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BRILLIANCE (British Isles) June 19-July 2,2018 REVIEW w/lots of photos


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Hi everybody,

I just got home a couple of days ago from an excellent bucket list 12-day British Isles cruise aboard Brilliance:

 

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June 21 - Amsterdam

June 22 - at sea

June 23 - Edinburgh (Scotland)

June 24 - Invergordon (Loch Ness)

June 25 - at sea

June 26 - Greenock (Glascow)

June 27 - Dublin

June 28 - Dublin

June 29 - Holyhead (Wales)

June 30 - at sea

July 1 - St. Peter Port (Guernsey, Channel Islands)

July 2 - Dover, England

July 3 - Amsterdam

 

 

Jetlag has been a little rough on me this time around, and I've had a super heavy work load on my return... besides sorting through a couple thousand photos and a few videos (nowhere close to being finished doing this!) and a wedding to go to Saturday, I haven't had time to start a review. Hopefully I'll start by Sunday or Monday. I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride!

 

For now, here's a few teaser photos.... can you guess where they are?

 

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We have brilliance booked for next year and never been on this ship before so interested to hear your thoughts and see your pictures. We are from the UK and even I think your itinerary looks great - I would do it!

Weather here has been fantastic for the last few weeks so you picked a great time to go.

 

 

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SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

 

You’ve started your review!!!!!

 

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

 

(Can you tell I’m excited??!!)

 

So, Mike and I just got home the day before yesterday - and from all of the unpacking, laundry, sorting mail, playing with pets, kissing on the kids, etc, etc, I haven’t even had a chance to breathe - let alone start a review!!!

 

With that said, we had an AMAZING time on this cruise with you - TOO MUCH FUN!!! “The Three Amigos” could have been our name - it was cool that you hung out with us “old fogies” - and the laughter we shared I will remember always!!!!

 

Can’t wait for your review!!! (Say good things about us, please...ha ha!)

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And, what a great and pleasant surprise to find Sherri again, after... what... 4 years?? Glad to have u back on board, DQ :halo:

 

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

 

YES!!! Sherri is back!

 

Haha... For those of you who are unfamiliar, Kanscocoa is an iconic reviewer on CC.... for me, made famous by her hilarious "Middle Aged Drama Queen" solo-Allure review several years ago. Many of you might remember it

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1781792&highlight=middle+aged+drama+queen

 

She has several others as well (insert "Middle Aged Drama Queen" into the search tool here on CC and scroll down).

I had the honor to have dinner and hang out with Sherri & Mike much of this cruise.... what a blast!

She is so not a drama queen.... other than when dh leaves her stranded on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere with no one else in site (foreshadowing) LOL!! :halo::evilsmile:

(do keep your Seattle idea in mind, k? I'm all over it.... or you guys detouring to Vancouver and I'll show you around :D)

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I barely recognise those pictures being the UK because of the blue skies!! Hope you had a good time!

 

Ps: we just loved Vancouver!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Hey little britain! I'm glad you enjoyed your Alaska sailing... followed your thread there. Yes, had a great time on this sailing visiting your neck of the woods.

 

From previous posts last month, looks like the May UK sailing had 10-11 days of rain out of 12. The UK weather on this sailing was beyond phenomenal and extremely lucky for us obviously. The morning we were rounding the north coast of Scotland, I was jogging the running track in regular gym gear in the cool morning breeze. Some of the pictures you'll see you won't even recognize the seas .... some days they were as smooth as glass with ripples of the sun or moon shining as Brilliance sailed onward.

 

Most days were 20 degrees celsius (mid 70's F), t-shirt and shorts weather... only in Guernsey did we get a hard dump of rain for about an hour and it became cooler, a majority of cruisers ran back to the tenders mid-day as we were all drenched and needed to get warm and dry.

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any Brilliance experts? The search function isn't helping me. Just realized our (aft) cabin 1604 is beneath the Windjammer outdoor cafe!!! How much noise can we expect? We like to sleep in.

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any Brilliance experts? The search function isn't helping me. Just realized our (aft) cabin 1604 is beneath the Windjammer outdoor cafe!!! How much noise can we expect? We like to sleep in.

 

Google:

https://www.google.ca/search?q=brilliance+of+the+seas+1604&rlz=1C1RNVH_enCA559CA585&oq=brilliance+of+the+seas+1604&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2.6857j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://boards.cruisecritic.com.au/showthread.php?t=2537612

 

You should start your own thread.... in a day your question here will get lost on my review (or on anyone's other threads) as we get to the next page. That way when the next person types in "1104" or "1604" in the search tool they will find your thread you created asking the same question.

