Brilliance - give me the good, bad, and the ugly about this ship

[SanFranBayCruiser]

I've read every review I could find but, I would love feedback, especially from recent cruisers of Brilliance of the Seas. I'd like to know what you thought of the food (especially compared to other cruise lines), cabin size, activities (including the scheduling of activities)...and anything you'd like to share whether it's good, bad, or ugly....all comments and recommendations are welcome. Thanks.

[hdawson]

BRILLIANCE - The most beautiful ship I've seen out of 18 cruises. Food is good, not great. Service is fine.

[cruiseman_tx]

No ugly to be found on the Brilliance...she's splendid!

Food was the good but standard RCI offering in the dining room.

Windjammer has a good variety, and easy to navigate food stations.

Service overall was very good to excellent in all areas.

Plenty of activities for all ages on sea days.

Large sports bar with lots of video screens, and seperate smoking/non-smoking areas.

Two items on the bad side:

Elevators quite slow around dinner time.

Heavy congestion in the shops area off the centrum after a show lets out, as traffic to the lounges and dining room goes right through there.

[jbond]

We've sailed Brilliance three times, so obviously we like it. It is a very spectacular ship, like all the Radiance class ships, but it is also very tasteful. The dining room is beautiful, but you can get a badly positioned table. We moved tables because of that on our last cruise. The Solarium Pool is awesome, you have to see it to fully appreciate it.

Food wise, it was good. Never had a night where I couldn't find something I liked. It has two specialty restaurants that we like. I can't imagine you not being impressed. I have albums posted on two of our Brilliance cruises, with photos of the interior of the ship. http://community.webshots.com/user/jbond105/1 under Briiliance of the Seas Baltic and Mediterranean

[tomko2]

My experience too limited to do a comparison however we loved the Brilliance - it is large but you don't feel crowded. We tend to use stairs so I can't comment on the elevators. The show room is lovely and comfortable. The staff in the dining room were excellent. We are sailing on her sister ship Jewel of the Sea - tomorrow and again on Brilliance next December. In the latter cases we booked early enough to nap a corner aft balcony cabin which we are really looking forward to enjoying.

We do plan to try a Voyageur class of ship someday but only after we have sailed on all those in the Radiance class (Brilliance, Seranade, Jewel, Radiance).

Happy Cruising.

Kathy

[Rudydog]

We were on a Med. cruise in November and loved it. The service was excellent; the food was better than I expected; the entertainment was very good; it's a beautiful ship; I agree about table placement -- the first night we had a table that seemed to be part of a hallway, but had no trouble changing tables. The cruise director was very good -- very present and involved. You'll have a great time. Enjoy! My only complaint is the Casino -- it was not kind to me at all. Oh well.

[vegasbrew]

We don't sail the Brilliance to Panama until Jan of 2007...can't wait and can't wait to hear all the replys to this thread! Please list your photos also! Happy sailin' !!!

[FinelyCruising]

Don't forget the Seaview Cafe! :)

[debmkay]

We were on the Nov 22nd sailing on the Brillance. Awesome ship! The food was so so. Not overly impressed but Chops specialty restaurant was great, ate there twice. The service was outstanding. The seaview cafe was very good. We had such a wonderful time and would sail on her again in a minute. Yes there was congestion at the elevators at peak times but most ships have that. Never had a problem with deck chairs, could always find them, sometimes not at the main pool area but that is okay with me. Go and enjoy and come back and report to us what you thought. Happy sailing!

[threeofus]

Two items on the bad side:

Elevators quite slow around dinner time.

Heavy congestion in the shops area off the centrum after a show lets out, as traffic to the lounges and dining room goes right through there.__________________

Use the stairs --up and down -- if you are able. It sure beats getting up and going to the gym in the morning and it accomplishes the same thing.

 

Have a great time.

[sweetpea916]

One of my favorite places on Brilliance:

 

[DEL67]

We were on the Brilliance Transatlantic in November and really enjoyed it.

 

The Good:

 

The service was excellent and the food, standard RCCL, pretty good, but not great. The cast shows were not great, but the other entertainers were excellent. I am a "doer" aboard ships and there were all sorts of activities to do: bridge, trivia, Tai Chi, golf driving contests, putting contests, ping pong, etc., etc., etc. And the he Cruise Director's assistants who ran most of the activities were outstanding, especially Fang and Yerki.

