Brilliance of the Seas New Years Cruise reviews.

[alfaeric]

Since I'm not big on my own reviews, and if others are not as well- here's a place where you can post a small review of the cruise we just finished in San Juan yesterday morning.

 

Embarkation- We must have hit a magic time to get on- it was about 1:20pm- super fast getting on. And since we traveled light, we carried everything right up into our room (it was after 1pm, afterall).

 

Room- we had an 8th deck aft balcony (8672)- which, naturally, had an extended balcony. Not as large as 10th deck, but still big enough for a lounge chair, and two tables. Very nice to hang out and star gaze. Again, like on the Liberty, there is more vibration and movement than other locations- we were ok with it- seems to help us sleep. dunno.

 

Dining- we started with late dining, and moved to main- after a week eating early, it was hard to eat so late on the first night. So we moved and were happy. We also like the new menu, FWIW. Don't miss our favorites that are no longer there. And the special dinner for New Years Eve was pretty awesome.

 

Entertainment- We like it a lot. Much like other ships and trips I've posted about. We like Broadway, so the shows being themed like that was very nice. We also got to meet Paul and Jeremy- nice to talk to them more. Cruise directors don't ruin cruises for us, but they do a great job making it better when we get to know them better.

 

For New Years, there were parties all over the boat- on in French, one in Spanish, two in English- all with Champagne. And we got to hang out in Phillipsburg to watch the fireworks there. Very cool.

 

Itinerary- First time to Tortola and Guadeloupe, Second time to St. Kitts and Barbados, 7th to St Maarten.

 

Tortola was very relaxed- nobody pushing anything anywhere. I just wished that it was not Sunday, so more was open.

 

We always do the 12 Metere racing there. I still contend we won. :) Favorite excursion by far. Nice warm walk in Phillipsburg afterword.

 

St. Kitts was a nice run out of town. But next time we are there, the hike is going to be on the menu. With it being New Years, they had their Carnival- which we got to see the beginning of the parade for. Very fun.

 

Guadeloupe- we walked around, shopped, and just hung out. The city was very much like Ponce, PR, so we were very comfortable right away. Not sure why they get such a bad rap. Markets were cool, I wish I was more hungry to eat in the cafes. Being French, we took a chance on their alcohol skills, and bought two bottles of Rum. They do it a little differently there, using all cane syrup as opposed to molasses.

 

Barbados we just went out to Mount Gay Rum, and then slowly walked back to the ship. Got rum and DW found some great Jewelry and I got to watch some glass working. Again, will do more next time we go back.

 

All in all, we had a great time.

[rae8836]

We had 1100 on the same trip, our 14th with RCI, and definitely found the new menus to be an improvement.

 

Tortola, Barbados, and Guadaloupe were first times for us.

 

We were particularly impressed with how urban Barbados and Guadaloupe were. Since we are not beach people, we walked around the 'downtown' areas of both - didn't feel threatened in either place. We thought that both downtown areas gave us an interesting 'foreign' feeling, (British in one case, French in the other) and actually felt that we would like to spend more time in both places to get to know them better.

 

BTW, did you notice that Guadaloupe had a McDonalds but there were none on Barbados? OTOH, it seemed that Barbados had 'Chefettes' on every other block :)

[alfaeric]

Next time, we will go to a few more places in Barbados, just like we want to get deeper into Guadaloupe.

 

I actually "bailed" early in Guadaloupe- was super tired, and went back to sleep for an hour just about 1pm. Was awake enough to buy rum afterword.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report!