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Amsterdam's Schiphol International Airport

 

I wish to point out some things you should all know about Amsterdam's International Airport known as Schiphol Airport

 

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This airport is MASSIVE!!!... Not necessarily the terminal, but the physical area (acreage) of the entire airport. As we were landing, I noted I couldn't see the airport terminal. I did notice other planes and a large® building way off in the distance, as well as another plane landing beside us on another runway (probably a mile away I'm guessing?). Turns out our plane landed on the farthest runway possible from the airport terminal.... to make matters more complicated, our terminal we had to get to turned out being at the opposite side of the terminal and the very farthest gate of that entire wing of the terminal.

 

I remember glancing at my watch when we landed as we were about 10 minutes late. I noted this as I had a hotel shuttle booked for a certain time after landing. Not exaggerating one bit, it took almost 25 minutes for the plane to roll along at what, maybe 25-30mph, along runway after runway, crossing over a freeway, then down more long runways, and all the way around the entire terminal to get to the gate.

 

It was then another 10 minutes of a very brisk walk to get through the huge terminal to the customs/immigration desks. Thankfully, travelling in Air Transat's "Club Class" (business class) in the first row, I was able to get off first and high-tail it through the airport, arriving to immigration at a relatively small line.... US/CAD/"other country" passports on the left, EU passports on the right... extremely easy and quick.

 

Bottom line --- do not book your transportation to your hotel or the ship too early... give lots of time leeway. Imagine if that immigration line had several planes coming in at once for example! That could've added another 1/2 hour or more.

 

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The airport is extremely easy to get around, plenty of large signs everywhere and more information desks than I can remember than in any other airport. The options are endless upon exiting... service desks offering shuttle services are right there, along with taxi's and hotel shuttles. Outside everything is clearly labelled with various pick-up points for transit and private vehicles

 

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Unlike many large port cities in North America, Amsterdam (like many European large cities) has an amazing network of transit and transportation that makes it extremely easy to pick and choose for your needs ($$ vs. convenience). Post cruise, I took the the tram and direct train from Brilliance back to the Airport, which I will explain at the end of the review... so easy I couldn't believe it... all the talk about being scared of being late for a plane, not knowing what to do, booking a RCL shuttle for 5 times the cost is hogwash... just the smallest bit of planning would show many options to fit anyone's needs. I hope to dispel any myths or apprehension with this part of anyone's journey.

 

Because I arrived 2 days earlier than the cruise, I booked a hotel shuttle service called "Connexxion".

https://www.schipholhotelshuttle.nl/

 

I could not have been any more satisfied with the service and delivery. Waiting for my luggage, I found my confirmation email and quickly sent a reply stating the plane had arrived late and I missed my shuttle time. I was replied back to in 5 minutes "No problem sir. Just head on out to A7 as per the directions to find us and we'll be there for you". On their website, this map is available to find them... and it's to scale.

 

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Aha! A7, labelled with the company's name.... just down the sidewalk from where I exited the Airport terminal

 

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I found the representative just off to the side with the blue jacket and he checked me in. Within 10 minutes, 7 of us were loaded into the shuttle bus and off we went. I was the last to be dropped off. With dropping off the first 3 couples it was 30 minutes total from airport to my hotel in central Amsterdam close to all the site-seeing venues.

 

Cost?.... 17.50 euro per person. This includes one luggage and one carry on. Great service.... excellent communication, quick, comfortable, easy to find, not one bit stressful whatsoever. Having landed at 11:30am, I was at my hotel checking in at approx 1:15pm. Note this company will not pick up or deliver to the cruise terminal, however fully recommend them for arrival pre-cruise or after a post-cruise stay at a hotel.

 

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Thanks for doing this review. I’m interested in how tendering in Edinburgh went. It was a near disaster last year on Vision—shore side tenders didn’t show up, water levels were lower than reported, so a tender ran aground and others sucked up mud and overheated!

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Hey There!! Been a while! Loving your review and reading with interest. We are doing this same cruise in a couple of weeks!!! Can’t wait to see what you did!

 

Jane,

 

Where have you been? I so miss your terrific reviews. Been on the Jewel lately?

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Jane,

 

Where have you been? I so miss your terrific reviews. Been on the Jewel lately?

 

Hey! Haven’t been on CC much lately. I hang out mostly on Facebook! We were on Jewel in February for Diego’s last cruise. The end of an era! The reviews got a little too much for me. I’m getting old, I guess!

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Looking forward to reading more about your cruise -- we had such a great time when we did the 13 night itinerary in May and I'm curious to see how your experiences compared to mine.

 

Post more soon!

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Yay another hoopster review! Currently planning my September Greek Isles Cruise using a lot of your tips

 

Awesome... really happy to have helped. :D

 

 

Hey There!! Been a while! Loving your review and reading with interest. We are doing this same cruise in a couple of weeks!!! Can’t wait to see what you did!

 

 

 

The Queen of RCL CC reviews is in the house!! Hope you enjoy and you get some tips, and I really hope the weather holds for you.

 

To everyone who has posted, thank you for the kind words so far :)

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