BRILLIANCE (British Isles) June 19-July 2,2018 REVIEW w/lots of photos

Yummm. I love those! And they don’t serve them anymore usually? What do they serve instead?

 

 

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There's various other types of rolls, plenty to choose from at dinner so no worries if you're a bread fan. These "savory bites" rolls are a fave of many RCL regulars as you can see.:)

And one more comment - about Mike’s tux.

 

He debated ahead of time on whether to wear a tux or not...he has his own tux, but since he’s taken up marathon running, he’s lost a bunch of weight. He tried his tuxedo on at home about a month before sailing, and it was 10x too big!

 

So, he decided to go with a tux rental onboard, although I tried to tell him that the trend was to be “less formal” on formal nights - and most likely, a nice suit and/or coat would be sufficient.

 

Anyway - he wore the tux the first night, but did indeed see that he was one of the few men onboard in a tux. He decided to go less formal the 2nd formal night.

 

I only post this to give others something to think about...when it comes to men & their formal wear. Go with what is comfortable for you - don’t worry about what others are wearing - or not wearing.

 

Now, ladies - I saw the gamut of long formal gowns to very casual wear...so, anything goes!

Hi Sherri,

Just wondering if you have posted your review of your Brilliance trip yet?

Margaret

There's various other types of rolls, plenty to choose from at dinner so no worries if you're a bread fan. These "savory bites" rolls are a fave of many RCL regulars as you can see.:)

The pumpkin seed rolls knocked the savory bites from the top of our roll rotation. Try them — they don’t taste sweet or pumpkin-y.

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There's various other types of rolls, plenty to choose from at dinner so no worries if you're a bread fan. These "savory bites" rolls are a fave of many RCL regulars as you can see.:)

I'm so glad to hear that. I've been into bread making for the past 2 years after spending 2 weeks in France and really feeling deprived once I got back home from the lack of quality bread around here so I decided to get into it myself. Here is a pic of my breads from 2 weekends ago.

I'm just now getting into sourdough and have a Starter that is just about ready to play with.

But I really like to taste what others create so I'm really looking forward to our Baltic Cruise on Brilliance next August.

dp

The pumpkin seed rolls knocked the savory bites from the top of our roll rotation. Try them — they don’t taste sweet or pumpkin-y.

 

 

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I had a problem my DH thought was funny. I love the pumpkin seed rolls and they started having half a dozen savory bites waiting for me I felt obliged to eat them. Our table mates had never had them and were not bread eaters like we are. (At least on cruises). On about the 4th night I asked if I could just have three savory bites so I’d have room for a pumpkin seed roll.

I never thought I’d be downsizing bread, which might be my favorite thing to eat on a cruise.

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The bread on the ships is so good. I always start out with good intentions and say, only one roll tonight. By the 3rd night, I’m lucky if it’s only two rolls. I’m so glad they don’t leave bread in a basket on the table!

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The bread on the ships is so good. I always start out with good intentions and say, only one roll tonight. By the 3rd night, I’m lucky if it’s only two rolls. I’m so glad they don’t leave bread in a basket on the table!

 

 

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On Serenade in April, they did!

Even worse, for 5 of us they left two baskets. I guess the waiters noticed how quickly the rolls disappeared.

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I was on the Royal Princess in port with you in Guernsey. The tender situation was ridiculous, but the line moved fairly fast. It was fun to see your view of our ship. Here’s a shot of your ship during the brief warm spell that had us lounging out on deck. 

Your detailed review of the British Isles cruise is amazing!  I printed out just the highlights (no photos) and got 25 pages!  Thank you so much!

I'm working on excursions for our July 18th, 2019 cruise to the British Isles and wondering a couple things - what would you say is a definite "no miss" thing to do/see; and can we only get a private tour (my hubby wants to visit Kilkenney as, even though he's not a big beer drinker, he had a Kilkenny beer years ago in Europe - can't find it in the US - so he wants to visit the source:) by getting people to join us on RollCall (that makes me nervous and sounds like a lot of effort).  RC hasn't posted ANY excursions for Dublin!

