Brilliance of the Seas Review

Great itinerary, wonderful dining room staff, tired ship

Review for the Western Mediterranean Cruise on Brilliance of the Seas
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10+ Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Aug 2017

We had a wonderful time on our cruise. The ports were fabulous. Then, the first night of the cruise (we were doing my time dining), we had a wonderful time with the people we had dinner with (who we did not know). The ship allowed us all to change times for the rest of the cruise so that we could all eat together every night and reserved a table for it. It really made for a fabulous cruise. To make dining even better, our waiters (we had the same ones every night) were absolutely fabulous.

However, the rest of the ship was not up to the dining room staff or the itinerary. Our cabin was hot when we arrived (shouldn't our room steward have noticed this prior to us boarding) and we had to have an engineer called. The movie theatre was closed half the cruise. There were computer problems one night with the big show. Many nights we could not attend the big show (including the two comedians) because they had only one show and it conflicted with dining. Staff in Next Cruises was incompetent. Staff at guest services was not much better. We came on board and an excursion we were scheduled for the next day to go to Cannes was cancelled. We asked for

We have been on a number of Royal Caribbean cruises and the staff is generally a highlight of the ship and we really like Royal Caribbean. However, with the exception of the dining room (also the food there was better than in most Royal Caribbean main dining rooms), this fell behind the quality of my previous experiences on Royal Caribbeans.

Cabin Review

Port Reviews

Barcelona

We spent 3 days in Barcelona prior to the cruise and had a wonderful time. Montiel was an incredible restaurant.

Nice

We were scheduled for an excursion to Cannes, but found out when we got on board that RC cancelled the excursion (how come we have to give them 48 hours notice but they can cancel with less than 24 hours notice?). We went to Nice on an on-off bus and had a wonderful time. Loved the market there and the Chagall museum.

Salerno

We had a wonderful RC excursion to Herculaneum. Fascinating. And a magnificent tour guide. She was just tremendous.

Only downside was RC personnel when we got back. When we got back to the ship, it was really pouring and RC was not set up for it. Only one line to get onto the ship (usually there were two). No covering. People were getting soaked because of RC incompetence.

Ravenna (Bologna)

Two part RC tour. First, we went to ceramics factory and museum. Much bigger part of excursion than was anticipated from RC materials and really boring.

Next part was trip to coop making olive oil and wine. Thought this would be bigger part of excursion and it was a lot of fun.

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