My (belated) Trip Report: Brilliance of the Seas Eastbound Transatlantic 2014

Great summary Chris. We discovered the noro outbreak when we observed every crew member wiping just about every common surface with some form of disinfectant. Crew members stopped shaking hands in favor of elbow bumps and self service for food halted abruptly. It seems that you observed a lot of "rule breaking" by the passengers. While I didn't observe it to the same degree that you did, I find it easily believable.

Looking forward to the rest of the review. :D

Enjoying your review. Thanks for posting. :)

 

Eagerly awaiting further reviews on your cruise.

 

Wondering if Sacha, the Diamond Concierge, is still there. He was a great help to us when we were on BOS recently.

 

How am I going to survive our Carnival Legend B2B without my Diamond Lounge coffee machine? The withdrawals are already beginning. ;-)

 

Sacha is now on Legend of the Seas as Diamond Concierge.

Enjoying your review/trip report.

 

Keith

Thanks for the report?

I'm enjoying the report also. We were on this cruise and the one after. I saw plenty happen in the Wind Jammer even after they cracked down. The serving was so slow at times that I saw people just reach over and grab what they wanted with their hands. yuk.

 

There were twelve in our group and only three of us got the noro. One of the ones that got it ate all meals but one in the MDR. She had it a long time (over two weeks) after the other two in our group had it so we don't think she got it from them.

 

I do think that RCI was trying to keep it down. I washed my hands a million times and of course had my hands squirted another million. I've never been so clean.

 

Looking forward to the rest of your report. Wondering if you thought the same things that our group thought.

Great report! I also was very careful to constantly wash my hands and I thought I had escaped the noro, but......I didn't feel so well on disembarkation day and by time I reached my hotel in London, I was sure I had it. Fortunately, it lasted only 24 hours and I was holed up in a hotel room with 20+ channels of English TV and free wifi instead of confined to my inside cabin on the ship watching the Mentalist in Spanish (or Portuguese or Italian). My London plans came to naught, but I was fine to fly home two days later. I never ate lunch in the WJ - MDR or Park Cafe instead. Breakfast was from the CL where they were constantly cleaning and even served you from the buffet.

The one time I experienced the dreaded virus was here in Tampa from a food truck rally. I was incapacitated for three days and it was very unpleasant. So much so that we called the doctor and found out just how much more over the counter medicine could be taken to halt the symptoms.

 

Did anyone hear how many cases were recorded on our cruise?

Anyone know what the craft sessions consisted of please? We're due on Brilliance one month from today, yay!! :D

 

Thanks for a great review!

We also will be on the west bound transatlantic in August. I'm enjoying reading your review.

Yeah! Thank you Chris for taking the time to write a review!. You can add me to the too lazy crowd. I don't think I took more than a dozen pictures the whole trip, and most of those were in Bath/Stonehenge from the few days we spent after the cruise.

 

Neither my sister nor I got noro, but she got some kind of respiratory virus, that I ended up with a few days after leaving the ship. Not a big deal for me, but she doesn't do sick well, and missed a couple of excursions.

 

I have to agree, there were a fair amount of TWA passengers, but I feel they have been on my last several cruises pretty consistently. I try very hard not to let them get to me, and usually laugh them off (then avoid them as often as possible). I do think the high number of seasoned cruisers increase the likelihood :rolleyes:

 

I guess I understand why the entertainment crew seemed disorganized at some times. I know this was the 1st cruises for Clo and Chris together, and certainly none of their schedules for previous cruises are applicable. Lot's of sea days, and lot's of seasoned cruisers to entertain. It has to be the hardest two weeks of their year! Perfect is a high bar to reach!

 

Overall, we had a great time met some wonderful people (even if their trivia skills were less than stellar ;))!

Essexlass - The Arts and Crafts was watercolor. Because of the lack of other arts and crafts on the ship, if you wanted to do watercolor you had to get there an hour early to get a spot. I therefore did not attend these classes because I would not stand for an hour to do watercolor. There should have been a second crafts instructor on the ship.

 

The instructor appeared to be one who came through an agency and I would not expect to have watercolor on your cruise. In fact, if it is a Baltic cruise, there may not be any arts and crafts instructor.

 

In addition, RCCL also only had one lecturer who most of us did not like. He talked on a variety of subjects but his powerpoint presentation was a lot better than the depth of the material. After 2 lectures I decided it was not worth giving up my lounge chair in the solarium. I would have expected at least 2 lecturers on a cruise with 9 sea days.

 

Even the port excursion talks were poor because most of the excursions were sold out and the poor girl was asked by people why she was talking about excursions that were not available. Of course the ports (and they were great ports) were one time only for the speaker and she did not have a lot of information. I usually use these talks to help me find out what to do on my own.