On 7/12/2018 at 11:51 AM, Hoopster95 said:

Interior GTY (6V category) - assigned 4561 (2V)

I'm all about not being scared to try something different, and I like the fact that I've sailed from interiors to JS's, from deck 2 up to deck 10, forward and aft and midship... Once deciding to pull the trigger on this cruise I was given a totally awesome group rate through my TA for a 6V interior GTY. In tracking cabins,there were a bunch on deck 4 and 3 left over so I figured I'd be placed there, and I was.

 

I've stayed on deck 3 on Serenade in an OV just off the Centrum elevators...awesome location! I am not at all a fan of forward cabins on Radiance Class ships as everything I want to be close to is around the Centrum elevator, plus I love seeing the Centrum at all times coming from/going to the cabin. Prior to my assignment, I noted many of the remaining cabins were creeping forward towards the front elevators which I didn't like... so be it, was not at all going to worry about a weak cabin location being so grateful having saved over $500 off the base price with the group rate. I booked this cruise before final payment about 90 days before sailing (I never saw a cheaper price, even after final payment... the group rate was #1 yet again). One morning, about 60 days before sailing, I checked my dashboard and I had an assignment....4561

 

 

You know what... I liked it! I bet many reading this think I'm nuts wanting this cabin being the first cabin off of the Centrum for noise and whathaveyou,however this was one of the remaining cabins left closer to the Centrum and not by the theatre so I was good with this.... I did not call in to bother to change to another location. If anything, I can now compare this deck 4 vs.Centrum for location and noise like I have just done upstairs on decks 7-9 (4 different cabins, both balcony and interior) on my previous Radiance Class sailings. I'll talk about it more during nightly events and so forth as I did go to bed early a couple ofevenings with the music still playing.... for those who think that the Centrum balcony cabins are loud DO NOT BOOK THIS CABIN... yes, I'm yelling at you so you can hear lol! Much noisier here than any of the upper deck Centrum balcony and interiors I've stayed in and reported on.

 

And here it is.... the basic RCL interior on Radiance Class ships

 

I believe this is still the original molded plastic sink/counter &backsplash, so there's nothing new that's visual in this cabin from the drydock I don't think

 

Oh the HUMANITY!!!!..... the dreaded shower curtain! Don't think I had to dealwith one of these for almost 5 years now

 

"Welcome aboard. Thank you for spending over 300 nights with us. As a token of our appreciation, and because you payed double what everyone else payed because you are solo, here's a few cookies and 4 bottles of water.... Oh,by the way, your D+ $8 wine benefit has been removed".... unfortunately that's how I felt anyways. I've come to feel that rather than insulting me any further with 10cent cookies as a "welcome and appreciation" I can get anytime/anywhere on the ship, it'd be best that RCL doesn't provide anything at all unless they up their game to make it worthwhile and meaningful. Give me one bottle of water every night so I have it ready to go ashore in the morning for example... that's thoughtful and meaningful.

 

All this cheapness has done is create this memory for me of walking into my cabin and re-enforcing my feelings that RCL are continuing to penny pinch everything at all costs. RCL... perhaps take those 10's of thousands of dollars weekly on all of your ships for all of these "gifts", remove these bad feelings, and turn them into fabulous "appreciative" feelings for your customers by buying better quality food for the MDR and Windjammer so they can speak of how great their food experiences are on board.

 

 

Oh, almost forgot... LMaxwell, this one's for you:

My air filter was perfectly clean lol!!!! Maybe someone was tracking our CC posts from your thread a few months back.... no joke, I ran my finger over both returns and zero dust on either, even bent down floor level to look at one of them. I can just see it now as they were checking my CC profile for my next sailings.... "Yikes, we're only giving Hoopster a couple of cookies and no free wine... there's no bloody way we're comping him a future cruise credit too!!!!!"

Just ran across this review, and decided to read it. I was in 4561 this past October, and I am a very light sleeper. I heard nothing.. EVER. Granted I was not in my cabin when the 70's disco inferno was going on, since I was in the centrum enjoying it, but any other time I was in bed by 10pm-11pm, and heard nothing. I did like how easy self debarkation was from that cabin.

