Musings on 19th August 2014 Brilliance of the Seas Baltic cruise

We have just returned from the above cruise, and, as I probably won't get around to doing a full review, I thought I would jot down some personal observations, comments, plaudits and criticisms.

In no particular order here they are;

Embarkation and debarkation at Harwich was excellent, smooth, quick and hassle free.

Staff were, almost to a man, fantastic, smiley, helpful, friendly and efficient. The exceptions to this were the blonde woman officer at embarkation who barked orders at everyone as we boarded - not a great first impression, she was plain rude. The chap serving the cooked meat at Windjammer, miserable and sullen, seemed to want to put as little as possible on your plate and scowled if asked for more.

Service in the MDR on MTD was the best we have ever had, the wait staff could not do enough for us. The Maitre D was also very visible and pro active. Thank you Jonathan, Allan, Anthony, and Jose. Seating was a bit hit and miss due to guests not arriving at their booked time causing a knock on effect to those who had booked for later. Guys, if you book, stick to the time or call. Claudia did a great job with the seating, under sometimes very trying conditions.

Some guests clearly hate to wait in line at the MTD desk, and seemed to think those of us who were waiting were just there to be walked by as they leaned across to ask to be seated. Newsflash, that is what we were there for too!! Wait your turn please.

Cabin steward provided great, unobtrusive service and gave us a range of towel animals. Lovely, friendly chap named Asa.

We felt the wait for tables in Windjammer was too long, again, down to guests lingering well after finishing their meals.

Park Cafe, here the the tables need policing so that those who are just reading or dozing do not hog them and prevent others using them to eat at. We never got a table there due to this. Because it was a Baltic cruise and so a little "fresh" outside whole families were camped out at these tables all day.

We had a hump cabin with an over sized balcony. I had been concerned this would make the cabin dark, but this was nt the case. We loved it. However, there was Centrum noise till 11.30pm most nights, it didn't bother us but it may be an issue for some people. There was a door but it was never closed.

Food was ok, not very good, not very bad, just ok. There was variety but still some evenings not much appealed. It lacked "something" which is probably due to the constraints of mass production. My DH ordered a Chops steak one evening and I tasted it and the quality was very noticeably higher than the regular steak. Giving a sauce option with the regular steak would improve matters imo. Soups were good. Desserts were variable.

We did the Indian lunch demo and meal which was held in Chops and we really enjoyed it, but do remember to go hungry, there was so much (too much imo) food. It was a nice experience though and for $15 was well worth it. Skip breakfast would be my tip.

My biggest gripe was the choice of white wine on the $43 package - there wasn't one.

There was only one option available and that was a Chardonnay which I do not drink, had we known upfront I would not have bought the package. There were 4 red wines available, but as I do not normally drink red that was little comfort! I had to resort to red on a couple of occasions. I think they should either equalise the two or at the very least spell it out at point of sale. We felt the sellers of these packages were not well trained as they could not answer any questions about specifics of the wine that was included. In the end we bought it hoping for the best and were disappointed.

Ports of call were excellent and well organised, and guests were well informed about each of them. We missed two ports due to bad weather but the Captain and crew did a great job of sorting out two alternatives (and even possibly better) ports at very short notice. Other ships who were similarly affected apparently just had more sea days tacked on, so clearly our experience was much better.

Entertainment was mixed imo. The solo artists in various venues were great; Manda, Pedro and the Centrum band spring to mind. All very professional, personable, and had a good rapport with the audience. Ditto most of the headline acts. We felt the resident singers and dancers did not fit into that category, they weren't bad singers but they seemed to lack stage presence and the ability to engage the audience. Sad to say, but we did think that at least one of the dancers was a tad old to be doing the Full Monty, hot stuff they were not!!

Dru the Cruise Director was visible, friendly and a good host. The rest of the entertainment team were good too. They threw themselves into all the activities with gusto.

Bar staff were good, with a particular mention to Rochelle on the R bar, what a lovely chap.

All in all we had a great cruise. If anyone has any questions pease ask.:)

Forgot to add we had good weather, which was a real bonus.

Nice detailed positive review

Appreciated

Thanks :)

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Thank you, I was told that staff onboard do read CC so I thought it would be nice to read a review showing that their hard work was appreciated. We were on MTD so had paid our tips upfront but we felt their service warranted extra so we tipped in cash on the last evening too, using the the WOW envelopes.

How early were they allowing people off the ship in Harwich? We want to get off as early as possible to get to London. Thanks.

Did you do any ship tours? any that you would recommend? How soon can you sign up for ship tours? thanks