My last two cruises, and the only two in recent years, was aboard the Regal Princess so I didn't get that "wow" feeling after boarding the Brilliance since the Regal is truly a beautiful ship with a huge open piazza and the Brilliance is much smaller and closed in; however, by the time the cruise ended the Brilliance had me sold and I would gladly cruise on it again.

My favorite thing was the Solarium area. It's beautiful and the brutal sun was kept at bay unlike the main pool and hot tub. The salt water pool is a delight at night to float around and let sort muscles and joints rest. The Solarium also included the Park Café, with mostly sensible choices, that was the only food venue where you could get something to eat anytime. I got out of the hot tub late one night after a small portioned dinner in the main dining room and grabbed a couple oatmeal raisin cookies and a carton of milk for a bedtime snack.

The dining room did a good job on basic food although they did fancy up desserts. I've been on 3 other cruises and they had fancier meals (higher end entrees) but didn't always hit the mark so sticking to a little more basic food with consistency probably has a better overall outcome. With that said, I did have to reorder one night because my roasted turkey taste very much like leftover reheated poultry. It was awful. Another night I had the bay scallop starter, very tasty, which was probably 8 very tiny scallops and then the shrimp lobster ravioli which was a serving of 4 and very delicious but let's just say I had plenty of room left for dessert that night. That was the tricky part - I wasn't sure when you order 0, 1, or even 2 starters because I had no idea of how large or filling each course would be. The staff was marvelous though - friendly, accommodating, and efficient. Read more