I had originally booked a studio interior on the other side of the centrum, but due to some bad information from RCI, they upgraded me at no cost to the standard inside. 

Thanks for posting such a detailed review! Looking forward to this sailing in a few weeks. 

Do you recall whether taxis were available upon disembarkation? Debating whether the Key program is necessary to ensure us with priority disembarkation and getting to taxis.

32 minutes ago, Carvette212 said:

Thanks for posting such a detailed review! Looking forward to this sailing in a few weeks. 

Do you recall whether taxis were available upon disembarkation? Debating whether the Key program is necessary to ensure us with priority disembarkation and getting to taxis.

 

I found disembark extremely easy in Amsterdam without many line-ups and people confused/gathering all over the place. I did not specifically look for taxis as I quickly crossed the street to use the tram, but I certainly did not see a mess like some ports.

As a side note, my extremely humble and personal opinion is that the Key is a major sales gimmick. If you want to get off the ship quick, join all the other non-Key guests by self disembarking before everyone else, or simply ask your stateroom attendant (or Guest Services) for the lowest numbered luggage tag possible so that you can be called very early in the process.

What is your concern... Getting to a flight on time? 

3 minutes ago, Hoopster95 said:

 

I found disembark extremely easy in Amsterdam without many line-ups and people confused/gathering all over the place. I did not specifically look for taxis as I quickly crossed the street to use the tram, but I certainly did not see a mess like some ports.

 

As a side note, my extremely humble and personal opinion is that the Key is a major sales gimmick. If you want to get off the ship quick, join all the other non-Key guests by self disembarking before everyone else, or simply ask your stateroom attendant (or Guest Services) for the lowest numbered luggage tag possible so that you can be called very early in the process.

 

What is your concern... Getting to a flight on time? 

yes, the return flight is the issue for us. thank you for your helpful hints!

Thank you so very much for sending me the link to your review!  It's taken me a few days to get through it, work and life kept getting in the way lol.  But I am so thankful!  You gave such great insight and tips!  Our cruise is for July 15, 2021...hopefully it will happen.  I am planning as if it will!  We've had our rooms booked since the first day they were available last November!  We scored 3 aft rooms on deck 10...so I think one of our rooms will be close to under your favorite Windjammer table!  

Our cruise will be a little different.  We are on Jewel and not Brilliance.  You've been on both... anything we should know in regard to differences between the sister ships?

Our itinerary will be different as well.  We will have two days in Edinburgh, and visit Glasgow, Dublin, Liverpool, Holyhead, Guernsey, and Dover.  I have cousins in Edinburgh and Glasgow that I have never met, so we are excited to meet them.  And we are big Beatles fans, so hopefully we will enjoy Liverpool!

Again, thanks so much for the review!!!!!  I will have to look for Sherri's review next!

~Chriss 

22 hours ago, erinsmom03 said:

Again, thanks so much for the review!!!!!  I will have to look for Sherri's review next!

~Chriss 

Great!! Glad that it helped you.

Re the differences between Brilliance & Jewel are extremely minimal.

I wish you and your family an incredibly awesome vacation 👍

5 minutes ago, Hoopster95 said:

 

Great!! Glad that it helped you.

Re the differences between Brilliance & Jewel are extremely minimal.

I wish you and your family an incredibly awesome vacation 👍

 

 

 

Good to know, and thanks!

Do you know if Sherri did a review/report? I haven't been able to find one.

2 minutes ago, erinsmom03 said:

Good to know, and thanks!

Do you know if Sherri did a review/report? I haven't been able to find one.

No, unfortunately she didn't for this sailing, and I don't think she's done any since her hilarious Allure "Drama Queen" review a couple of years ago.

32 minutes ago, Hoopster95 said:

 

No, unfortunately she didn't for this sailing, and I don't think she's done any since her hilarious Allure "Drama Queen" review a couple of years ago.

Thanks again!  I have many notes on what I've picked up from your report.  Fingers crossed that we sail next summer.

Very nice review..............

I know its been several years since your cruise.  You linked me to your review since I am booked on British Aisles Cruise next year.  Only difference is we are going to Liverpool; and your cruise spent the night in Dublin