Writer Brenda Bell based this independent review on her 7-night Eastern Caribbean cruise departing from Miami, Florida.

Sailing on Radiance of the Seas is a uniquely visual experience. The first of four enormously successful ships in Royal Caribbean’s appropriately-named Radiance class, Radiance has vast expanses of glass to let the sea views in, more cabins with balconies than without, gleaming glass elevators, and a $5 million modern art collection that brightens every cranny. With a passenger capacity of 2,500 Radiance offers big-ship amenities, but her clever design and appealing public spaces lend a more intimate feel. Launched in 2001 as the first vessel in Royal Caribbean's Radiance class, Radiance is considerably smaller and slightly faster than her jumbo Voyager-class relatives, and is touted to have more windows and open space than any of her competitors.

Why Radiance?

• Wide choice of itineraries: Radiance offers destinations for every season and preference, including Alaska, the Caribbean, Hawaii, and the Panama Canal.
• Rooms with views, for less: More than 1,200 oceanview cabins have private balconies, and they’re well worth the surprisingly affordable premium.
• Top-of-the-line spa and fitness facilities: The spa features luxe treatment rooms, a thermal suite with heated mosaic lounge chairs, and an ice mist shower, while the well-equipped gym has plenty of space for Pilates and spinning classes.

Who should go
Couples of all ages enjoy cruising on Radiance. The abundance of cabins with balconies makes this ship an attractive option even for those who want to get away from it all, in privacy. The extensive children’s program attracts families during summer and holiday cruises and an adult atmosphere prevails the rest of the year. The crowd is solidly middle-class with a substantial international component. Braille signage and excellent wheelchair accessibility make this a comfortable ship for passengers with disabilities.

Who shouldn't go
Singles traveling alone are few and far between -- most everyone onboard is part of a couple, family, or group. Though lots of 20- and 30-somethings are onboard (the median age of all passengers is early 40s), this isn't a hard-partying scene. Food is abundant and attractively presented, but those seeking gourmet fare, or a more exclusive cruising experience, should probably look elsewhere.

Heard on the deck: "This is the first vacation I've been on that I wasn't ready for it to be over."

Hits and misses

• Don’t miss: Passengers strut their stuff at the karaoke championship finals. There's always someone who's surprisingly good, while the rest are surprisingly funny.
• Best part of the ship: The Colony Club, a wood-paneled symphony of detail (coffered ceilings, hurricane lamps, brocaded elephants, and caned chairs), evokes thoughts of exotic ports.
• Best experience: Get over yourself on the 30-foot-tall climbing wall, scaled by everyone from young kids to those pushing 90. The expert staff provides gear and will guide you up safely.
• Best shipboard activities: Gaze at the ocean from one of the spa’s heated mosaic lounge chairs after trying the sauna, steam, and aromatic rooms, then cool off in an ice-mist shower.
• Needs improvement: Most ships of this size have more custom-cooked food options. Even the hamburgers in the lido restaurant are piled ready-made on a steam table.
• Activities to skip: The ship's stores offer the same merchandise ($10 watches, perfumes, and fake pashmina scarves) that's on every cruise ship. Do your shopping in port.

How to meet the captain
Captain Kent Ringborn is a garrulous Swede with a fine singing voice (if he’s still the captain when you sail Radiance, you’ll find his CD of lounge standards for sale on the ship). Places at his table are usually filled by Royal Caribbean's VIPs and longtime cruisers, but occasionally other passengers make the cut. (Requests should be placed with the head waiter.) The captain also hosts a welcome reception and, later in the cruise, a question-and-answer session for passengers curious about the workings of the ship.

Heard on the deck: "The thing to remember on the rock-climbing wall is it's all about the legs."

Cascade Restaurant
Cascade’s curvaceous staircase connects the restaurant’s two levels. Along with its wall-washing waterfall and soaring lighted columns, even lunch feels like a major event. At night the restaurant's creamy linens and blue-upholstered chairs glow beneath a dramatic glass-domed light. Service is attentive -- servers make a point of addressing diners by name -- and swift. Food ranges from merely satisfying (rigatoni with grilled Italian sausage) to exemplary (New York strip steak with béarnaise sauce). Since it's the main dining room, dinner times are staggered and tables and dining times are pre-assigned. Breakfast and lunch are served open seating.

