Brilliance of the Seas Cruise Reviews - Reviews

What a lovely surprise! This was a trip planned with 20 other relatives. We were able to keep close and really enjoyed evening meals in the main dining room (Minstrel). The facilities were clean and up to date. The staff members were fabulous. It was obvious that they were trained to work for the customer and not the company!!

The ship was beautiful and kept very clean. We loved the ports of call, although due to limited mobility, we were unable to disembark at most places. The food and service in the main dining room was excellent. Even though we opted for My Time Dining, we were seated at one of two waiters' sections each evening. The staff made sure we did not have to walk far to our table. The food in the Windjammer Cafe was good, although not exceptional. We enjoyed breakfast at the Park Cafe as well.

Entertainment: We did not attend any of the production shows in the theater. We did see one movie in the cinema which was very small and intimate. The nightly entertainment in the Centrum was very good, especially the 70"s Disco Inferno and the Night of Jazz. We also listened to the group Soul Inspiration, and enjoyed their music and song choices very much.

I had reserved and paid for 3 shore excursions which were advertised as being in the "mild" category as far as activity required. The excursion to St. Peter's Square, however, required a lot more walking than my husband was comfortable with. The part of the tour on the bus was very nice, the tour guide was friendly and knowledgeable but the walking as far as distance and ease was totally misrepresented by the written description and by the staff at the Shore Excursion Desk. Upon our return I cancelled the remaining 2 excursions because I couldn't be sure my husband would be able to participate due to his level of fatigue.

Our cabin was comfortable and clean with plenty of storage, hangers in the closet and lots of room.

Highlights:

1.  Stops in Cannes, Cinqe a Terre and Turkey--all very nice

2.  Attitude of the cruise staff, especially Tanya and Orlando

3.  Quality of the fitness facility

Needs improvement:

1.  Stops in Rome and Malta--difficult to enjoy the sights

2.  Food quality and variety

3.  Mediocre entertainment, with the exception of the one-man show

We really liked the places visited and amenities , hospitality and food cruise , in other words almost everything was excellent. The only problem was to get a chair in the pool area because people leaving towels and leaves and are reserved all day

Fantastic cruise and itinery. Ship is older and smaller than what I have been on previously but did not affect our experience. Would love to do it all again.

My favorite part of the cruise was sharing time with new friends I met on the ship...sharing stories after the excursions. I loved seeing the new ports of call like Slip and Kotor.

I had an absolute amazing time. The staff was excellent, food was great and the ship overall was awesome. The staff and crew went above and beyond to make you feel at home away from home.

The varied activities for each member of the family was excellent.  Dining experience was also wonderful.  There were other pre-teens and teens our family members were able to socialize with.  We had very good experiences in all of the restaurants and enjoyed the napkin folding class.  The trivia quizzes were the best and the entire family participated.  Great time was had by all.

The Brilliance of the Seas is a great ship with an awesome crew.  The evening shows were excellent.  The selection of food was excellent.  The ports were fantastic.  We will definitely be looking into another European adventure!  Thank you. 

everything was perfect.  We could not have asked for a better trip.  Thank you!! The cabin person and wait staff were perfect, could not ask for anything more.  To also point out Josh and Johan who did the activities were so great, we made sure we did not miss anything they were facilitating.  Can't wait for the next cruise. 

This was a 12 night cruise from Barcelona - we had our port stop at Turkey replaced with Crete (which I could have done without). Some of the ports were amazing (Santorini, Cince de Terre) and others were not so great ( Malta, Crete, Cannes ) so I felt like it was a mixed bag.

Onboard, the wifi was a constant problem (we actually had it refunded because of the constant problems ) and we bought a pass to the Thermal Spa which was broken 2 out of 2 times that I tried to use it. They ended up refunding that and as a gesture of goodwill, offered me a Razul (sp?) treatment free of charge and when I came to do that, that room was broken as well. My general feeling is that since the ship is older it is falling apart a bit.

We had a wonderful waiter (Amane) and assistant waiter (Aji) and enjoyed the wonderful service they provided! The onboard activities were severely lacking. We did a cruise w/ RC last year that was MUCH better. Basically there was only trivia and lots of seminars to sell you things. That's it. Also the TV had about three channels, one was to sell you things, another on the where you were and the last channel was in the wrong language. Very lacking.

