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

[Hoopster95]

What a great review with fantastic info. My DH and I are doing this cruise next June, so I will definitely use a lot of this info. Thank you so much.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Forums mobile app

 

You're welcome Eeyore :)

[Hoopster95]

Back on board i had some time to clean up a bit. With another early day set for tomorrow, I had zero plans for the evening... even for dinner. I think I was simply going to have hors d'ouvres up at the DJ and/or a quick WJ meal. In the meantime, I did head up to the DL to grab a drink and check-in with some fellow CC'ers to see how their day went.

 

There was another ship which obviously was small enough to sail under the Queensferry bridge to get closer to the city, likely the Leith port. Large cruise ships cannot get to this terminal

 

 

It was the Balmoral - Fred Olson Cruise Lines

 

 

With sailaway approaching, I decided to head out to the helipad to watch our rotation away from the bridge and grab a few photos

 

 

 

[Hoopster95]

This is a gorgeous sailaway.... if you have a specialty restaurant booked, be sure to have a table close to the window as you'll enjoy the views the entire time. If you're in MDR stuck away from the windows (that would be about 80% of you) perhaps consider dining later or switching venues on this evening if weather permits.

 

 

I hung out on the helipad for a while. Here you can see Edinburgh Castle (approx center) and Arthur's Seat/Table Mountain (left) prominently in the distance

 

 

Getting hungry I made my way to the Windjammer for dinner for the first time. I had decided precruise to not bother with MDR on this cruise and to be totally free with my timing for dinner. I also decided this due to various CC threads lately about how good the WJ on various sailings has been in comparison to MDR. The venue was not busy as I entered. I headed back to my happy place, the outdoor rear seating area and was surprised to find this!....

 

 

I certainly didn't mind. I grabbed a smaller corner table and enjoyed the amazing aft view with dinner

 

 

Soon enough, we were about to leave seeing any land and islands close by, and the pilot boat was heading away from Brilliance

 

[Hoopster95]

Speaking of dinner, I soon discovered on this cruise that WJ did in fact have a theme night every night. It is not advertised anywhere or in the Compass. There was a Maitre-D walking around asking how everyone's meal was so I asked him where I can see what the theme is on a nightly basis and he said they didn't have one until the day they serve. I found that totally strange... they must know considering they have to prepare dishes for the masses and be prepared ahead of time (ie. food prep, actually ordering product, etc). Anyways, I told him on Jewel last August they advertised the theme in the Compass the night before... his eyes brightened and he said "wow, that's a great idea. Maybe we can do that". Well... that was it. I guess it would be a surprise theme night every night for me.

 

Tonight's meal was a nice surprise... Italian Night

 

 

On the menu: Chicken Marsala, Seafood Pasta, Filet & Chicken Saltimboca to name a few.

This was as good as any Italian dinner I've had at MDR so I was pleased.

 

 

 

 

Finished off with fresh made crepes with about a dozen options for fillings/toppings... mmmmm

 

[Hoopster95]

This evening's events were all set to be very early, with hardly any options after 10pm, which makes sense with an early arrival to Invergordon set for the morning. I left the Windjammer to head down and check out the 50's & 60's party in the Centrum. This event was not well attended and ended up being a little lame. That being said, it was also being done right before late seating in MDR so that may have affected attendance.

 

 

 

I headed down to the theatre to watch the "Now and Forever" production show, very well done and thoroughly enjoyed it. I took no pictures here for this evening, as after the show I decided to retire for the evening and go over photos from my long and awesome day in Edinburgh. Tomorrow would be another great sail in and I didn't want to miss that.

[Hoopster95]

Day 4 - Invergordon (Inverness & Loch Ness)

 

Today's Compass

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had set up a full day's private tour pre-cruise with Invergordon Tours of Scotland for this day

http://www.invergordontours.com/

http://www.invergordontours.com/contact-us.html

I'll say now that I couldn't have been happier with the constant communication, advice and feedback I received from the head honcho, Gavin, online in the months leading up to today. His picture on the link above is exactly how he looks as he was sure to meet us at the pier even though he had several groups booked. I fully recommend them and their advice... due to our timing and what we wanted to do, he reversed our itinerary about 3 weeks before the visit in order to ensure better time at the sites without being rushed in a "tourist" kind of way (ie. 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there... 1/2 hour drive in between!!) and to hopefully miss some of the crowds during the peak times mid day.