Portofino
At Portofino, the pace is slower, the food more sophisticated, and the dining more intimate. This specialty restaurant (one of two) has a savvy maître d' who aims to please, and the classic Italian menu (think carpaccio with shaved fennel; veal wrapped with fresh sage and prosciutto) reveals a sure hand in the kitchen. Subdued décor (a mural of medieval Italians on horseback) plays second fiddle to windows on the sea. Score a table for two for lunch ($10) or dinner ($20) -- well worth the surcharge.

Chops Grille
Specializing in grilled meats and seafood, Chops Grille is decked out in warm woods and tables with cozy banquette seating. Order your steak cooked exactly as you like it, and enjoy an unhurried dining experience on par with that of a high-end steak restaurant. Reservations are necessary for dinner ($20) and recommended for lunch ($10). Try the grilled pork chop with apple and blue cheese mousse, accompanied by grilled vegetables and calvados sauce.

Other dining options

• Windjammer Café: The casual Windjammer Café serves buffet-style meals and snacks virtually nonstop from morning until late at night, with seating both indoors and out. Mainstays include carved roast meats, make-your-own tacos and pizzas, and salad and dessert bars. Breakfast omelets are one of the few items cooked to order. Some days there's fresh sushi or Asian stir fries, but it's mostly all-American cafeteria fare.
• Seaview Café: Tucked into the aft end of Deck 12, this small café serves beer and pub snacks at outside tables protected from ocean breezes. There are no crowds, no surcharges, and priceless sunset views.
• Room service: Especially popular with guests in balcony cabins, complimentary 24-hour room service offers a limited menu of sandwiches, salads, and breakfast items.

Best dining

• Best dish: Cascade's perfectly roasted rack of lamb Provençal is basted with an herb-mustard glaze and served with garlic mashed potatoes and ratatouille. A close second: Portofino's succulent tiger shrimp with roasted garlic and grilled asparagus.
• Best dessert: Portofino's dense, flourless torta al cioccolato and Cascade's warm chocolate cake with roasted pears are delicious variations on the chocolate theme.
• Restaurant: For its generally high-quality cuisine, attentive (but not intrusive) service, and plentiful tables for two, Portofino earns high marks.

How to…

• Get a table for two: Cascades has no tables for two, but a few are available in Breakers, the adjacent private dining room. Ask the head waiter for reservations. Tables for two are almost always available in the buffet and specialty restaurants.
• Celebrate a birthday/anniversary: To make birthday or anniversary celebration plans, visit the reception desk after boarding.
• Change seating: Prefer a later or earlier seating for dinner? Larger or smaller table? A different set of dining companions? The dining room manager can accommodate.
• Dress for formal night: If you like to dress up, this is your ship, with two formal nights occasioning a sea of tuxedos and sparkly evening gowns.
• Dress for casual night: Casual cruise wear -- but not too casual -- is what you'll see in the main dining room most nights. Try skirts and slacks and dressy shirts, but no shorts, tank tops, or T-shirts. Lose the flip-flops, too.

Tips:

• Make reservations early for Portofino's dinner mystery theater ($49.50). Start with champagne and canapés, dine with the actors, and figure out whodunit.
• The midnight buffet may be a cruising cliché, but don't miss Radiance's gala spread, with towering ice sculptures and caramel-drenched croquemboche.
• Can't take another fancy, multi-course dinner? Stop by the Seaview Café for fish ‘n’ chips, onion rings, and the ship's only grilled-to-order burgers.
• Want to bring a bottle of your own wine to dinner? For a reasonable $12 corkage fee, you can.

Heard on the deck: "The midnight buffet? You've got to be kidding. I can't eat another thing."

In keeping with the ship's visual emphasis, big views are the norm, with 80 percent of cabins providing ocean views and more than half with private balconies with clear Plexiglas railings, making it possible to lie in bed and watch the waves roll by. At about 179 square feet each, even standard cabins are on the large side, and all feature the ship's royal blue and salmon color scheme. Most have small sofas and bathrooms with bowed shower curtains. All are wired for dial-up Internet access (for a fee).

