin at what ended up being a very good price (boy did they go up after we booked!)
Cabin selection: We picked an E3 forward on the
recommendation of the booking agent on board. This was an excellent pick for a
number of reasons. The E3 is the lowest priced balcony cabin, and the
forward ones actually do have a larger balcony than the E2’s and
E1’s above. The extra space is open top and sides (railing, but no barrier
between adjacent cabins), so if you really like your privacy, these may not
be for you. We had noisy neighbors on both sides, but it wasn’t too bad
most of the time. These cabins are closest to the water line (important
to me at any time, and more important at Hubbard Glacier as I’ll
explain later). The E3’s on the “bump” also looked good, but forward
facing ones would probably get more wind (bad in
Alaska
, good in the
Caribbean
). The E3’s mid-ship I’d consider unacceptable. They have about a 10-12’
ledge (beyond the balcony rail), level with the bottom of the balcony,
separating you from the ocean view. This ledge is over the lifeboats one deck
below - I actually saw workmen walking out there while we were underway!
Being forward, we were near the entertainment areas, but
far away from the food. I saw this as a plus ;-). There are only 2 stairwells
for passenger use, one forward, and one mid-ship around the centrum,
which was often crowded with passengers from about 2/3 of the ship, while the
forward stairwell seemed less busy. I try not to use the elevators, but the few times I did,
the wait did not seem long.
The cabin was pretty typical of what I expect from RCI, two
twins pushed together sheeted as a queen, the bottom edges rounded to
make it easier to get around. A small loveseat with a table to get in your
way, and a full cabin width curtain to separate the bed area from the
living area. There was a vanity with 2 110v and 2 220v receptacles and some
small shelves hiding behind the side mirrors, a small fridge (which was
NOT fully loaded; I guess they got too many complaints), and a well designed,
albeit small, bathroom with a very affectionate shower curtain ;-). A TV
with remote, a small safe (you get to set your own pin instead on choosing
a card your better half always has when you need to get into the safe),
about 6 drawers and a good size closet with lots of hangers. The closets
have the usual bars on the top to hang clothes on, but also have fold down
ones underneath so you can “stack” shorter clothes. There were also
several shelves good for shoes, sweaters, and the shorts we didn’t wear.
The ship: It’s a very pretty ship, even the
outside doesn’t look too much like a hotel. We kept passing and being passed by Princess
ships (sorry, but from the outside, they’re very ugly) and a couple of
the HAL ‘dam ships (which were better). If anyone’s interested, I can supply
exterior photos of those that passed us. Maybe it’s just me, but I want
to be able to see where our cabin is from the outside before we go, and the
brochures just don’t seem to show the ships any more.
Inside it’s fairly well laid out, entertainment up front,
food to the rear, and a nice centrum that was abused. I say abused because
they were often doing shopping talks and art auctions in there, making
hanging out in those inside seating/lounge areas surrounding the centrum
annoying due to noise much of the time. Ugh.
There’s a lovely area aft of the Windjammer that’s
covered and glassed in yet open toward the back. It has padded love seats, chairs,
and low tables. What a wonderful area to sit in the shade, get a
little fresh air, and watch the sea go by. Unfortunately, they often put a
closed sign at the back of the Windjammer and basically locked people out
there. You could go up a deck (in the wind and rain) and go through
the kids pool area to get back inside, or squeeze between the closed sign and
the door to activate the doors (I didn’t discover this worked until the last sea day). I
found this very strange.
The Solarium was tropical and steamy. Very nicely done and
underutilized this trip. Although it was adults only, they had pity on
the kids and opened up a couple of hours a day for “family swim”.
Other times it was a nice place to pull up a lounge chair, read a book, and
listen to the jungle sounds. The Solarium has always been a favorite spot of
ours on recent RCI ships; I just wish I could have coaxed John to take a dip
once or twice in
Alaska
, just to say we did.
The theater and lounges were well designed, the shows were
okay, but the productions shows were not as good as I remembered on the Voyager. However, if you ever, Ever, EVER get a chance to
see “Toxic Audio”, do so (www.toxicaudio.com
- they have sound clips). They’re an a cappella group based in
Orlando
, and they are great! No band, just their voices (and the occasional pitch pipe), but they can
imitate many wind and percussion instruments. Fantastic. Not only did they do a
great (and at times funny) show, but it was a real treat to see them the
next night in the piano bar jamming with the piano player for HOURS just
having fun, and showing everyone a good time. They mentioned that they
perform at Disney’s
Pleasure
Island
in the Jazz club. We’ll be there next chance we get. Wow.