 

The Bad:

 

As others have said the elevators were sometimes a problem. The main set of elevators has 6 elevators on one control. When a full elevator stops, others just pass you by. This made it particularly difficult for us since my husband uses a wheelchair.

 

The Ugly:

 

We had a sewarage smell in our cabin, 7110, for much of the cruise.

[cruiseman_tx]

Two items on the bad side:

Elevators quite slow around dinner time.

Heavy congestion in the shops area off the centrum after a show lets out, as traffic to the lounges and dining room goes right through there.__________________

Use the stairs --up and down -- if you are able. It sure beats getting up and going to the gym in the morning and it accomplishes the same thing.

 

Have a great time.

 

Might have used the stairs myself except that I had a torn knee ligament, and was already hiking from an aft cabin on deck 10. My solution was to leave the cabin earlier and wait in the centrum for the dining room to open. Didn't have a problem after that. And I agree, using the stairs a lot does beat going to the gym.

Additionally, The Panama Canal cruise on the Brilliance is our favorite cruise to date, and would definately do it again.

[Pumbaamd]

Just got back today from our 11 day Panama cruise. We did the Brilliance at this same time last year on the 11 day ultimate southern Caribbean. This year, we had an even better time than last year. The food in the dining room was so outstanding, that we cancelled our Chop's reservation. (We did Chop's last year). The dining room food was as good as Chop's. We can't find one thing to complain about this Brilliance cruise. Our RCL cruises seem to get better each time we go. The Brilliance has a great crew. Becky, the CD, is doing a terrific job. She's everywhere and bubbly, knowledgable and ever caring about the pax. She even came to our "Meet and Mingle" on the second day and gave a little talk about RCL. Bye, Love.

The dining room staff, especially Hanna, our assistant waiter, went way above their duties to satisfy the guests. The bar attendants, *Dan at the Lobby Bar, Danielle at the Sports' Bar, Igor and Piety at the Pool Bar, were very entertaining and gracious (*=extra good).

[hvsteve1]

I'm sitting here watching Greta Van Sustern on Fox and she is spending the hour on a walking tour of Brilliance with the VP Fleet Operations for RCI. While she is recreating the events surrounding the missing bridegroom,what I am getting is a very comprehensive and well staged tour of the ship,from the various public areas to the inside of the cabin. The show is rebroadcast at 3AM Eastern Time if you would like to set up a recording.

[egh170]

We were on the Brilliance in cabin # 1548 on deck ten. The Ship is beautiful, food & service good. The only thing that I did not like was the overhang from the deck above us was so large and extended out so far that there was no sun on our balcony unless it was low in the sky. It also made it difficult to take photos without the overhang showing in the picture.

[dougp26364]

I really enjoyed BOS. If you want to see pictures of the ship, I have them posted at the link in my signature below. They are from our cruise on 10/15/2005 so they are reasonably recent.

[dfishner]

Really no negatives many dining options including Chops and Portofino $20 charge and you can even get a table for two.

Seaview Cafe for afternoon or late night snack.

Good flow in windjammer.

Shows are good.

Ship is well layout and also elegant

very service oriented staff.

Ship never feels crowded even when it was full

I would go on a Radiance class ship in a heartbeat.

You seldom seem any negatives comments about the Brillance

[figment3]

just got back from brilliance yesterday,the ship is starting to look old, rusty spots on most of the outside railings,missing boorbell butons ,missing or broken soap dishes in the cabin baths,loose and missing screws in alot of places,the food was ok lots of it,service was fine, except the conerge,kathern was her name,not to helpfull at all,seemed lost at most times,served drinks in a paper cup,what class?they need to replace her or get Bret back in there.all in all i give this cruse a 7 out of ten

[jalakim]

Pumaband and Figment 3......I have been reading that the Seaview Cafe on the Brilliance had changed it's menu to pazza and pasta. Can you confirm that? We are sailing on her in April, and after reading so much about the Seaview Cafe, was looking foreward to trying all it'a goodies.

 

Thanks

 

Kim

[drbru001]

JBOND...

 

I noticed you have cruised both the Brilliance and the Tahitian Princess.

 

Which cruise would you choose... 12 days Tahitian Princess to Hawaii and Tahiti or the Brilliance 12 day to the Western Med and Greece?

 

Thanks

 

Bruce

[teach01]

Pumaband and Figment 3......I have been reading that the Seaview Cafe on the Brilliance had changed it's menu to pazza and pasta. Can you confirm that? We are sailing on her in April, and after reading so much about the Seaview Cafe, was looking foreward to trying all it'a goodies.

