Embarkation: After a quick breakfast down the street from the hotel, we set out for the pier. We arrived at the pier about 10:30. They were just staring to collect the luggage but there probably only about 50 people in front of us. We waited about in line for about 5 minutes before being able to drop our bags and head inside. There were no lines for check-in and as we were finishing up our paperwork, they were allowing people to start boarding the ship. We were on board by 10:45.
We carried on 2 bottles of wine per cabin, all packed in our carry-on luggage. There was no extra screening or any noticeable attempt to make sure we only had 2 per cabin. There is a duty-free shop in the terminal but we bought our wine at the grocery store near our hotel.
General Observations: While Brilliance is an older ship, she is aging well and is well maintained. During the week they replaced the carpet in the dining room and the turf around the pool. For the most part the carpet replacement in the dining room had little impact on passengers but the pool turf was poorly executed. They started the project while we were in Barbados (last port). All week the weather had been calling for rain that day and we had showers nearly hourly all day. This meant the project would have to spill over into the sea day making half the pool deck unusable until mid-afternoon. Needless to say, chair hogs were out in force and the pool staff didn't seem to care at all.
Great balcony, noisy when ship is backing up, crew stairwell nex door