The food was OK, not great but ok.

 I love the layout of the ship. It is set up perfectly. I love that they out of the spa and the location of the thermal room and steam rooms. I love the atrium, I think it's beautiful. However the whole ship needs a complete overhaul. The carpeting needs replaced all the banisters are worn, and The bathrooms on the entire ship me to be redone. They all have a horrible smell. I felt the food was adequate but not superior. They don't offer lobster anymore as part of their menu, you must now pay extra for it. I thought the food quality has gone downhill from when I've taken this Cruise before. I thought the itinerary was perfect and the way they scheduled it was perfect. I thought the staff was quite friendly and unhelpful. No one went out of their way to make us feel welcome or comfortable or like we were even on vacation. I may have to look into taking a different cruise line in the future, Which is too bad because royal Caribbean used to be my favorite 

The itinerary was great, but most of the staff were terrible. There were exactly 4 great staff members but the rest could not resolve problems THEY created and did not care. (Act silly, they somehow would blame you for their mistakes). I've sailed 3 times on RC, and 6-7 total cruises. This by far was the worst. Also, the ship is old and tired. 

I would regimen this itinerary, just use a different cruise line. 

We had a great time!  The ship was nice, the staff were great.  The dining room food was disappointing, if you've ever been on other cruises.  But, overall everything was good.  There was no special food for formal nights.  I've heard the Europeon cruises don't offer the same quality of food. Also, we had asked for a table for 2 by ourselves since we were on our honeymoon.  They didn't do that, so we had to ask and the next night they had placed a small table between 2 big tables, so closely that everytime the server tried to get through, he knocked our table.   They seemed to also be understaffed in the Windjammer Café.  Tables would stay dirty for a long time while people were trying to find a place to sit.  I booked 2 excursions with the ship and 5 with another company.  The other company was cheaper and had smaller groups and were actually better excursions.

The food, staff and ship were all wonderful.  A couple of exceptions but that is expected.  Had so much fun.  Ease off and on ship was amazing. Friendly staff made it a pleasure.  They are very experienced and well rehearsed.  I'll be back! 

Good ship.  Great staff.  Many of the passengers on board were loyal cruisers with the Brilliance.

I always enjoy transatlantic cruises with RCCL.

This cruise was a great way to get to Barcelona to meet up with the Ovation.

We were pleasantly replied with our first RC cruise and our first transatlantic cruise.  The food and overall service was good but not great.  We did enjoy very much our three dinners in the specialty dining rooms.  

We were surprised by the number of experienced cruisers, probably half had been on 20 plus cruises, some over 125.  We loved the trivia as there were 4-5 each day.  The entertainment was only so-so perhaps that was normal for a long trans-ocean cruise.

We were Pampered every day, usually in a special way.  Our bartender in the Diamond Lounge-Norman-was Fantastic.  Quick, efficient, accommodating, and most of all patient and SO personable.  We hope to see him on our next cruise.  The entire crew deserves praise.

I had always understood that Royal Caribbean cruises were a significant "step up" from Norwegian and Princess cruise lines, but we did not find this to be the case.

The Bad: the food. For 5 days the "vegetable of the day" on the dining room dinner choices was broccoli and carrots. Finally I complained and was given other vegetables upon request, but folks who did not do so continued to receive b and c. Pasta entrees were overwhelmingly disappointing: greasy, flavorless. Beef entrees were sometimes too tough or stringy to eat. There were no TV monitors on fitness equipment. Satellite TV service was lost for several days mid-cruise (this has never happened before on other trans-Atlantic cruises). The ship had no library. Daytime entertainment consisted of an awful lot of Trivia. Did not like ship design with atrium that extended all the way to the top of the ship.

The Good: the salad bar at the sit-down lunch venue. Breakfast at the sit-down venue. Lectures on port and regional history. Stretch classes in the gym. Ports of call: Gibralter and Malaga (Soain), Evening entertainment, except that music was too loud. Most of the music groups. 

The Best: a Catholic chaplain on board who said daily morning mass.

we had a positive cruise but negative response to the issue of obstructed balcony even thought  all three cabins paid for unobstructed balcony's. Room numbers are 8662 and 8162