 

Thanks

 

Kim

 

Kim,

 

When are you going April, we are a family of 7 going April 7th!!!!

[JaneStarr]

just got back from brilliance yesterday,the ship is starting to look old, rusty spots on most of the outside railings,missing boorbell butons ,missing or broken soap dishes in the cabin baths,loose and missing screws in alot of places,the food was ok lots of it,service was fine, except the conerge,kathern was her name,not to helpfull at all,seemed lost at most times,served drinks in a paper cup,what class?they need to replace her or get Bret back in there.all in all i give this cruse a 7 out of ten

 

Wow, I had a totally different impression, especially of Katherine. Aside from Maritza on Jewel OTS, Katherine is the best concierge we ever had! She displayed a wonderful attitude and willingness to research if she didn't have an answer to a passenger question or request. She had no help in the Concierge Lounge over the Holidays (with an overflow lounge in Hollywood Oddessy) and a "full boat". She even would wash glasses in her spare time since there were too many passengers for the lounge's supplies. Even so, Katherine didn't complain or lose her smile. I often saw her late at night working in the CL when I would stop in to grab a bed-time cup of tea. One time she was even washing the floor herself so that the passengers wouldn't have it dirty until the A.M.!

 

Mark my words, with a bit more experience which will come with time on the job, Katherine will join Maritza as the concierge everybody seeks.

 

There were lots of minor disappointments for me on this trip (Seaview menu changed to just pizza & pasta, room steward inattentive-- as in not making up room until after 2 pm-- until we spoke up,Christmas gifts discontinued for all but Santa lap-age kids, our waiter was great but had no authority to honor even minor special requests due to RCCL policy change, Head waiter had less "can do" attitude-- until we spoke up-- even then he attitude not great, major disembarkation luggage issue with poor communications which caused us to miss our post-tour ...).

All in all, we still had a Good cruise and found our 7 cabins & the ship to be in fine shape. I just refused to let the little things (even though they did add up to some periodic major frustration) spoil my trip.

 

RCCL really needs, however, to get it's act together as far as customer service and communications when things don't go smoothly -- especially when off the ship. I have still not heard back from my email to C & A from 1/2/05 regarding the problems with my pre-paid post-cruise excursion which left w/o at least 14 passengers. Thank goodness Katherine insisted on notifying Shore Excursion supervisor to refund our 8 payments; now if only they would contact us to confirm that it has been done.

 

As far as the dining room food, there are enough choices and flexability that you should never be "stuck" with something that you don't like. I was especially pleased with two of the alternate menu choices that were always available for dinner: steak and chicken breast. Thank goodness they got rid of the infamous "Ranch steak"; it's now like a good supermarket quality

Black Angus sirloin steak. The chicken breast was moist and nicely seasoned.

The one night we dined in Portifino's, we really enjoyed both the food and the service.

 

We did prefer the food and DR service on Celebrity Millennium last summer, but I was still satisfied with Brilliance.

 

Overall, my personal impression of the service we received was not quite up to the level we have received on prior holiday sailings of Radiance Class RCCL ships (Serenade OTS 12/03 & Jewel OTS 1/05) The only exception would be that concierges, Maritza & Katherine, were much friendlier and more helpful than the guy on Jewel 1/05 (think his name was Brett ??-- remember that he was going to leave RCCL shortly and open his own B & B).

 

Hope this helps.

 

Jane

[cruisers4ever]

just got back from brilliance yesterday,the ship is starting to look old, rusty spots on most of the outside railings,missing boorbell butons ,missing or broken soap dishes in the cabin baths,loose and missing screws in alot of places,the food was ok lots of it,service was fine, except the conerge,kathern was her name,not to helpfull at all,seemed lost at most times,served drinks in a paper cup,what class?they need to replace her or get Bret back in there.all in all i give this cruse a 7 out of ten

 

What ship are you talking about?? this ship is not close to old. I never saw a rust spot, crew always painting, and have never seen a missing boorbell??

sorry She was not up to standards. We love this ship and have sailed her twice and are looking forward to a third time this fall to Europe. Try her again, She won't dissappoint you. Happy Crusing to all!!

[JaneStarr]

If I'm not mistaken, Brilliance OTS just came through dry-dock this Fall (Oct??)

Jane