Almost perfect
Radiance of the Seas Cruise Review to Hawaii
12 Night Hawaii Northbound (Honolulu To Vancouver)
Sail date: May 05, 2017
Ship: Radiance of the Seas
Cabin type: Oceanview
Cabin number: 3540
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 7 years ago
Review summary
For the most part we absolutely loved this cruise. The ports were great. The on-board dining exceeded expectations. The ship's personnel were terrific. The Royal Caribbean port excursions were a 50/50. Our first excursion( at Hilo) was exceptional. Our guide was an older gentleman - a lifetime resident. He was interesting, personable and informative - a great person to be our guide. Our second Royal Caribbean was the Vancouver Sea to Sky which included airport transfer. This was a disaster. There were three ships in port and the terminal and apparently the whole city as well as our own ship's excursion personnel were overwhelmed. Those of us taking one of the Vancouver excursions were late being escorted off our ship and once we were in the terminal and had retrieved our luggage we were told to wait off to one side with no explanation. We waited for over an hour which meant that our 6 hour tour was starting at least an hour and a half late. Finally someone from our cruise came looking for people taking our excursion. It seemed that there were either no buses or not enough buses for our group and they did not know when or if buses would arrive. I will say that the original schedule was perfect for us - we would have arrived at the airport at 3:00PM for a 6:00PM flight. Obviously this late or never tour was not going to work and we were offered the option to cancel and have our payment returned which we accepted (it is now four days later and we have not yet received our refund.) We wound up waiting in the taxi line for an hour for a ride to the airport.
We did other excursions on our own. The Kailua/Kona Hop-on, Hop-off shuttle was great. On Kauai the Backcountry Adventures Tubing was exceptional and we loved Kalapaki Beach which is a short walk from the ship's dock. On Maui we really enjoyed the Atlantis Submarine - fun, informative and well organized.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Onboard Activities
Entertainment
Service and Staff
Ship Quality
Cabin / Stateroom
Ship tip
The specialty restaurants were worth the money as far as we were concerned. We took advantage of "First Night Done Right" and the "Three Night Specialty Dining Plan".
Ports of call
Vancouver (Canada Place), British Columbia