Dining: The two story dining room was pretty, but
also pretty closely packed. I don’t remember ever having to squeeze between
tables before (and I’m sure this was annoying to the squeezees as well). I
have finally given up on my hopeful assumption that they try to put compatible
people together at tables. We were seated with three Spanish speaking
couples from
Mexico
(all very nice, but only one of whom spoke marginal
English), and a honeymooning couple, one of whom was from the Phillipines,
the other from
Malta
. Thankfully the honeymooners spoke English, but for some reason the Mexicans (trying to be inclusive, I assume) would almost
always get between us and the other couple. It made for a couple of very
strained dinners. On the second formal night, John just couldn’t
face another evening either yelling to the opposite end or trying to
communicate without language, so at the last minute we went to
Portofino
, got a window seat, a bottle of wine, and had a great time by ourselves. We
really did enjoy talking to the honeymooners and spent several hours
chatting with them when we could; we may even get to visit them in
Malta
next summer.
The food was good, there was always a chocolate dessert
(very important!) Our waiter was very good and personable. Since
we missed the second formal night, we also missed the flourless chocolate
cake (the horror!). When saw our waiter in the dining room at lunch
the next day, somehow the subject came up. At dinner that night, I plowed
my way through TWO pieces of that wonderful cake! Our assistant waiter
was, for the most part, also good, but not quite ready for a promotion. RCI
is the only ship where we’ve had actual contact with the maitre d’
before “tip night”, and his assistance on several occasions was welcome. The
shooters waiter only made it to our table once the entire week, which is
probably just as well, as I have quite a collection from previous cruises. They
could have had a bit of “revenue enhancement” from me, though.
The Windjammer buffet was well laid out, good, and almost
always open (except the first day, when we really needed it). They
serve almost the same food as in the dining room, but it’s a heck of a lot
faster if you’re trying to get off the ship for an excursion. They also have
pizza, calzones, and cookies in the Solarium at some times (but I
never made it there except for the cookies - the only place for chocolate
chip ones for most of our cruise). There’s also a Seaview cafe open at
odd times (like between lunch and dinner, and late nights). I would like to
have gone there for lunch, but the times were odd. We grabbed a snack and a milkshake
there once and it was fine, not great.
We had the aforementioned dinner at Portofinos ($20 each),
and lunch at Chops ($10 at lunch), both worth it once a cruise. Although
it was all very good, the only memorable item was the tiramisu at
Portofinos. We’d had some (poor imitation) tiramisu in the dining room the
previous night, but this was very good! It looked very different from the
usual square stuff since it was served in a chocolate bowl, but the taste was there.
Too bad we were stuffed or I could have had another.
Itinerary: We flew into
Seattle
the night before;
Vancouver
was twice the price from the east coast, and the schedules were not good
for us. Since I knew nothing about hotels in the area, I checked out
www.biddingfortravel.com
and ended up using Priceline for pre- and post-cruise hotels. On the way out, we ended up at the
Radisson airport for <$45 (including all taxes). It’s a gracefully
aging airport property with a shuttle, and served us well. We took the RCI bus up
to
Vancouver
which was okay. We were told to be at the airport around
noon
, which I thought was rather late, so we showed up at 11. We still
barely made it to the ship before muster, and totally missed the “Welcome
Aboard” buffet. For tummies on east coast time with late dinner
seating, that was pretty close to disastrous. For some reason we didn’t
think of room service, but ended up in Books, Books, and Coffee for a $1
croissant and a helpful server who turned our moods around. I never could
find out when bus service started, but I’d get there a lot earlier than
noon
!
Our first day was at sea, so we mostly just hung out,
enjoyed the ship, and whatever. Land was very far away, which was a
disappointment for me. I guess we went through all the “good stuff” at night.
In
Juneau
we took Captain Larry’s whale watching on the Awesome Orca(http://www.alaskawhalewatching.com/),
which came highly recommended and I concur. I mentioned to Captain Larry that he has quite a
reputation on the net, which he said was a bit hard to live up to day after
day. He managed to do it again for us though. It helped that the whales
were cooperative. We saw a group of humpbacks “bubble net”
feeding, and lots of individuals, and a mom and baby as well. There was plenty
of rail space for everyone, plus the boat was fast, so we could spend
some more time out. There were many boats out in the area we were
watching, so everyone had a good opportunity that day, but I noticed one of the
(big, crowded) boats left before we did, then we passed it, stopped to
watch some dolphins play, and passed it again. The naturalist on board was
informative. If I ever make it to
Maui
during whale season there, I’ll definitely look his boat up. What a life, summer in
Alaska
, winter in
Hawaii
.
On the way back to town, I mentioned to the Orca bus driver
that we’d like to see the Mendanhall Glacier, so he sold us a round trip
MGT bus ticket and dropped us off. After we enjoyed our visit, we waited
at the bus stop for the bus back to town. And waited, and waited.
Unfortunately, the bus stopped early that day for some unknown reason. Thankfully,
our original bus driver (who as far as I know works for Captain Larry,
not MGT) found this out, and brought a minibus all the way back for us and
drove us back to our ship. That’s customer service! Although we
weren’t in danger of missing the ship (it didn’t leave until very late), I was
wondering how we’d find a ride with no change and rather unhelpful
locals; I guess they get tired of tourists there.
