My Brilliance Of The Seas Easter Cruise Review....Long

[toad2]

We also sailed with Jim on April 9th.
EMBARKING: Got to the port around 11:15 and was on the ship within 30 to 40 minutes. Rooms weren't ready yet so we went to the Windjammer for lunch. We were able to get in our room around 1:00. We had an inside cabin on deck 7.
SERVICE: Our room stewart Raymond was the best we ever had. Even with all the extra rooms he had to do, we couldn't have asked for better service. He did say since they added the extra rooms to do that it takes him at least an extra 2 hours to get done. He always looked so exhausted. Our dining room waiter Denez was also great and it seemed that he was also doing a lot of the assistant waiter's work. Part of the problem could have been that the assistant waiter has an extra table to take care of with a different waiter. My husband always orders tomato juice and lemonade before dinner and this was the first cruise that it was not waiting for him every night when we got to the dining room. It was always about 10 minutes after the assistant came over and asked what we wanted to drink. A lot of time our waiter would bring the salad dressing and pick up our dirty plates. The fresh ground pepper was kept on our table and most of the time I put it on myself.
FOOD: The dining room food was the main disappointment for me, especially the desserts. It is definitely true that RC's food is going downhill. We love our desserts but most nights we could not even find anything good on the menu to try. They no longer put bread or rolls on your table, but have the assistant waiter bring the basket around and offer you some. The rolls were delicious though. The best dinner we had was lobster night and we didn't even have to ask for seconds, they waiter asked us if we wanted another one. I did try the infamous Ranch Steak and didn't care for it (medium rare and still too tough). We did go to Portifino's one night. It wasn't really my type of food but my husband loved it. The service was wonderful. He had lobster (delicious) and I had shrimp (so,so). The dessert was wonderful. The Windjammer food was as usual and what I call "filler food." Now, the Seaview Cafe was excellent. Some days I never ate anything at all until they opened at 2:30. Their tuna boat, french fries, & chips with salsa & sour cream were the best. I had read in a previous review that the fries were always cold but I never had that problem.
ENTERTAINMENT: The only show we saw was Marty Allen and his wife Karon Kate Blackwell. It was a wonderful show. Even at his age, he puts on a hell of a funny show. He dances really well also and his wife is beautiful. She is an excellent singer. We thought the pool band was great. I'm sorry we didn't buy one of their CD's. As my fellow cruise critic's can attest to, my main entertainment was the casino. Blackjack and Caribbean Stud Poker were most entertaining. The dealers, especially Robert (Bobby the Hammer) and Jay had great personalities and were very helpful.
CRUISE DIRECTOR: Our cruise director, Peter Benfield was the most personable cruise director I have met. He was very entertaining at our cruise critic meet and mingle and at any other time we saw him.
DRINKS: The frozen drinks in the casino and sports bar, with the exception of the margaritas, weren't very good at all. BBC's are my favorite but they couldn't make them right. My husband ordered a Coco Loco and he ended up with a frozen pink fruity drink. They still have Margarita Madness (buy one get one free) about 5 or 6 times and it is usually in the Starquest Disco. Mango, Banana, Blueberry, etc. and they are delicious especially frozen and with the salt.
PORTS: Grand Cayman and Aruba were wonderful as usual. The Panama Canal was nice to go thru once but we really wouldn't want to do it again. We only got off the ship to do a little shopping at the pier. Cigarettes were really cheap but be aware that the brand names like Marlboro are not made with the same tobacco that is used in the U.S. They are like the ones you get in St. Martin. I don't smoke but my husband does and he said that he could really tell the difference. Buy the ones on the ship if you want the good ones. The line to get back on the ship in Panama was ridiculous. It took at least 45 minutes to get back on. They could have had more than one entrance. In Costa Rica we did the Ziplining. The weather was rainy and chilly and everything was so muddy. I really didn't care for Costa Rica much. We traveled about 1 1/2 hours to Almonds and Corals for the ziplining and it was very depressing on the way to see how the people live. The houses are so small and most of them had no glass in their windows. We were told that the resort area on the Pacific side was really beautiful but it sure wasn't on the Atlantic side. No blue water or beautiful beaches where we were.
DEBARK: We had to wait in line about an hour to go thru customs but we were still at the airport by 9:15.
There were a lot of children, babies, and teens on the cruise. My son, who is 16, had a wonderful time. He definitely fell for a girl on the trip and made quite a few great friends.
The worst part of the whole trip was that US Air lost one of our suitcases on the way down. We arrived in Miami on Thursday at 11:45 and didn't get our suitcase until Sunday at 4:00 in Grand Cayman. My son missed the first formal night because he didn't have his suit (not that he cared). The airline did tell me I could go buy stuff and they would reimburse us but we figured we would hold out as long as we could. When we got to the Pittsburgh Airport and picked up our luggage, one of our big suitcases was mangled up pretty bad, like it got caught in something. It was hanging open and there were things missing. Well, they gave me a new suitcase right then and there but told me that I needed to go thru the suitcase right then and there and tell them what was missing. I told them that I had 6 suitcases and until I unpacked them all, there was no way I could say what was missing. I knew that shoes were missing but since we had 21 pair between the 3 of us I didn't know which ones. She said that I may not get reimbursed since I couln't tell her what was missing right away. Would I have been smarter to make up stuff?
Other than that fiasco, it was a wonderful trip. We had a great cruise critic group, even though I didn't get to spend as much time with them as I wanted to. I know, I know, I was too busy in the casino.
If anyone has any questions, I'll be glad to answer them if I can.