Cabins for guests with disabilities
The 15 wheelchair-accessible cabins have push-button doors, and eight of them have no-threshold balconies. (Wheelchair users have first priority on these rooms, but others may use them too.) Extra large bathrooms feature roll-in showers with seats and grab bars. All cabins have numbers in Braille lettering.

Tips:

• Most larger cabins are located amidships. Cabins with the most spacious balconies are located on Decks 7, 8, 9, and 10, directly above the central atrium.
• Can't cut the e-mail cord? Bring your laptop and pay $100 for a week of unlimited dial-up Internet access from your cabin.
• Thinking of spending the extra $300 for a balcony cabin? Do so, and you'll understand why many guests never want to leave.

Every public space, from stairways that display mixed-media art to bathrooms with granite and glass sinks and inlaid woods, is a showcase for artful expression. Even the stage curtain in the Aurora Theater is a work of art -- a shimmering montage of fabric panes. Linger at the Lobby Bar beneath the fabric-and-steel sculpture that floats in the atrium five stories high, changing colors with computerized "smart lights." On the way to the disco, check out the glittering Swarovski crystal mural.

Click to view a virtual tour

Bars, lounges, and casino
Overlooking both the atrium lobby and ocean, the Champagne Bar has champagne-colored club chairs, loveseats, and a classy selection of caviar and spirits (yes, Dom Perignon is on the menu). Up on the top deck, Hollywood Odyssey features a life-size sculpture of Marilyn Monroe and live piano music; at 10 PM it becomes a cigar bar. Two pool bars and the Solarium Café serve the bathing-suit crowd. At the popular Schooner Bar, couples dressed for dinner enjoy cocktails and people-watching.

Swimming pools
The main pool on Deck 11 is too small for real swimming, but just right for the hilarious belly flop contest. On the aft end, there's a kids' pool with water slide and shallow wading area. The African-themed solarium pool basks beneath a retractable glass roof in a jungle of greenery, guarded by huge stone elephants. Radiance passengers use 6,000 towels a day, and an endless supply of fresh ones is available from bins on the three upper decks near the pools and hot tubs.

Shows
Song-and-dance productions and comedy acts star in Aurora Theater, the ship's main stage, but the action in other venues often steals the show. Karaoke competitions and spin-offs of TV game shows reveal hidden talents (for the scavenger hunt, women shed their bras with amazing speed while remaining fully clothed). The piano bar in the Schooner Lounge, with its "Passage to India" ambience, has a loyal following, and cinema goers enjoy a different movie nightly in the multiplex-size movie theater.

Shore excursions
Radiance offers dozens of shore excursions in each port, and each carries a designation indicating the exercise level involved, from mild to strenuous. Procrastinators take note: If a minimum number of people fails to sign up well in advance of an excursion, it will be canceled by the tour operator. The best way to book excursions is through the interactive in-cabin TVs, which also features videos of many tours. Excursions may also be purchased at the Explorations! desk in the atrium lobby.

Weddings and vow renewals
Royal Caribbean's romance program handles the details of a cruise wedding or vow renewal, including reception, catering, photographs, flowers, limo -- even gown and tuxedo rentals. Ceremonies take place in port, either on land (including a glacier in Alaska!) or on the ship. They cannot be performed by the captain or while the ship is at sea. Starquest and Hollywood Odyssey lounges, located on the highest deck, are preferred locales for wedding parties.

Looking for…

• Quietest spot: For rest and relaxation, head to the little-used library overlooking the bustling atrium. Also try the curl-up-with-a-book wicker couches in the Windjammer Café's breezeway (with ocean views).
• Liveliest spot: The late-night scene at the Starquest disco -- singles mingle at the revolving bar and upper-echelon crew members often socialize off-duty.
• Most popular spot: The Colony Club, burnished in the glow of fin de siècle British empire décor, offers a piano bar, lounge acts, smoking area, board games, and billiards.
• Best view: View sunsets from a deck table at the Seaview Café or, depending on the ship's direction, from the deck outside the fitness center.
• Best show: Raucous adult game shows, especially the tried-and-true riffs on newlyweds and older married couples, always draw an appreciative audience.
• Best drink: Trendy sour apple martinis from the pool bar pack a wallop. Calorie-conscious drinkers like the Captain Morgans drink, made with diet Coke and spiced rum.