Next was Skagway, and of course we took the train
(John’s a fan of trains). Get the left side on the way up so you can see
everything. That way you won’t miss it if you snooze on the way back down
like so many did. I considered booking direct, but even their web site
recommended booking through the ship, not that I can figure out why.
It’s more expensive that way and the only advantage, dubious at best,
was that it picked us up at the ship, and dropped us off there as well.
Unfortunately, our drop off time was the moment the skies picked to open
up and rain. Envision hundreds of passengers from the trains as
well as those finished in town all standing in the rain to go through the
painfully slow reboarding process. We huddled with many others in a
shelter and waited for the $1 bus to take us back to town where we tried out a
Sitka Spruce beer (surprisingly good) and checked email upstairs. We
wandered around town for a while and reboarded when it was a bit drier.
Hubbard Glacier. We had a fantastic day there. Calm,
sunny, and warmer than I feared it would be. Sailing in, we saw seals on
bergs, then we started going through slushy ice. This is where the balcony
really came in handy. I’m not a fan of crowds, and the rails were quite
crowded. We did go up to see the ice carving, but came back down pretty
quickly. There was a naturalist of sorts on board, as well as someone from a
local Indian tribe. Neither of them were very good speakers, but we
gleaned a little info from their piped in talks. We got to within ½ mile of
the glacier face, and saw a good bit of (small) bergs calving, to much
applause. The most unexpected thing for me was the sound of eons old
compressed air escaping from the bergs surrounding the ship. Snap,
crackle, pop - ice crispies! Not sure you could hear that on deck 12 with the
crowds! We were scheduled to be at Hubbard Glacier until 3PM, but
about noon the ship pirouetted and pulled away. There were at least two ships
behind us waiting to see the glacier, but it was disappointing to me.
See it while you can!
Ketchikan was a fun port. We didn’t have anything
planned so we left the ship and found a kiosk by Northern Tours just off the pier.
We lucked out and got a great guide (I think her name was Marie). She’d
been in Ketchikan about 8 years, and was interesting, informative,
and enthusiastic! We shopped a little before our tour started,
but learned we should have gone a little further in to the stores owned by
the locals (I didn’t learn this until Marie mentioned it). The ones
near the pier were (for the most part) very similar to the ones in the
Caribbean and owned by the same companies. I don’t know if the others were much
more interesting, but I’d rather support the locals.
Our final ship day was cruising the inside passage, and
this time we really were close in. So near I thought about tossing a rock to
see if I could really hit the shore, and I could smell the firs at times. We saw some dolphins, bald
eagles, and enjoyed the scenery. A great day!
Debarkation went smoothly. Not usually my favorite
day, but it was another beautiful, sunny day. We rented a car from Avis instead of
transfers so we could look around Vancouver for a while. We headed to
Stanley Park, where I expected something like a little city park. Of course I
was very wrong - 1000 acres! Miles of trails, three restaurants, a free
trolly (although you had to pay for parking), a kiddie train, playground,
and lots of stuff we missed I’m sure. The weather was stupendous, and
everyone was there. Busy, busy, busy. We had lunch at Prospect Point, an
open air restaurant with a view of the Lion’s Gate bridge, then
afterward we walked onto the bridge, and down the hill along the seawall to
where we’d parked. I could spend several days at least in Stanley
Park, but we had to get to Seattle that night, so we left mid-afternoon. The
border wasn’t too bad (45 minutes, and we got to see a wedding party in the
Peace Park). We took a little side trip down Chuckanut Drive (Rte 11, I
think, south of Bellingham). We asked the woman who rented us our car if
there were any scenic routes to Seattle, and she recommended it. It was a
windy two lane that followed the coast for about 20 miles or so, with lots
of pull-outs to stop and see Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands, and the
Olympic mountains. During one stop we heard Amtrak pass below us
along the shore, but we couldn’t see it through the trees. A very
worthwhile diversion if you can’t take the train.
We didn’t make it to Seattle until after 9, and our
Priceline room at the Elliot Grand Hyatt was waiting (<$50 for the hotel, but
$28 for parking!) I think we’re finally convinced we’re just
not 4* people (too fussy for us). We dumped our stuff, headed out to find
dinner, and walked around until about midnight. I was hoping we’d get to
Seattle early enough to see some of it, but we had such a good time in Vancouver
- oh, well, another time. Our flight out was at noon; our only problem
was finding gas near the airport. We’ve never had that problem before!
Flights were full coming and going and the airports were packed. Who says no
one’s flying!
All in all, a good trip, but I don’t think I’ll get
John on a ship near Alaska again (I think we knew that going in). I expected to
like the Radiance better than the Voyager, but such was not the
case. I’ll be able to compare again when we sail the Explorer in December.
|
