Hectic but a great chance to spend time with the family

My wife and I have traveled on Celebrity two times in the past, and we loved both of the cruises. This time, on Brilliance of the Seas, we cruised with our children and two young (two years old and nine months old) grandchildren, which radically changed our cruise experience. The grandchildren were very well behaved, but they were young and had to be entertained/supervised at all times. 

In the past, my wife and I had enjoyed afternoons by the pool or shore excursions, relatively quiet dinners, then watched the shows in the evening. This time, we had much more tumult during dinner, and no time at all for the shows. However, we did get to spend quite a bit of time with the family, so that made it all worthwhile. 

My wife and I had a cabin near but not next to the children and grandchildren. This made it easy to go back and forth for emergency babysitting activities. The cabin steward Myra was very friendly and at the same time professional. She did a great job cleaning up every time we left, and she was quick to take care of any special requests. 

We ate the first night in the Chophouse Grill, which was excellent and well worth the extra cost. However, our experience the next evening at Giovanni's was just average, and not worth any additional cost. We also had lunch one day at Rita's Cantina - the food was relatively cheap and better than the buffet next door. The other meals were in the Windjammer Cafe - typical buffet food - and in the Minstrel dining room. The main dining room staff was excellent, especially Stephen our head waiter. 

I was surprised that the pools (both the main one and the one in the Solarium) did not have a shallow end. In both cases, the entire pool, except for an outer skirt that was about one foot of water, was quite deep - making it impossible to walk through the pool. Usually, a pool in a public place like this is not at a uniform depth. There was an additional kiddie pool on deck 13, and we ended up taking the kids there. 

Getting on and off the ship was quite smooth - much better than we were expecting. 

Overall, it was a hectic five days but full of family fun.

The initial boarding of the ship in Tampa, as well as the embarkation five days later, was very smooth – good job by Royal Caribbean and the crew in the Port of Tampa.