Radiance of the Seas: A Real Look At One of Royal Caribbean’s Oldest Ships
Around the time that I opened by own travel agency, Chris and I decided that when we cruise going forward we are going to branch out to cruises beyond just the Caribbean. We discovered that this meant that we would also be trying other cruise lines and other ships within the Royal Caribbean fleet. The Caribbean itineraries are the most popular so the newer ship with all of the bells and whistles cruise mainly there. Also, with the trend being that bigger is better, many of the newer ships are simply too large to go in many of the ports outside of the Caribbean or Mediterranean.
Last October, Chris and I took a cruise out of Boston up to Maine and Canada, which we thoroughly enjoyed. This cruise was on the Serenade of the Seas, which is in the Radiance class and therefore one of these smaller and older ships. While very different from the fancy Oasis class ships, we found that it has a unique character and charm. Knowing this, we were looking forward to being on the Radiance of the Seas, which is a sister ship to the Serenade, for our Alaskan cruise.
Similarly to our New England cruise, we didn’t spend as much time on the ship as we would have if we had cruised to the Caribbean. Often in the Caribbean, we get off at the ports for about an hour to get a Margarita or stretch our legs but choose to spend most of our day enjoying the ship. While on both our New England and Alaskan cruises, we didn’t lounge around at the pool as much (because it was cold) and we got off and spent most of our days at each port. This made it so that the absence of many of the luxuries found on the newer ships weren’t noticed so much.
As with the Serenade of the Seas, the layout of the ship was very different from what we were used to. There was no big promenade to walk through to get from one end of the ship to the other. They did, however, do a good job of making the best with the space they had. The Schooner bar proved to be one of our favorite places to hang out at as the majority of the trivia took place there. When there wasn’t trivia going on, there was usually some really enjoyable music being played. Although different from what we were used to, it was nice to have the steak house and the Italian restaurant connected to the Schooner bar. We would often get ready for dinner a bit early so we could grab a drink and sit for a few minutes before going to sit down for dinner.
Speaking of restaurants, there were four specialty dining restaurants on this ship. Because there weren’t as many as the newer ships, the cost of the dining package was much more reasonable, in our opinion, so we were happy to purchase it (we did find that the restaurants seemed surprisingly empty). We really enjoyed Chops, Giovanni’s and Izumi (the sushi restaurant) and ate at each of these restaurants three or four times throughout the week. Samba Grill, the Brazilian Steakhouse, was the fourth restaurant and a unique quality of Radiance of the Seas as it is only available currently on one other ship, Allure of the Seas. Samba Grill was the restaurant that I had anticipated the most, as I had never been to it, and was the one that I was most disappointed about. The food in Samba was good but it was a lot and I, for some reason, just didn’t really enjoy it as much. I guess I enjoyed being able to have more of a say over what I ordered and had on my plate. As we never ate in the main dining room, I can’t speak the quality of food or service there. The Windjammer served its usual fare and was fine. We ordered room service many mornings and enjoyed the complimentary food, especially the coffee, but found that it was hit or miss as to whether or not we got what we ordered, how we ordered it. Generally, the quality and friendliness of the service throughout the ship was excellent.
We also discovered that due to this cruise being on an older ship and in a non-Caribbean location, that the cruise had fewer kids and the passengers were more chill. To us, this was a nice change of pace and added to the enjoyment of our cruise. And, even though it is an older ship, it seemed well maintained and was staffed well. While there was no big broadway show, ice skating show or aqua show, the quality of the entertainment brought on was more than decent (we generally find that the headliners are more miss than hit). On this cruise, we had an impressionist who sang as many different artists, interacted with the crowd and was our favorite of the week. The production shows that we did have were okay. The talent was great but it was overshadowed by the dated costumes, boring set lists and poor sound design. It seemed to us like Royal Caribbean was neglecting these shows and putting their time, money and effort into the shows on the newer ships.
We did have a really good time at the games and activities offered throughout the ship. The trivia was lots of fun and very well attended as were any of the game shows and Bingo. They offered the Women of Wine Tasting, which I had done in the past and enjoyed doing again with my fellow travel mate, as well as sushi making, cupcake decorating and some other activities that came at a small fee. One thing that was new for us were the informational seminars that were offered on board. For example, before leaving Seward the owner of the Turning Heads Dog kennel came on board to talk about how their kennel is run. You could also go and learn about the Canadian Mounties. We certainly weren’t bored.
Overall, we really enjoyed our experience on one of Royal Caribbean’s smaller ships. What they lacked in glitz and glimmer, they made up for in their character and heart. I think that the fact that this ship was nearly full goes to show that there is still a place in the cruising industry for smaller ships. I am interested to see if they will begin making a few new, smaller ships in the future.
