Wonderful 5 night Cruise!

Item: Brilliance of the Seas
Rating: 4.7
Author: Seanugget

Brilliance of the Seas Cruise Review to Caribbean - Western

Seanugget

Contributor Level: Second Mate

145 Days Till Next Cruise

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Reviews: 10

Helpful Votes: 228

Overall rating:

4.7 out of 5

5 Night Western Caribbean (Tampa Roundtrip)

Sail date: March 19, 2022

Ship: Brilliance of the Seas

Cabin type: Suite

Cabin number: 1600

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 1 year ago

Review summary

We would sail Brilliance again. It was relaxing and enjoyable. It's a nice, smaller ship without all the fluff and we are completely fine with that!

Embarkation

5 out of 5

The port itself is in downtown Tampa which is only about 40 minutes from where we live. Love that! We opted for the valet parking. Well worth the extra and would recommend. The port staff were quite friendly.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

4 out of 5

We ate at Chops, Giovanni's, Minstrel's (MDR) and Windjammer. Chops was great! We ate there almost every day for breakfast because we had a grand suite. The staff was exceptional. We ate at Giovanni's for lunch on embarkation day on a whim when we walked past it after we boarded. Glad we did! It was great and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. The waiter and manager were awesome! It was nice to stay away from the crowds and also have a quiet moment on a busy embarkation day. We have been on Vision, Quantum and Oasis class ships so far and we really liked the layout of the Windjammer on this ship. Ample seating, lots of windows (Brilliance Class), no major congestion areas etc. The food was good and the service was good. At the time of our sailing the staff were serving food in the buffet line to you and servers were coming around with drinks. The food selection was fairly limited but it was good. We ate at Minstrel's a few times for dinner and once for lunch. The food was good but service was slow'ish. The tables for two were so close together, you may as well just have tables for 4! It just makes things awkward if you're trying to have a conversation with your table partner. AND there is nothing worse than being sat next to folks that literally have no intention of making any kind of contact with you even though you're about 8 inches apart. Awkward!

Onboard Activities

4 out of 5

We played trivia a few times and even won once. Woo!

Entertainment

4 out of 5

We watched a few musical acts on Lido as well as in the Colony Club. We also went to the headliner show which I believe was called Center Stage. We aren't big on shows but we enjoyed this show. We also went to the top tier event for Platinum and higher. It was very nice. The cruise director was friendly and mingled with the guests throughout the ship. I thought that was a nice touch.

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

All staff were excellent! We were so impressed with everyone we encountered. They helped make our vacation a wonderful one!

Ship Quality

4 out of 5

This is an older, smaller ship. It does not have as many amenities as Oasis, Quantum and even Voyager class ships will have. BUT, this is a very nice ship overall. Yes, there were some wear spots on the outer decks that I noticed but the ship was clean and felt very traditional. Vintages got a recent overhaul and looked stunning. Some other areas like Schooner Bar and Colony Club could use a little facelift. The suite lounge was a decent size but it was also kind of dated. The common areas were fine and we found little seating areas here and there that we could sit and chat. The ship overall was easy to navigate.

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

Our cabin was very large! It's an aft grand suite. We really enjoyed the good size balcony and the doorbell! LOL The room was clean and tidy. The bed was quite hard but we asked our steward and he added some padding for us. It helped. The Lavazza coffee machine was great touch and we used it a lot! The storage was ample as was the seating area. My husband had to work 2 days while on the ship. The Wi-Fi was OK. The cabin location was quiet for him to have some meetings.