Brilliance of the Seas March 16th Sailing - A review with with photos

[Kevin's girl]

The Schooner Bar

 

If this works, it’s a video of the self leveling pool table at work as we sailed.

 

View My Video

 

Click the My Video link to play the video. The link will take you to the tinypic website where you can play it.

Edited April 6, 2013 by Kevin's girl

[flames]

Terri, great review and you take really beautiful pictures, thank you:cool:

[LBIgirl74]

Thanks for taking the time and posting such a great review with great pictures!

 

I am new to the boards and cruising and my first cruise will be on Brilliance. Super excited!

[Kevin's girl]

Thanks for taking the time and posting such a great review with great pictures!

 

I am new to the boards and cruising and my first cruise will be on Brilliance. Super excited!

Thanks so much. You will love the Brilliance, she is a beautiful ship. We love cruising, it's the best way to travel. Unpack once and wake up in the same 5 star hotel but different location every day.

[Kevin's girl]

Terri, great review and you take really beautiful pictures, thank you:cool:

I'm glad you're enjoying the photos. My family makes fun of me because I never put the camera down.

[lucymorgan]

As we came back into port we sailed right past the Brilliance. I took some pics of the aft balconies and zoomed in on ours. I had tried so hard before our cruise to find pics and info on our cabin. I want to share as much cabin info as I can for the next lucky cruiser to book cabin 1600.

 

Thank you so much for the great review and for the fantastic pictures of cabin 1600. We have this cabin booked for after the refurbishment and your pictures are the clearest and most comprehensive ones I have seen. Thank you!:)

[Kevin's girl]

Thank you so much for the great review and for the fantastic pictures of cabin 1600. We have this cabin booked for after the refurbishment and your pictures are the clearest and most comprehensive ones I have seen. Thank you!:)

My pleasure. I know how hard it was to find cabin photos after I booked. It drove me crazy. If there is anything specific you want to know about the cabin let me know. I took quite a few photos. We really did love the cabin.

[shipknotshore]

Thanks so much. You will love the Brilliance' date=' she is a beautiful ship. We love cruising, it's the best way to travel. Unpack once and wake up in the same 5 star hotel but different location every day.[/quote']

 

Exactly!!!! :p

[Kevin's girl]

Back to my review and happy memories I had to delay because of working out of town for two weeks.

Other thoughts before moving on to Debarkation and post cruise fun.

 

We had purchased the Premium Beverage Package. I was not happy with the way it worked or the attitude we received when “buying” a drink. One thing we did notice was that there was usually only one bartender at the Pool Bar and Sky Bar during most times of the day and it was rarely the same person from day to day. This made getting service really difficult and extra tipping (normal for us) pointless. Once the bar service person walking the pool floor knew you had the package he avoided you and was very rude when he did serve you (until he got the extra tip). If you wanted a mixed drink that has multiple types of alcohol in it, it counted as one drink (naturally), but if you wanted say a rum and coke with two shots of rum they said NO as this counted as two drinks and that was not allowed with our package. The wine portion of the package was no problem, and the house wines were good. We did have several drinks billed to our account. They were removed from the bill by Guest Services with no problem and the attitude of the bar service was also reported and the Mar Manager was notified by Guest Services to correct the problem for future guests.

 

We had three towel animals during the cruise.

 

This was our swan. He shares the photo with our traveling gnome.

 

A penguin I believe.

 

And then our puppy. He is an example of what can happen when you have the best cabin steward and he has gotten to know you well

 

The three of them on our last night.

Edited April 21, 2013 by Kevin's girl

[Kevin's girl]

Our last night on board, we skipped dinner in the MDR and opted for our old favorite the Seaview Café. I’m still sad that this venue is to be removed from the Radiance class ships.

 

Tidings of farewell in the Centrum

 

Always a sad moment

[Kevin's girl]

Debarkation was probably the fastest we have ever encountered. We went to the dining room to wait for our number our number to be called. This was the Diamond debarkation meeting room. Our number was to be called between 8:00 and 8:15. I was in no hurry to leave the ship as we were going to the Courtyard Marriott in Isla Verde and not to the airport. I was sure that we would have no room until at least noon. We arrive in the dinning room at 7:30, off the ship and through security, baggage claimed and heading to our waiting taxi by 7:58. I was amazed.

 

 

We arrived at our hotel about 8:15 and they apologize for not having our room ready. I had hoped to have a king room with ocean/pool view but was notified after booking that those rooms were all booked. I emailed the manager of the hotel and explained I had booked the king room and was now going to have a queen. He said he would take care of it and boy did he. They were going to give us an ocean front king room and wanted us to wait in the public areas of the hotel. They gave us a pager which would go off when they had our room ready. The pager also gave us 15% off in any of the restaurants, so we went to have breakfast.

