Brilliance of the Seas Review
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My husband and I sailed on the Brilliance as a slightly belated honeymoon since his military training had kept us from traveling immediately after the wedding. It was worth the wait!
This was my third cruise and his first, and both of our first on RCI. We hugely enjoyed ourselves, both on board ship and at port in both Grand Cayman and Cozumel.
Embarkation:
Cabin Review
Large Ocean View Stateroom
We chose an oceanview cabin very far forward on deck 4, and we were happy with our choice. The Pacifica theater, a stairwell, and a deck not much traveled surrounded us on three sides, so noise during sleeping hours was minimal. With a white noise app playing on our phones, we were never disturbed by any noises during the night. It's also on a hallway with several handicap-accessible rooms, so I think it's unlikely ever to be much of a party area. While we were sailing there was a large extended family celebrating their grandmother's birthday staying on the same hall and other than the occasional excited kid, there wasn't much noise at all. We were also only one deck from our dining room on deck five, and just a few steps from the forward elevators and stairs, which made traveling around the ship easy.The main downside was that most activities, breakfast, and lunch, along with most of the convenient drink sources including all the self-service water and juice stations, were on deck 11 and all the way aft, which meant quite a trek for water or snacks, and was probably a contributing factor to our decision to skip so many activities at the last minute. We're young and healthy, so this wasn't much of an inconvenience, but were I planning another cruise with my family aboard, I don't think this would have been a very good stateroom location for, say, my grandmother. I wear a fitbit and on most days and without specially trying, I got somewhere between 40-65 flights of stairs and around 3.5 miles of walking (I don't like elevators when I can avoid them).The cabin itself was more than big enough for the two of us, and though the shower is small, the water pressure was great. There was ample storage for five days worth of clothes for each of us even though I massively overpacked, and our unfolded suitcase fit under the bed. Our only complaint was that the bed was not at all comfortable. I like a firm mattress but it was approaching concrete. It's fortunate we find the rocking of the ship lulling because the bed itself was not making any contributions to sleepiness!