Tips:

• The ship has Braille signage, her own fleet of wheelchairs, and special seating in the Aurora Theater that accommodates a sign language interpreter.
• Beautifully designed wheelchair-accessible bathrooms are strategically located throughout the ship.
• Stay late in the casino and Colony Club and, on evenings when there's no midnight buffet, you'll be rewarded with canapés served between 11:30 PM and 12:30 AM.
• For that all-important caffeine fix, the Latte-tudes bar and Internet café on Deck 5 serves espresso drinks and pastries from 7 AM to 11 PM.

Spa and salon
Some cruising spas occupy windowless areas, but not Radiance, where the spacious spa and beauty salon allow ocean gazing as well as pampering. A dozen massage rooms (including one for couples) are discreetly tucked behind mahogany paneled doors. The thermal suite resembles a fabulous oceanview Roman spa, with heated mosaic tile lounge chairs, an aromatherapy room, saunas, tropical showers, and ice-mist showers. A $75 fee ($99 for couples) covers unlimited visits to this spa-within-a-spa.

Fitness areas
Offering some of the best views on the ship, the fitness center is wrapped in windows on the bow end of Deck 12, one level above the spa. A full component of up-to-date cardiovascular and weight machines encircles the hardwood exercise floor, which has plenty of elbow room for aerobics classes. There's a signup sheet and $10 fee for Pilates, yoga, and spinning classes. After your workout, lie down and relax in the so-called "chakra balancing capsule" (25 minutes for $50) -- the staff swears by it.

Tips:

• Don't wait to sign up for the classes you want. If there aren't enough names on the list, the class may be canceled.
• An $80 fitness pass covers all fee-based classes during the cruise, and includes a take-home fitness ball.
• Save on purchases of bottled water by filling up your bottle at the fitness center's water fountain -- one of few on the ship.
• When the ship is in port, there are 20 percent discounts on some, but by no means all, spa services.

For the most part, Radiance shops offer the usual duty-free merchandise: Gold chains by the yard, amber jewelry, designer watches, casual cruise wear, and fake pashmina scarves. A small sundries store sells necessities such as toiletries and a small selection of paperbacks to replenish lounge chair reading material. Formal wear is available for rent, and many items (Royal Caribbean clothing and T-shirts) are discounted on the last day of the cruise.

Tip: Liquor purchased from duty-free shops on the ship or in port will be placed in storage and returned to passengers on the last day of the cruise.

During summer and school vacations, up to 600 kids may be onboard the ship, and Radiance offers an extensive program of activities to keep them entertained. Activities are broken out by age group: Children ages 3-5, 6-8, 9-11, 12-14, and even those notoriously hard-to-please teens ages 15-17. Smaller fries enjoy story time, puppet shows, and p.j. parties; older kids play miniature golf, go on scavenger hunts, and hang out at Optix, the teen center; and teens have improv night, sports trivia games, and movies in the ship's theater. Children must be at least 3 years old and toilet trained to participate.

Tips:

• The children's center is open until 10 PM each night, with additional child care available until 1 AM for $5 per child, per hour.
• A children's menu is available in Cascade, making it easier for families to experience dining in traditional cruising style.

Through April, 2005, Radiance will be making Eastern and Western Caribbean sailings from Miami. After a 14-night Panama Canal cruise in early May, she heads up to Alaska, making roundtrip sailings from Vancouver throughout the summer and into early autumn. After two Hawaii cruises, she heads back through the canal to Miami, where she’ll again spend the winter in the Caribbean.

• Cruise line - Royal Caribbean
• Ship name - Radiance of the Seas
• Type of cruise - Casual
• Total cabins - 1050
• Private balcony cabins - 580
• Decks - 12
• Total crew - 857
• Passenger capacity - 2100
• Ship size - Large
• Officers nationality - Norwegian
• Year entered service - 2001
• Registry - Bahamas
• Ship length - 962
• Tonnage - 90,090