Radisson Seven Seas Alaska Cruise
The Mariner

Ship:  Mariner (680 passengers)
Cruise Line: Radisson Seven Seas
Date of Cruise:  June 8-15, 2005
Length of Cruise:  7 days
Itinerary:  Alaska’s Inside Passage, embark Seward, disembark Vancouver
Correspondent:  Ann Martin,  New Jersey

Pre-cruise excursion:  “Discovering Denali” (4 nights)
Anchorage Hilton: The Hilton did not look like a Hilton and was swamped with passengers from Holland America.  I would recommend the Captain Cook Hotel instead.   Let’s not discuss the breakfast.
Denali Grand:  A lovely rustic hotel high on a hillside outside Denali.  A good manager could fix the dining rooms logistics problems in less than 72 hours.  The breakfast buffet was excellent.
Alyeska Prince Hotel:  It deserves everyone of its 4-stars.  This ski-resort hotel is in a majestic hotel with wonderful, rustic commons areas and several fine places to dine.

Excursion:  If you are amenable to being confined to a bus or train over 8 hours for three days in a row, this trip is for you.  The scenery is beyond description in Denali.  The tundra is amazing and if you are lucky enough to be in Denali on the 20% of the days that you can see Mt McKinley, you have an extra treat in store for you.  If you are sensitive to fat or sodium in your diet, bring your own lunches and snacks.

Embarkation:  Flawless – We were greeted with a glass of champagne and quick, friendly check-in service.

Cabin Preparation:   Excellent – When we arrived, there was a bowl of fruit and champagne chilling in an ice bucket.

Cabin Design: Radisson has the best standard cabin that we have seen with its large marble bathroom with tub, walk-in closet, vanity, desk, veranda, and heavy curtain to separate the sleeping area from the living room area.  The couch is large enough for my husband to live down on.

Cabin Amenities:  The Aveda skin care and shampoo products were fine.  There is a robe (but no slippers) and a DVD player.  

Food Options:  The Cordon Bleu restaurant Signatures is still superb, but if the ship is full and you have a large party (6 or more), it is tough to get a reservation more than once.  Latitutes is like the phoenix rising from ashes!   Bravo to the Mariner on a fabulous transformation.  Latitudes is now a fabulous “taste of Alaska” fixed menu seafood restaurant.   As always, the Compass Rose and La Veranda were excellent.   It is amazing to have 4 excellent restaurants to choose from on a ship of this size.

Dining Room Service and Menus:  The service in the dining room of the Crystal Symphony was a fraction better than the Mariner, but the Mariner was excellent.  We strongly prefer the lunch and breakfast buffets on the Mariner to the Crystal Symphony breakfast and lunch buffets.

We loved calling room service for complimentary hors d’oeuvres in our cabin.  The shrimp and crab appetizers were amazing.

Drink Service:  There is a new self-service espresso machine near the library.  This is a good addition.  We love having wines included in the price and having 2 complimentary bottles of liquor for the cabin.

Cabin Service:  The cabin service was excellent.  The towels were always fresh, the bed turned down, the soft drinks stocked in the refrigerator.

On-Board Shopping:  The clothes shop had attractive items that were not wildly overpriced.  There was a bizarre “jewelry by the inch or pound” store.

Senior Officers:  The senior officers were French.   The Captain was very charming and presented a delightful slide show the night of the “Crew Capers”.  Everyone loved seeing the crew perform on the last night of the cruise.

Tour Desk: Excursions can be booked on-line in advance.  It would be nice to know the date the booking opens since some of the excursions were booked up when we booked 3 weeks before the cruise.

Entertainment:  A friend who saw a show like what she saw.

Casino:  The ship does not waste too much space on the casino.

Crew Attitude:  The attitude of the crew was excellent.

Future Booking Office:  The marketing representative was very responsive whenever I requested information on future trips.

Medical Staff:  I never saw them – thank heavens.

Daily Schedule:  It was wonderful to have a superb naturalist (Robert Clark) on this trip.   Also the workout room person (Kay) was the best that I have seen on a cruise.  Both of these people were substituting for the regular person who was on vacation.  We were delighted to find bridge instructors on a one-week cruise.

Itinerary:  The itinerary was great (Sitka, Skagway, Juneau, Prince Rupert).  The ports are not much to see, but the excursions are so great that it does not matter. 

Alaska is a perfect place to see by cruise ship.  It was the coolest weather that we have had on a cruise beating out Cape Horn.  I did wear my long underwear twice on hikes and small boat trips.  The scenery makes it worth working between the predictable raindrops.

In 2004, approximately 800, 000 passengers visited Alaska on cruise ships over a 20 week season.  Given that, I was thrilled that the ports were not swamped with cruise ships like St. Thomas in the winter.  When we went  hiking, we passed very few people on the trails.  When we went out on small boats, we saw very few other boats. How wonderful!

Shore Excursions: The Alaska cruise has the best set of shore excursions that I have ever seen.  Twice we actually did two excursions in one day.
Our favorite excursion was “Cruising Tracy Arm”.  We took a small 65-foot boat much further up the fjord than the Mariner could go and were able to come very close to the Sawyer Glacier and some very interesting parts of the coastline.
Our least favorite excursion was in Prince Rupert “Grizzly Bears of the Khutzeymateen by boat and float plane”.  It was expensive ($300/person), had a long 2-hour boat ride where you could not move around the cabin, and bears were at least 125 yards away.

Tipping:  Great – It is included!

Health & Safety Issues: Liquid hand sanitizer was available everywhere.

Passenger Demographics.  Guests were between 50-75 old with the average age around 60 years old.  Most guests were from the US.  This cruise had the youngest group of passengers that we had seen.

Children’s Programs:  School was not out yet so there were only 6-7 children on board. 

Spa Design:  I never had time to try the spa except for the sauna. 

Fitness Facilities:  The workout room is well sized.  I never had to wait for equipment even though the ship was almost completely full.  The workout instructor ran 5-6 classes each day, unlike some other ships where there are few classes and the instructor focuses on private clients (e.g., the Symphony).

Laundry Facilities:  The laundry room is great.  The soap is provided, as well as an iron and ironing board, and no quarters are required.  However, this is a busy place.

Swimming Pool Deck:  It is a great pool, but if the weather is bad, you are out of luck (no retracting roof). 

Announcements with Passengers:  The Captain speaks to the ship each morning at 9 AM.  A daily paper of the ship’s activities is delivered each day to the cabin. If you don’t know what is going on, it’s not their fault.

Photographers:  You could leave your camera at home.  The ship’s three photographers are always there and are very pleasant.

Computer Facilities:  Very good.   I never had to wait at the computer lab.  However, in Alaska the satellite reception fails in several mountainous areas.  You have a choice of 3 pricing plans: $0.75/min down to $0.50/min if you sign up for 100 minutes.

Public Spaces:  The Mariner is very well laid out.  The Horizons Lounge on the bow is great for drinks, tea, and watching scenery.  The card room, library, computer room, and workout center are all well sized.
Disembarkation:  The Mariner arranged a bus to the airport for us.  It is not clear that Radisson could have done anything about this, but we waited a very long time in line to board the bus to the airport.