We had the pleasure of taking the Brilliance of the Seas repositioning cruise as it headed from drydock in Hamburg on a cruise from Southampton to Barcelona with stops in Le Havre, Vigo, Lisbon, Tangiers, Corsica, Villefrance.

We are in our late 50s and this was our 11th cruise and our third cruise to Europe. The other 2 Europe cruises were on Celebrity to the Baltic and the Mediterranean. We also cruised with Celebrity to Bermuda and NE/Can. We've cruised on Princess (Alaska), HAL (Panama Canal) and Carnival (NE/Can). Our previous RCL cruise was the Explorer holiday cruise from NJ to the Eastern Caribbean. As you can see, we've cruised on a lot of cruise lines. Brilliance compared favorably to our other favorite ship, the Constellation. We also loved the Explorer of the Seas

We are avid walkers and in good weather we walk several miles a day after dinner. Whenever we can, we do ports on our own. We love to experience the ambiance of the different cities/countries we visit. We've done ships excursions and while we can still handle the walking, we've decided to do as many ports as we can on our own or with an independent tour guide. This is nothing against excursions - we hope to be cruising for many more years and we will take excursions when we feel we can no longer walk for hours and miles or when the time and distance to an attraction does not allow us to have at least a one hour cushion for on-board time. Read more