Radiance of the Seas Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Let's start with the ship.  It was a smaller vessel, but don't let this fool you for an instant!  There was tons to do and lots of people were enthusiastic about participating.  They had a great program for kids and the buffet was really good... with 2 exceptions.  

Now the food: The only "ding" I am giving RC is over the Cascades restaurant and the specialty restaurant Samba. Cascades: service is a ZERO.  After waiting 40 minutes for a table, I waited 15 minutes before I had to ask for a drink menu.  Our waiter, who was partnered with a bus person, was so busy catering to the table next to us that we saw him only to take our order...eventually. We resorted to asking the bus person for everything or just getting up and getting it ourselves. The food was miserable. Everything was overcooked horribly.  What they did to that poor lobster to make it that rubbery is a mystery. Samba: supposedly a Brazilian steakhouse. I could not actually cut the lamb because it was hard. The pork was like dry thick cardboard.  It was really seriously overcooked and miserable.

However, Giovanni' s more than made up for any shortcomings in food and service. EXCELLENT! Possibly the best pasta and best filet I have had in years.  The Windjammer was a great place to eat and the hours were good for families. 

The rooms were actually larger than I expected and the staff were very courteous and efficient. Anything we needed was promptly delivered. 

Excursions: lots and lots of choices!

Our room attendant (Fernando Luna) was amazing and is the hardest working man on ship.

The female bartender in the Centrum bar was awesome. Always smiling, friendly and helpful.

The overall appearance of the ship was poor. Stained dining room chairs, missing and damaged floor thresholds, dated carpets and very disappointed in the 'artificial' foliage. 

The disappointment came with our meals and the ships overall appearance.

The Windjammer food bars were always messy and spilled food on the counter tops. The food seemed repetitive and too many unlabeled items. Food should be detailed well for guests with food sensitivites. The salad section and fresh food selections were very small. It was also difficult to find seating with so many dirty dishes occupying so many tables. One of the biggest disappointments came when we sat in a differant area of Windjammer and realized that we could not hold a conversation because apparently the basketball courts are right above that section of the restaurant. Very poor design idea, would be shocked if there haven't been complaints about this before.

Evening dining started out well the first two evenings but became very upsetting the remaining evenings when our waiters while friendly and polite, seemed overwhelmed and our service became poor. Empty water glasses, delayed appetizers, missing waiters, entrees delivered to the table before our dirty appetizer plates were removed and empty wine glasses. Really not what we've come to expect from Royal Carribean.

Seeing the Hubbard Glacier up close was most memorable.   The small icebergs as well.  The scenery during the Inside Passage was beautiful.  The ports on this cruise all had their on unique character.  Great way to see Alaska.

The Alaska 9 day voyage was my first experience on a cruise ship.  It could not have been a better vacation!  Eat, drink, sleep, repeat.  If you want a relaxation experience, take a cruise!  The service was impeccable, the staff friendly, courteous, helpful and always smiling.  I'm sure the people in the know can rattle off newer, faster and snazzier cruise ships, but as a first time sailor, I'm on cloud 9!  Permanent smile on my face from Day 1 to Day 9.  Fantastic scenery and so many things to see and do.  Highly recommend!

This was our first cruise. My husband and I were not sure we'd like vacationing on a cruise ship but ALL our doubts were washed away with this wonderful cruise. What amazed us most is the staff; always helpful and always in a good mood. How could that be? But it was and it made our time aboard so nice. I will say upfront that you have three stars that really shined and made sure we were taken care of daily. First, Igede (Dee) Wikansu was the stateroom attendant for 7676. The first day, he came by and introduced himself, helped us get familiar with our stateroom and told us he would gladly answer any question, concern or issue we had, any day, any time. And as first time cruisers, we did have questions and Dee always made sure we got answers. He kept our room in immaculate order and clean!! Dee was always helpful, upbeat, friendly, professional and a pleasure to know!  Two others that exceeded in taking care of us were waiter Jose and assistant waiter Imade (Cascade Restaurant, stations 445). We checked out several of the specialty restaurants but kept coming back to Cascade specifically for the incredible service Jose and Made gave and every meal was so delicious: 5 Star treatment with a smile. 

