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Royal Caribbean International

MV Brilliance of the Seas

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Reviewed by: Patrick Wetter
# previous cruises: 31 to 40
Date of Trip: May 12, 2003
Itinerary: Mediterranean

The BRILLIANCE OF THE SEAS is a typical Meyer-Werft build ship. The quality of construction is excellent, the ship itself is beautiful and has a perfect layout for a ship of such large size.

If you like larger ships, you'll be impressed by the design of the lounges and outside areas. I guess it is the most beautiful looking ship of the RCI fleet.

As the ship is so large, it offers a large variety of public lounges such as different bars, dance-lounges, showrooms, restaurants or pool areas. The most beautiful room onboard is most probably the Solarium which features a whirlpool and swimming pool and is covered by a magrodome. The whole room has been designed like an Indian temple. All together, the hardware of the BRILLIANCE is very good with lots of diversity.

The food was generally good even if sometimes meals were confused or ordered dishes and wines were no more available (a thing which should not happen on such a ship !!!) The buffet was large with lots of choice which attracts unfortunately mostly the American clientele. Especially the breakfast buffet did not feature the dishes to which most european passengers would tend to eat. Coffee and juices were free ! The buffet area could have been kept cleaner ! As well there was no assistance to serve the food. If you couldn't handle to cut a piece of pizza, you were lost ! Nobody assisted to carry the plates to your table. There were no trays to carry your plates and glasses....(means that food had everything else had to be mixed together on a plate !

The cabins are of a good size and had lots of storage space. A fridge, TV (offered only few times foreign language programs) and safe were provided. A hair dryer was fitted in the cabin but not in the bathroom. The bathroom was rather small. There were no toiletries such as shampoo or shower-caps. There was not even a garbage bin ! The cabin-service was friendly and professional !

The entertainment onboard the BRILLIANCE was of the poorest I have ever seen on a ship which such facilities ! During 12 days there was only one suitable production show ! The pool party could not at all be considered as a party as it was over after 30 minutes when the buffet was empty. Apart from the show-band, all other entertainers did not have nay quality to be singers or players (worst was the singer in the Schooner Bar which was awful !). All parts of entertainment was only in English (sometimes translated into Spanish). With a large amount of Germans and French-speaking passengers onboard, this was not suitable ! The cruise staff did not once take the opportunity to provide some animations apart from some silly horseplay-games which seemed to be a game for kids.

Organization concerning the shuttle-busses in port were disastrous. 1 bus was provided to carry about 1000 passengers to the city-center, including the motto: "the crew comes first". While you had to pay an incredible 4 USD per person for such a bus (which at every low-cost-cruise line is provided for free!!!), this part of going to a city was the worst one to chose ! No one responsible there to assist !

The disco started after 1:00 am only with their program (far too late for most passengers !). Wellness and beauty-facilities were overcharged and too expensive. Even regular drinks onboard were far more expensive than on any other ship I have been.

Fellow passengers were mostly from Spain. the rest can be considered as an international clientele. Therefore RCI should provide international announcements and languages onboard when cruising in Europe. Lots of older people seemed to be completely lost ! The embarkation was disastrous (no one guides you to the cabins - thousands of pax embarking in lines - errors with important documents, passports and visas which were not correctly verified by the crew later provided problems with the authorities). All together: Never again with RCI, never again on a large ship over 50000 grt !!!! Long live the fleet of smaller, traditional ships !