CINDY

NCL NORWAY 6/93
RCL GRANDUER 10/97
RCL SPLENDOUR 3/99
RCL GRANDUER 3/02
GALAXY 5/19/03
RCL BRILLANCE 4/9/04
RCL GRANDEUR 5/31/04

[isujim]

Cindy:

Great review.......we miss you guys....by the way.....how did you end up for the week in the casino?? The slots were awfully tight....did you have any better luck at the tables??

I agree with your review by the way....it is right on, except Rena and I are planning to do the whole canal in the future......I agree though, one partial transit is enough.....

Jim

Nordic Prince 8/88
Viking Serenade 3/93
Enchantment 3/01
Rhapsody 9/02
Splendour 4/03
Rhapsody, 9/03
Brilliance, 4/04

Until our Caribbean Princess cruise
[img]http://escati.linkopp.net/cgi-bin/countdown.cgi?trgb=000000&srgb=00ff00&prgb=dc143c&cdt=2004;11;6;23;00;00&timezone=GMT-0500[/img]

Until Hawaii on Inifinity
[img]http://escati.linkopp.net/cgi-bin/countdown.cgi?trgb=000000&srgb=00ff00&prgb=dc143c&cdt=2005;4;6;23;59;00&timezone=GMT-1000[/img]

[toad2]

Jim,
The slots were really tight so I didn't play them too much. Couldn't win at Caribbean Stud either but did okay in Blackjack. One guy won $1,000 on the Blackjack Wheel of Madness the first night. I didn't come ahead for the week but had a lot of fun.

CINDY

NCL NORWAY 6/93
RCL GRANDUER 10/97
RCL SPLENDOUR 3/99
RCL GRANDUER 3/02
GALAXY 5/19/03
RCL BRILLANCE 4/9/04
RCL GRANDEUR 5/31/04

[toad2]

Just movin it up.

CINDY

NCL NORWAY 6/93
RCL GRANDUER 10/97
RCL SPLENDOUR 3/99
RCL GRANDUER 3/02
GALAXY 5/19/03
RCL BRILLANCE 4/9/04
RCL GRANDEUR 5/31/04

[cmjaffe]

Glad that Lucky Pete is doing a great job at CD and that he's still "around and about"...
we sailed with him and Clo over New Years and heard that he would be moving up to CD when Clo was vacationing... will enjoy having him as CD in December when we sail again on Brilliance.
Great (and accurate as far as our experience too).
Carolyn