We recently shared the great time we had on a 5-night western Caribbean cruise – that’s the one where we brought back a future son-in-law. We’d like to circle back and take a few minutes to share our impressions of the overall cruise experience on Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas.
The Ship
The Brilliance of the Seas is one of Royal Caribbean’s older and smaller vessels. It lacks some of the more exciting amenities of the larger ships, but still manages to fit in the standard theatre, spa, and swimming pools as well as fun features like a miniature golf course and a rock-climbing wall. (Although one does question the wisdom of placing a golf course on the top deck of a cruise ship.) One of the unique features of the ship is the Solarium, with an indoor pool and hot tubs - definite selling points when the Brilliance makes it’s Alaska trips during the summer months.
The Centrum
The ship was refurbished in 2018 and is well maintained and in good repair. The signature architectural feature is the Centrum – an open atrium that extends from Deck 4 up to Deck 13. When we first arrived onboard, we were exploring the ship and Pati looked down into the Centrum from the dizzying heights and said, “Wow! You can just imagine the water swirling up through there!” Carrigan, who is young enough to have been spared watching movies like Earthquake and The Poseidon Adventure looked at her mother wide-eyed, “Mom! Why would you even say something like that?” I just smiled, thankful that Pati said it before I did.
Sunset from the Heli-pad.
One of our favorite spots on the ship was the forward deck where they have a helicopter pad. This was a quiet location for watching the sunset, stargazing, or acting out your own “I’m King of the World” moment perched on the bow.
The Food
Our overall dining experience was just okay. The dinner service in the Main Dining Room was painfully slow, always at least two hours, and the food itself wasn’t particularly memorable, at least not in a good way. We did love our Assistant Waiter and Head Waiter – they were definitely the highlight of our dinner dining.
Breakfast on the balcony.
Overall, the Windjammer buffet consistently provided a better variety of options with quality at least as good as the Main Dining Room. Our group informally claimed the outdoor seating area at the stern of the Windjammer as our basecamp and would gather there for breakfast and lunch, and use it as a general rally point.
The Entertainment
Like the food, the entertainment was okay, but not fantastic. The musical troupe that performed in the main theatre had one or two singers that made the shows – the rest of the cast seemed to be made up of frustrated theatre majors. The headliner Mentalist was very entertaining; the Comedian was okay. We found ourselves gathering at the Schooner Bar most evenings - it featured a piano player that was pretty good. He was no “Elton John,” but he could play well enough to get the crowd singing along!
World's largest "water hazard."
Connectivity
The Royal Caribbean app is used as a messaging platform, event schedule, spending tracker, and general communication tool while onboard the ship. We found the app was essentially useless when we were in our cabins. The app uses the ship’s on-board Wi-Fi, which apparently doesn’t work particularly well when you are inside a metal box, surrounded by other metal boxes. We had no signal in our cabin, but as soon as we stepped out of our cabin, we would be buried in messages…
”See you at the pool in ten.”
“We are at the pool.”
“We are on the side by the bar.”
“We saved you lounge chairs.”
“Are you guys coming?”
“Are you okay?”
“We are heading back to our cabin.”
“See you at dinner?”
So, yeah. Not the most useful app.
All things considered, we had a wonderful experience and thoroughly enjoyed the cruise. Overall, we would rate this particular cruise a few notches below our previous Disney Cruise Line trips, and several notches above our Carnival cruises. So, about what you might expect. Would we travel on the Brilliance of the Seas again? Sure. But I don’t think we would seek it out.
Below the Line
Cruise Gear and Gadgets
A good friend and experienced cruiser hooked us up with some very useful gear for our trip. Below are some of the items we found most helpful.
Cruise-Approved Power Adaptor
Plugs are in short supply in your typical cabin, and never where you need them. But cruise lines have strict rules against power strips and extension cords. This “cruise approved” power block provided extra outlets as well as USB charging ports to keep all of our gadgets juiced up.
Magnetic Hooks
Hooks aren’t just for clumsy pirates – they can help make the most out the very limited cabin storage space. It turns out that the cabin walls are metal, so these magnetic hooks made a great way to stow small items and keep things organized.
Cool Breezes
This small, USB-charged fan would run all night long after being charged up during the day. Which was very convenient since there were no power outlets anywhere near the bed!
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