Brilliance of the Seas Review
Ship suitability for 8-10 year olds, what to bring & shore excursions
Rating by category
Additional details
I chose this cruise because it fit perfectly into our itinerary and I had heard good things about Royal Caribbean. It was my first cruise ever. Just me and my oldest daughter for her 10th birthday. For only $150 more total for the two of us, we got a stateroom with a balcony which we loved. We didn't sit outside very much, but the room felt less claustrophobic this way and I don't know how else we would have dried our swim gear and water socks.
Overall we liked our experience but I have no idea how it compares to other cruise lines. While there were some offerings for the age range of my daughter who is almost 10, she thought in particular that the water slide on our boat was "something for little kids". It was much too slow for her. She loved the climbing wall and the mini golf but didn't want to participate in the kids' program "all by herself". So I can't say anything about that.
Having never cruised before I thought the pools were to small and didn't feel enticed to even go in. I like swimming laps, but I guess that's something you just can't do on a cruise ship, at least not on this one. My daughter said the pool water was quite cold.
Cabin Review
Deluxe Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony
We loved our stateroom attendant, Andy (Andi?) assigned to our room 7632. He was very attentive and always willing to answer our questions. The room was impeccable. I rewarded him with an extra cash tip which I felt was more than earned.
The beds were ok, but not super comfortable. Our rooms seemed to be right above a bar that was featuring a karaoke competition on several nights. Some other passengers we met in the hallway outside of our cabin confirmed that they had heard it too. I was thankful for the advice I had read here to bring ear plugs.
The temperature in our cabin was adjustable and comfortable. They put some fans in the long hallways in front of the cabins that kept the air moving.
Our room had plenty of storage. We brought extra hangers because I read that advice somewhere on here. But we had a total of 14 + 22 good quality wooden hangers in our closets, didn't need the extra ones at all.
Glad I bought a clothes line from amazon to put across our balcony, the one in the shower was much too short to dry our swim clothes.
I did buy one of those mesh storage things to hang from the bathroom door and was glad I had it as it was easier to find some things there as if they had been stored in drawers. But we didn't need it for extra storage.
When we first arrived the handle of the shower head was chipped to the point where you had to be careful not to cut your hand when holding it. I called the maintenance number and they send a plumber up right away who replaced it with a new one.
Port Reviews
Tampa
Getting on the boat was a breeze as we didn't get there until around 2 hours before the boat was scheduled to leave and almost everyone else seemed to have boarded already.
Getting of there was a wait, lines were long, we figured out too late that all that was needed was to get a porter with a cart and tip him to get into the fast lane.