 

All in all, there were not enough activities for the number of sea days. RCCL was well aware that the weather was not going to be good for sitting outdoors. The Cruise Director even mentioned this at the beginning of the cruise, that it was good to have a cruise where people did not care about the weather. Therefore, you would have expected more indoor activities.

 

I agree with the comment about the movies. Many of us asked about showing the movies in the theatre rather than the cinema, but they had a few new acts for the longer summer cruises and they were practicing in the theatre in the afternoon.

 

On the other hand, I found the theatre entertainment to be excellent. In February I took a 14 day Celebrity Caribbean cruise and they were desperate for theatre entertainment relying on the lounge acts a few nights. If you normally like the theatre shows, I think you will be happy with the shows. Only one poor juggling act.

Essexlass - The Arts and Crafts was watercolor. Because of the lack of other arts and crafts on the ship, if you wanted to do watercolor you had to get there an hour early to get a spot. I therefore did not attend these classes because I would not stand for an hour to do watercolor. There should have been a second crafts instructor on the ship.

 

The instructor appeared to be one who came through an agency and I would not expect to have watercolor on your cruise. In fact, if it is a Baltic cruise, there may not be any arts and crafts instructor.

 

There was also a series of jewelry making classes in the Schooner Bar. I passed by them on several days. To your point, I'm not sure one could expect whatever was on the TA to be carried over to the Baltic.

Great report! I also was very careful to constantly wash my hands and I thought I had escaped the noro, but......I didn't feel so well on disembarkation day and by time I reached my hotel in London, I was sure I had it. Fortunately, it lasted only 24 hours and I was holed up in a hotel room with 20+ channels of English TV and free wifi instead of confined to my inside cabin on the ship watching the Mentalist in Spanish (or Portuguese or Italian). My London plans came to naught, but I was fine to fly home two days later. I never ate lunch in the WJ - MDR or Park Cafe instead. Breakfast was from the CL where they were constantly cleaning and even served you from the buffet.

 

 

Hi, Carol how are you? Kids are all well!

Essexlass - The Arts and Crafts was watercolor. Because of the lack of other arts and crafts on the ship, if you wanted to do watercolor you had to get there an hour early to get a spot. I therefore did not attend these classes because I would not stand for an hour to do watercolor. There should have been a second crafts instructor on the ship.

 

The instructor appeared to be one who came through an agency and I would not expect to have watercolor on your cruise. In fact, if it is a Baltic cruise, there may not be any arts and crafts instructor.

 

In addition, RCCL also only had one lecturer who most of us did not like. He talked on a variety of subjects but his powerpoint presentation was a lot better than the depth of the material. After 2 lectures I decided it was not worth giving up my lounge chair in the solarium. I would have expected at least 2 lecturers on a cruise with 9 sea days.

 

Even the port excursion talks were poor because most of the excursions were sold out and the poor girl was asked by people why she was talking about excursions that were not available. Of course the ports (and they were great ports) were one time only for the speaker and she did not have a lot of information. I usually use these talks to help me find out what to do on my own.

 

All in all, there were not enough activities for the number of sea days. RCCL was well aware that the weather was not going to be good for sitting outdoors. The Cruise Director even mentioned this at the beginning of the cruise, that it was good to have a cruise where people did not care about the weather. Therefore, you would have expected more indoor activities.

 

I agree with the comment about the movies. Many of us asked about showing the movies in the theatre rather than the cinema, but they had a few new acts for the longer summer cruises and they were practicing in the theatre in the afternoon.

 

On the other hand, I found the theatre entertainment to be excellent. In February I took a 14 day Celebrity Caribbean cruise and they were desperate for theatre entertainment relying on the lounge acts a few nights. If you normally like the theatre shows, I think you will be happy with the shows. Only one poor juggling act.

 

There was also a series of jewelry making classes in the Schooner Bar. I passed by them on several days. To your point, I'm not sure one could expect whatever was on the TA to be carried over to the Baltic.

 

Thank you both for your comments. I wouldn't be interested in water colour painting (can hardly manage to do matchstick men!) but the jewellery making or maybe beading, cardmaking, etc would be more my thing. Because a Baltic cruise is so port intensive, it might just be that on the rare sea days all we shall want to do is to relax and catch our breath in readiness for the next port of call, but it would be nice to learn a new craft or enjoy a good lecture.