This is the view as we had breakfast and waited for our room to be ready. I ask you, how can it get any better?

[sanwin]

Thank you so much for your fabulous review. We are in cabin 1600 on Serenade this Oct so it is great to see the sister cabin on Brilliance. I loved the aft pics as well !

I have been considering this itinery and was doubtful about the long flights from Belfast UK........but your review has made. me put this cruise back on my list !

thanks again for your brilliant review

Sandra x

 

Sent from my GT-I8160 using Tapatalk 2

[Kevin's girl]

As we finished the assistant manager came to us and wanted to know if we would consider a two queen bed ocean front Jr Suite instead of the king regular ocean front room. Seemed like a no brainer to me. It was a beautiful corner room with fridge, microwave and cabinets. The bathroom was huge and very clean. The beds were some of the most comfortable ever. We took a quick nap and were down to the pool by noon.

 

 

 

 

Our Queen Suite room #1224

 

Our big balcony.

[Kevin's girl]

Thank you so much for your fabulous review. We are in cabin 1600 on Serenade this Oct so it is great to see the sister cabin on Brilliance. I loved the aft pics as well !

I have been considering this itinery and was doubtful about the long flights from Belfast UK........but your review has made. me put this cruise back on my list !

thanks again for your brilliant review

Sandra x

 

Sent from my GT-I8160 using Tapatalk 2

Thank you for reading my review. We have done similar itineraries and love sailing from San Juan. It's well worth the time to get there. You will love the cabin too, it was the best.

[Kevin's girl]

The view looking straight out of our balcony

 

Looking left.

 

And looking to the right.

 

 

The Courtyard Marriot more than met our expectations. It was a beautiful hotel with very friendly service and beautiful grounds. We spent 2 ½ days here after our cruise and never felt the need to go anywhere else. The restaurants were very good and not too pricey. The beach and pool bar service was very good.

 

The chairs and umbrella were set up for us by the beach butlers and the red flags worked for bar service.

 

A view of the hotel from the beach. Our room was the top floor far right corner balcony.

[Kevin's girl]

I’ll take you for a look around the place so you can see what we saw during our stay.

 

This is the pool area. The pool itself is sort of a figure 8. One side of the 8 is shallower and for families, the other is pictured below. It has a swim up bar and a max depth of 6 ft.

 

The Papaya Grill where we ate lunch both days. This restaurant is on the back side of the swim up bar and food is served at that bar and the pool and beach areas.

They were setting up for a wedding while we had lunch.

 

A little wild life at the grill area.

[soxin2000]

Beautiful! Thank you so much.

[PCWalton1]

 

The three of them on our last night.

 

Marie like to keep all of them and get a group shot but was disappointed on Jewel when the cabin steward took them away before we could say anything.

 

Bill

[Kevin's girl]

Marie like to keep all of them and get a group shot but was disappointed on Jewel when the cabin steward took them away before we could say anything.

 

Bill

They demolished ours on our last cruise too. I was so happy that he left them alone this time.

[DarthGrady]

Bravo, excellent review. Your pictures are excellent, thanks for sharing them! My wife and I will be sailing on Brilliance later this year, so it's nice to see a pictorial of her.

 

I was surprised to see the Solarium's roof open. I've been on several RCI cruises aboard ships with the glass domes and have yet to see them open. I haven't figured out why they retract them so infrequently. I've seen Carnival open and close theirs several times a day depending on the weather.

[Deatsch]

We just LOVE the Courtyard Isla Verde. We have stayed there twice now and WILL go back for our next cruise.

 

They are a class act.

[Poorplaya]

Thank you so much for the great review and amazing pictures. It was wonderful to read and the pictures we're fantastic.

[Mamacane71]

Thanks so much for the wonderful review. We are going on her sister ship the Jewel in June on the Southern Route. Hitting several of the same islands. And we are booked in the 2 bedroom suite right underneath your room ( I know different ship sorta kinda same layout ;) ) So excited to finally see balcony pictures of this area. Thanks Terri for taking the time to do the report!

[Kevin's girl]

Bravo, excellent review. Your pictures are excellent, thanks for sharing them! My wife and I will be sailing on Brilliance later this year, so it's nice to see a pictorial of her.

 

I was surprised to see the Solarium's roof open. I've been on several RCI cruises aboard ships with the glass domes and have yet to see them open. I haven't figured out why they retract them so infrequently. I've seen Carnival open and close theirs several times a day depending on the weather.

 

This was the first time I had ever seen it open. It was really kind of neat seeing the trees and such out in the open air.

[Kevin's girl]

We just LOVE the Courtyard Isla Verde. We have stayed there twice now and WILL go back for our next cruise.

 

They are a class act.

We will definitely go back. It was really a great hotel to stay at and how can you beat that beach?