My review: Radiance of the Seas (12/11-12/16/10)

[Arizona Cruz Chic]

Nice review Chris, nice comments on our favorite ship!!

 

 

***

[silentbob007]

A few more things I wanted to add now that I have a little free time ....

 

• Casino - The Radiance promoted a special where each passenger, once a cruise, could buy $30 of chips for $20 at the casino cage. They mentioned it was an offer on each of the ships of the fleet, but I don't recall seeing it elsewhere. When you get this deal, they take your name and cabin number, then give you special "pink" chips along with a slip for a $1 dealer tip with a win when played. These chips cannot be redeemed, but can be played. I used them at blackjack, pocketing real chips when winning. One night the pit boss said that the $5 special chips could be played even though it had a $6 minimum bet, though the next day the dealer required playing at least the minimum. I walked away with more than $20 on both my chips and my mom's chips, so this worked for me pretty well.
  
• Service - While I mentioned some service issues above, my complaints were specific to those areas. In other areas, I felt the service was great. I didn't order a lot of drinks, so I can't comment about speed, but I thought that the servers in the Schooner Bar were great in asking if we wanted water and commenting that they wanted to make us feel at home, not that they wanted us to buy drinks. Our waitstaff, Roger and Joselin, were awesome, friendly, and quick. They did their jobs and had personality, which is always a plus.
  
• CD Staff - I thought that the CD staff were very approachable. Games and events ran on time and with a bit of humor. The CD was Dan Whitney (as it was in March), and I enjoy him as a CD. He runs his own progressive trivia, is approachable, and seems interested in talking to guests during events and as he's making rounds on the ship.
  
• Debarkation - Debarkation is never fun, but in my opinion, it was handled horribly on this cruise. Some more Diamond snottiness here, so please bear with me ... Diamond and Diamond Plus cruisers were asked to meet in the dining room for debarkation at around 8:30. The line finally starts moving at around 8:50, but it moves in fits and starts. Evidently this was occuring for three reasons ... One, while everyone was supposed to meet in a room and be led off, they were occasionally blocking off the priority line to allow people hanging around the centrum into the debarkation line even though they had not followed the printed directions and were instead trying to jump their place in line. Two, once we finally got outside on Deck 5, there was a huge choke point where only one person can walk at a time due to the slaning glass windows along the outer promenade and some (with luggage, etc) were having a hard time making it through this point. Three, even though this was the "priority" line, other guests were being espcorted off from the back of the ship, so two checkout stations were being used for our side while the other two were being used for the other side. In essence, even though we were "group 1," due to the number of people in the priority line, we were looking for luggage while groups 6 and 7 were being released on the other side. It was just a mess with the wait, compounded by the fact that most of the "priority" line were made up of more aged people who starting to feel discomfort waiting in line.
  

 

Final thoughts

 

Reading back through what I've written, some of it comes off very negative ... and I think that is what was frustrating about this trip. Some things, such as the bathroom floor, should not have happened and, once they did, should have been taken care of. Sometimes I got the feeling that guest relations is so used to issues with water and plumbing that they don't react as strongly to it as a guest being inconvenienced might expect.

 

Other than the plumbing and a couple of service issues, this was a very nice trip. RCCL certainly offers quite a few things to do, even on a more-subdued Radiance-class vessel. I will, obviously, be cruising with RCCL again, but as I've stated earlier, I will hesitate to board the Radiance until I hear things are cleared up in dry-dock.

[KeywestK]

CHRIS....You delivered, as always, a terrific and honest review. Thanks for sharing all your thoughts and observations about Radiance, and your recent experience. David and I wish you and your parents a wonderful Christmas, and have a great time on your Celebrity cruise. I'll look forward to that review too.

[silentbob007]

Thanks Karen. Hope your holiday season is going wonderfully as well. :)

[mo&fran]

while you were writing your review, DW and I were on Radiance collecting our 3 credits (JS) . While we had no plumbing issues, nor were there any signs of others having issues (we were on deck 10) ,there were a couple of things that did crop up. My drink of choice is Barcardi and Coke, and on several equations the bartender decided to substitute without asking Capt Morgan, which I really dislike. In one case, he didn't have any Barcardi, so he figured any rum he had would be good enough. My gripe is that they just did it, rather than ask first if that would be OK. This happened in several different bars.

The second issue is that I like having iced tea with my breakfast. When on other RC ships, especially Voyager class, I asked if I could have iced tea in WJ, a waiter would usually be able to serve it. DW had room service often and she would order a glass and it would be delivered to the room.

First morning on Radiance, in WJ, I asked and was told the only way that I could have iced tea was if I paid for it. I said I would, but the waiter brought a glass of hot tea and a cup of ice. No charge. OK, let me try room service the next day. Same results, if you want to have iced tea at breakfast, there is a $1.95 charge plus gratuity.

This may just be an issue with this class of ship, and not a fleet wide policy change. This was my first cruise on this class.