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redrob1234

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    Review: Brilliance of the Seas 12 nt Mediterranean/Venice

    in Royal Caribbean International

    Posted

    One more question, Vicki - Kotor is also one of our ports later this month. The tour you took sounds very interesting. What tour company did you go with? Do you have a link to their website or email address?

     

     

     

    Thanks,

     

    Noel

     

     

    Hi Noel

     

    We used MTours.me in Kotor and enjoyed our experience. We had Sandra as our guide and she was very good. BUT, in hindsight I wish we had chosen a water based tour. The Bay or Kotor is very scenic and the drive from Kotor to Perast is 30 minutes of nothing special. We could have visited the same things via a small boat tour and friends of ours did that. They also had time for a swim.

     

    July was extremely hot so being on the water would have been cooler and more scenic.

     

     

    ~ Vicki ~

    DIY Ravenna?

    in Italy Ports

    Posted

    Taxis are €23-25 each way per taxi. There is a taxi rank at the port and there's also a small tourist office and they will call a taxi for you if there's none already waiting.

     

     

    ~ Vicki ~

    Review: Brilliance of the Seas 12 nt Mediterranean/Venice

    in Royal Caribbean International

    Posted · Edited by redrob1234

    Thanks for taking the time to do this!! Very sorry to hear about the disaster with dining, that really would put a sour note on proceedings and is so preventable.

     

    May I ask what tour company you used in Rome for the private Vatican tour? We will be there in a few weeks and wanted to organize something. Thanks!

     

    WE booked with Joe Banana - they have a tour sharing page - it's easy enough to find. The price gets less the more people you have up to a maximum of 8 people. Very easy to deal with and you pay cash at the end of the tour.

    Review: Brilliance of the Seas 12 nt Mediterranean/Venice

    in Royal Caribbean International

    Posted · Edited by redrob1234

    I will give up on the photos for a while until I sort out my technical difficulties.

     

    On to my final thoughts:

     

    We had a fantastic trip and could highly recommend this itinerary. We liked the ship and the size and the fact that there is so much glass and that you can nearly always see water is a big plus.

     

    This time of year is very busy and very hot in the Med ports and there are lots of kids on board the ship. This cruise in June or September would be more comfortable in terms of the heat and humidity.

     

    I think it pays to do your research on the ports. We met people who thought they could just disembark and wing it. You can do that but you probably won't get to do or see a lot. We met a family who did no tours at all and really regretted it.

     

    Royal Caribbean did not WOW me, in fact there were a few annoying things. I would cruise with RCI again but I would certainly explore other options as well.

     

    We usually do land vacations so I'm not sure when our next cruise will be.

     

    We had opted to settle our Setsail account in US Dollars and let our credit card company do the conversion to Australian dollars. Our documents reflected this too but when we received our final account they had already converted the amount using the very Unfavourable RCI exchange rate. There was a large queue and guest services so we let it go. Our final account wasn't that much so it wasn't a big deal but it could have been if we had a large account to settle.

     

    Surely this information would be in the same computer system that spat out my documents confirming I would be charged in US Dollars.

     

    We enjoyed the solarium pool and also liked the Park Cafe for snacks or breakfast.

     

    We didn't get to the casino. We planned to but we just never got around to it. We did walk through it a few times and it was nearly always empty.

     

    The specialty restaurants also appeared to be empty.

     

    I didn't have any spa services. The prices were high and I really dislike the hard sell you always get at the end of your treatment. It's far from relaxing when you walk out felling really cheap because you didn't buy the magic creams that were promised to fix my disaster zones.

     

    We prepaid our tips but didn't feel the need to tip any extra except a few $ for room service. I hate tipping - I find it awkward and degrading and wish the criuse staff did not have to rely on it for a proper salary. It should be a compulsory service charge and built into the overall cruise fare.

     

    We traveled for a week prior to boarding the ship so 4 ports in the first 4 days really took its toll. We were very ready for our sea day on day 6.

     

    The highlight for us was the great people we met. We enjoyed chatting to different people and found the guests and staff to be very friendly.

     

     

     

     

    ~ Vicki ~

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