 

We do love the theatre shows and it seems that we might be lucky there! :D

[quote name='demodawn']Hi, Carol how are you? Kids are all well![/QUOTE]


Hi Dawn! Glad everything is fine with your family. I am fine - I really dodged a bullet with the noro. Beyond Boston we really only had three ports - Cork, Cherbourg, and Bruges and I would have hated to miss any of them. I've been to London 5 times over the years, so missing some museums or whatever wasn't the end of the world. I was sick only 24 hrs - not pleasant, but not nearly as bad as I expected, particularly having lived and been sick in Mexico.

Our family is fine - we have a new DGD this year, so we're up to three now.

[U]Cobh, Ireland[/U]

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Outside Blarney Castle[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/people//]cmong[/url], on Flickr

After six sea days, we had made it to Ireland. The ship was scheduled to dock around 8, I believe (I did not keep the Compasses), but we arrived a little early and passengers were allowed to debark right around that time. I had pre-booked the Butler E-Coach ([url]http://www.ecoach.ie/blarney_bus_tour.php[/url]) for their Blarney bus tour. Some CC members booked smaller, private tours from the same company. Those that booked the coach were split into two groups ... essentially the first bus left as soon as it was full, then the second bus waited until the meet time and, when they didn't see anyone rushing to the bus, took off.

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Path to Blarney Castle[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/people//]cmong[/url], on Flickr

The itinerary was fairly nice. It took about an hour to get out to the Blarney Castle, so during that time we were given a nice narration about the area by our guide. Once we arrived at the Castle, we could either go in or we could poke around the town also shop at the main store, the Blarney Woolen Mills. We were given about 2 hours on this stop ... I went ahead and walked to the Castle, paid admission (10 euro student/senior, 12 anyone else ... and they do take credit cards for over 20 euro), and toured the grounds by myself. Afterwards I had a bit of time to shop at the Woolen Mills which actually surprised me as being a very nice shop. I guess I'm used to pretty lame "tour" stops that amount to a small store, bathrooms, and kickbacks to coaches. This store was huge, seemed to have decent prices, and also seemed to have about anything "Irish" you could imagine beyond cheap souvenirs (though they had those too). Lots of food items, wool, shirts, crystal, decorations ... just a very nice stop. There was also an ATM which I made use of as this was our first of several Euro stops (I later found out it cost me about $2 to use the ATM ... definitely cheaper than the ship).

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Sign at Charles Fort with Kinsale across the water[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/people//]cmong[/url], on Flickr

After leaving the Blarney area, we driven through Cork and then taken to Charlesfort for a few pictures. After that, we were dropped off at Kinsale for a few hours so that we could grab lunch and see the town on our own. We ended up going to a pub called The White House and having some very nice seafood and beer. After Kinsale, we went back to the port area for a few minutes, then returned to the ship.

All-in-all, I would definitely recommend this company and this tour. It was a long tour, but also had long spans of free time. The price though could not be beat. I think the price may have varied a bit, but I booked at around 35 euro per person. As way of comparison, the comparable ship tour with essentially all of the same stops (though I'm sure also including the fee to Blarney Castle) was $135/p.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/nKswxY][img]https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2917/14275277142_8abcc5c4c5_z.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/nKswxY]
Irish turn out to see ship off[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/people//]cmong[/url], on Flickr

The port area was actually very crowded as many locals had turned out to see the ship off. You can see multiple levels of people in the image above.

There was a very large line to get back on the ship that was made longer, of course, by the people trying to cut into it at the gangway instead of going to the back which stretched along the water. Once again, RCI did not have anyone managing the line. I personally kept a group of 4 from getting in front of me at the head of the line I had already spent 15 minutes in and got a bunch of excuses about how they had been waiting the other direction (ie, they decided to start a line going left instead of right and push their way in). I think everyone though was frustrated ... security was slow due to the passenger base and everyone was trying to come back at the very end after being cooped up on the ship so long.

[U]Cherbourg, France[/U]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/nHAGHN][img]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3776/14254239256_103c14846a_z.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/nHAGHN]
American Spirit[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/people//]cmong[/url], on Flickr

Our second European port was in France and, since it was a bit of a haul from Ireland, We were not slated to arrive until 2 PM. I originally was not sure what I wanted to do in Cherbourg, but then I saw that the ship was offering tours to the Normandy beaches and I thought that would make a good afternoon. I had been there previously when I was in high school, but my dad had never been and was interested in seeing some of the sights. When I went to book online, though, all of the Normandy beach tours through the ship were sold out and listed as "inquire onboard." While we had OBC to burn, this was one thing I really wanted to do and I did not want to wait only to be told onboard that there was no room. I started looking online for tour companies and contacted the ones that looked promising. Almost everyone I talked to was already booked for that day or was outrageously expensive. I ended up booking an 8-person van from Normandy Sightseeing Tours. It was a bit pricy at 500 euro for a 2-7pm tour, but assuming we would get a full bus, it would still work out to be cheaper than the ship's tour. I posted availability on our roll call and was able to fill the van very quickly (thanks everyone).