We look forward to another cruise with Royal Caribbean!

It was a Great Time we went the Cruise before too from Austraila New Zealand Tahiti Moorea Bora Bora a Trip of a lifetime...Ship was Clean Captain was wonderful Staff etc...

My favorite part of the cruise was the islands. I feel that Maui was my favorite and is very beautiful. Their were some disappointments with the trip. The food in the Windjammer was not as good as usual. The entertainment was good but not great and it was hard understanding a lot of the crew, and them understanding me. I have not noticed this before. 

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.

Boarding the ship at the Honolulu Hawaii Terminal. We arrived at the terminal to drop off our bags before we returned our rental car and were told that that service was not available. We had to drag our bags back to the rental car agency to return our car. Then we had to drag them back through lines to turn them over to the ship. Then we were required to stand in another line for 3 more hours in a hot terminal to get into the ship. This was very had on us since we are seniors and my husband is a diabetic. We thought we were going to pass out since there was no place to sit and rest. In over 20 years of cruising we have never had this type of problems. This was very unsatisfactory. Dining Room Experience: The first night prior to arriving at the dining room the hostess made our reservations for 5:30 pm every night of the cruise. On the 2nd and 3rd night when approaching the dining room we were stopped and told we did not have reservations but were seated at the same table as the first night. During dinner the 3rd night we explained the troubles we were having to the Matidee and by the 4th day we had reservation without problem. We purchased all of our excursions through the cruise line. We discovered that we paid as much as $50.00 per ticket then if we would have booked just outside the ship at the end of the pier. The first excursion we were to meet at 9:00am in the Aurora theater to meet the tender to go ashore for the excursion. We arrive at 8:40am only to discover the ship guide was leading the excursion group out of the theater without checking to see if all tour passengers were present. The tour didn't start until 10:15am what was the rush??? We almost missed the tour. The first tour was organized onboard the ship, but all others the passengers had to meet the tour on the pier. Our tour in Maui were we were tendered to land, our excursion was not organized onboard. We had to self tender from the ship not as a tour group but along with all other passengers going ashore which made it very had to get ashore on time. Very unpleasant. This was the most disorganized vacation we have ever had.

I had been Cruise for many times on Royal Caribbean, however this is the least favor I had cruise with. The only positive on this cruise was the dining staffs. They are excellent in the service. Some of the Toilet rooms had very bad odor. The entertainment was ok and the Broadway show style was very limited. There were only 3 shows for 13 night. In addition, these costumes were not impressive and they are cheap make. The photographers did not have the passion to take the pictures. All the poses were the same day after day and sometime they did not pay attention how we pose for the pictures.

We did this cruise in March 2017. It was absolutely amazing. We had the opportunity to visit so many places within New Zealand. It really gave us a highlight of the country. The Dusky, Doubtful, Milford Sounds day was a highlight of the cruise. The ship itself is great. The food was wonderful. The only disappointment on the cruise was the entertainment - it was mediocre at best (although the Cruise Director, Joff, was one of the best that we've ever had.) We would highly recommend this cruise.

New Zealand was amazing, enjoyed each port of call however, Radiance of the Sea in our opinion is a tired looking ship, and l noticed things like plastic dishes in Windjammer, food not upto par, waite staff not attentive and not overally friendly,

Specialty resturants ok but nothing special, cost off a drink package very exspensive.

We could not get a seat to any of the entertainment, early or late shows.

We are diamond members of Royal Caribbean but haven't cruised with them for about three years until just completing two back-to-backs on Radiance of the Seas for New Zealand and Australia. They have really changed, and not in a positive way. There were no port enrichment lectures on the second cruise. The room attendant and dining and bar services were great. But the services of Shore Excursions and Guest Relations was horrible. They were abrupt and incompetent. When we got home we discovered they had charged our credit card daily for everything and then again charged us with the total at the end of the cruise. How will we ever trust them again with our credit card? I am not sure we will. Our recommendation is to stay away from Radiance of the Seas.