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Area around Pointe du Hoc[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/people//]cmong[/url], on Flickr

Of course, with an afternoon debarkation and a short stop, everything was fairly hectic. I will give RCI credit here, though ... they actually had someone watching the line, directing traffic, and keeping people coming off the stairs from merging right into the front of the line. I met our group in the Centrum and after a short lineup, we were outside and heading off (they had us carry our passports off ... no one ever asked to see it).

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Looking down Omaha Beach[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/people//]cmong[/url], on Flickr

Our itinerary was pretty simple ... we were going to Pointe du Hoc, Omaha Beach, the American Cemetery, and then a quick stop at St. Mere Eglise. Normandy was a bit of a haul from Cherbourg (about 50 mins). Our guide Olivier tried to give an overview of D-Day and offer some historical background. Unfortunately there was not a microphone in the fairly large van, so he had to essentially scream backwards while driving and was still mostly drowned out. This was the worst part of the tour, in my opinion, though again there was little to be done with the equipment given. We found the weather probably to be much like the planners of D-Day found it ... very fickle. At one point there would be brilliant sunlight, and then a minute later, the wind and rain would be pounding you. We hit a bit of rain at Pointe du Hoc, but it then held itself back for the rest of our tour.

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Guide Olivier and group at Omaha Beach[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/people//]cmong[/url], on Flickr

I can see this being called a "guy" tour in that it was about war, but I always find it fascinating to see the actual places I've read about or have seen in documentaries or movies. It certainly adds a sense of scope to your point of view. I thought our guide did a very good job of not only trying to describe what we were seeing, but also add in the human aspect through stories ... and that is really what I see as the purpose of a guide. I can read about stuff and figure out what to look at, but it's the human touchstone to history that really makes these types of things worthwhile.

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American Cemetery at Normandy[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/people//]cmong[/url], on Flickr

After our tour, we returned to the ship and, surprise surprise, found quite a line. My mom and her friend Patti had decided not to go on tour with us, so they had explored the port area a bit. They informed us that there was a free shuttle out of the port and to a shopping area where they were able to get online, drink coffee, eat pastries, and do a bit of shopping ... everyone in our group got to do what they wanted, so I would count that as a good port stop.

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Grave of Unknown with Rose[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/people//]cmong[/url], on Flickr

[SIZE="4"][COLOR="DarkRed"]We were on the same bus as Chris for the tour of Blarney Castle and the price that we paid on line and well in advance was 25 Euro per person. We ate at the pub next to White House, Kitty O Se, and it was also very good. [/COLOR][/SIZE] Edited June 9, 2014 by Priusprof

[quote name='silentbob007']With Choice Air, we had perhaps 300 flight combinations with American/British Airways that were all at the same price. We narrowed down our choices based on times and connecting cities. In the end, we chose something like the 28th choice provided to us … it left Indianapolis in the afternoon (no waking up at 3 AM to start vacation) and connected in Miami to Tampa. On the way back, we chose a flight that left London around noon but, more importantly, had at least 3 hours before our connecting flight upon returning to the US. [B]Some of the flights offered had 90 minute connection times and that is just insane considering you have to get off the plan, go through immigration, collect your bags, clear customs, re-check your bags, exit security, be taken to your new terminal, re-clear security, and then make it to your gate.[/B]
[/QUOTE]

My mantra lately is I can find something of value, that I didn't know, in any review, but I knew with yours it would come early.

[SIZE="3"][COLOR="DarkRed"]For Cherbourg we were part of a CC group that chartered a full bus with guide that mirrored the ships tour. We started at Point Du Hoc, Omaha Beach, the US Cemetary, and finally a stop at St Mere Eglise. The price was 33 euro per person. A huge savings compared to the ships tour.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[quote name='Priusprof'][SIZE="4"][COLOR="DarkRed"]We were on the same bus as Chris for the tour of Blarney Castle and the price that we paid on line and well in advance was 25 Euro per person. We ate at the pub next to White House, Kitty O Se, and it was also very good. [/COLOR][/SIZE][/QUOTE]

Yeah ... I think when they opened up the second bus they repriced to 35 euro ... still a great value though.

[quote name='silentbob007']Yeah ... I think when they opened up the second bus they repriced to 35 euro ... still a great value though.[/quote]

Enjoying your review and great pictures. Thanks for sharing. :)

We've toured with Butlers and their pricing gradually increases the closer to get to your sail date. Always a good value and great experience.