Our cruise was amazing and we met many people from other parts of the world and made friends with them. The tours we took were aursome and we learned many new facts about Australia and New Zealand. The cruise staff was awesome and he show were great to see. The few problem we encountered were in the fitness center where the steam and sauna room were hot enough  even after complaining. The other issue was that they were running out of certain food which were posted on the menus. Other then these issue we had a great time and would cruise again on Royal.

Radiance of the Seas is a wonderful ship.  Not too big.  Not too small.  The decor was recently updated and is very nice.  The dining experience in the Windjammer (casual, cafeteria style) was very good.  The food was as good or better than the main dining room, without the hassle of having to dress-up.  The food in the main dining room was fine, except the steaks are underwhelming.

Entertainment was very good, except for the comedians (perhaps the Australian humor is not our style - rough language).  The musicians in both the theater and in the assorted lounges are outstanding!

Embarkation and disembarkation in Sydney can be inconvenient when the ship requires tendering (whenever the Ovation is in port), but provided the benefit of an equivalent harbor tour (at no extra charge).  

The ports of call are wonderful.  We will return!!!!

good ports of call for touring, crew were all very helpful and seemed to enjoy their jobs.

ship could use a facelift, it was clean but tired looking.

this ship in sydney sometimes tenders to port and is usually a huge problem off loading and on loading. wait to board can take 3 hours standing with no places to sit. just be aware if you tender to the ship its going to be a zoo.

The entertainment staff (especially Becca and Kevin), cabin steward (Yani) and Main Dining Room waiters (Ernesto and Vedasto) were good.

Although the itinerary was altered the ports visited were good.

Unfortunately there were too many other things that were not.

The ship needs some TLC, Some of the crew need to pay attention to their job more and not have to be asked to fill up their station when it is empty.

The head chef needs to pay attention to the make up of the passengers - when there are less than 10% of the passengers of Asian origin  why is there 50% of the food in the Windjammer Asian ? And don't say that's what the passengers want (as I was told) because we weren't given a choice from the start !!!!!

Finally the person who is in charge of the ship's TV programmes should be SACKED yes SACKED because he has insulted the intelligence of the passengers by broadcasting the same OLD (some black & white) programmes OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER again. Apart from the fact that sometimes the satellite programmes were lost so three or four channels were showing the same programme and the reception wasn't good either.

We were on the previous cruise as well and I have submitted a similar review for that cruise 31st Oct - 16th Nov 2016 Sydney to Perth but for some reason my review did not get published on cruiseline.com so if it doesn't get published this time I will have to put it on all the other internet media sites as it will then be obvious that the reviews are being selective !

I have been on 15 plus cruises and had heard Royal Caribbean was a good cruise line.  Maybe others ships in the fleet but not this one.  Out of 17 days I had maybe 6 meals that were good.  I at pizza from room service after trying to eat meals that were for the most part below meadacoker.  We couldn't go to the South Island of New Zeeland due to the weather which I understand but the alternative ports were awful.  I should have gotten off the ship and flown to Sydney.  I wouldn't recommend this ship nor will I sail with Royal Caribbean again

The itinerary, entertainment staff and entertainment and service was good but-

The ship needs some TLC (bare metal in the hot tubs and frayed carpets), the menu and quality of food was not the best (50% of food in The Windjammer was of Asian origin but less than 10% of passengers were Asian and the menu in the main dining room was not the best) and the TV was TERRIBLE (programmes were old some in black and white and same few programmes were repeated over and over and over and ship kept losing satellite signal which reduced programmes even further).

Not the best cruise we have been on and of the 5 different cruise lines we have cruised with RCI has gone straight to the bottom of the list.

Sydney is a great place to embark onto a cruise ship,no problems.The best sail away .We have been on a lot of cruise ships, since 1972, this was for me disappointing. Radiance is past it's sell by date,food not fantastic,not the usual Royal Carribean. All staff work very hard with what they have.

Ports of call very well handled.