 

But before we get to that, I was up relatively early as I do wish to enjoy sail ins to all the ports we are visiting... and this was no exception. Here we are coming in from the North Sea into the mouth of Cromarty Firth which leads to the protected Invergordon port

 

 

Up on the hillsides you can see hundreds of sheep roaming the fields... I tried to get a close up of one little section. You'll find many sheep wherever you look along the countryside

 

[Hoopster95]

My usual for this cruise was having a simple breakfast up in the DL as I'm not a huge fill my plate up with bacon/eggs/pancakes/sausages kinda guy. The DL was always stocked with muesli (with raisins/ almonds/ etc), fresh fruit and my fave bagel with smoked salmon/onion/capers/tomato... good enough for me. I was able to enjoy our sail in through the channel and noted the many large oil rigs... I was surprised as I did not know. More on these later when we sail away, however I'll mention now I asked our guide later about the rigs and their owned by BP (British Petroleum)... duh of course! Now I got it.

 

 

This morning's scenery was simply gorgeous, everything I imagined when seeing photos of the Scotland Highlands and the rolling hills. I was now even more so really looking forward to our drive and visits for this day

 

 

I still had some time before meeting our group in the Centrum for our excursion, so I headed off to the helipad to enjoy the rest of the sail-in. Here we are coming into the port area, and this was my que to get back to my cabin to get ready for the day.

 

 

I had arranged our private group pre-cruise to all meet at the Centrum, outside my cabin (and directly across from Guest Services) at 8:45 so that we can get off the ship right away. Deck 4 also had the security set-up in order to get to the gangway.

Interestingly it was announced that the gangway would be off of deck 4, but upon returning to the ship it would on deck 2. I found out later that the tide here can shift up to 19 feet.

 

At 8:45am everyone in our group of 14 was accounted for. We headed out to the pier together

 

 

Be aware while the pier is somewhat industrial, but safely marked/fenced for walking, requiring about a 5'ish minute walk to get out to the cruise buses/shuttles... and a further 5 minutes out to the street for private tours & taxis.

 

[Hoopster95]

Right across the street were a few private drivers with names on signs. As promised, Mike, wearing his traditional Scottish kilt and attire, was there holding my sign and welcoming our group as we crossed the street. He also introduced us to Gavin where I thanked him profusely for helping me arrange the timing of this tour. My email thread with him is almost 40 responses back and forth with several of our group asking various questions .... he was great.

 

We were collected into our very comfortable mini-van and off we went. I have a few shots of our travels from out the windows. The photos were tough at freeway speed and simply do not do justice the scenery.. those who have driven around the Scottish Highlands know what I mean here. We drove approximately 40 minutes to start our day immediately heading away from the ship and crowds in reverse order than most of the tours

 

Our first stop Cawdor Castle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cawdor_Castle

 

 

I love being the very first person there with absolutely no one in front of you! Post card quality photos & memories!

It's is still a working residence being lived in by the Dowager Countess Angelika. This Castle is renowned for it's gardens and it's connection to Shakespeare's "Macbeth"

 

We entered the castle first to visit the inside.... to me this was not earth shattering, but interesting nonetheless. There were modern areas as well as nicely preserved "original" areas such as the old kitchen in the basement and several other rooms. The tower was not allowed access unfortunately, would've been awesome to see the view from up there. Herre are a couple of small samples of what you see inside.

 

 

The wall sized tapestries were amazing

 

 

Our time here was free to do as we pleased at our own pace which was fantastic. Rather than heading to the flower gardens, I went in the other direction as I noticed an gated area with path. It led to many other areas of the grounds including a well known walled garden as well as the maze which was unfortunately gated and locked... I wanted to try getting to the middle

 

 

 

[Hoopster95]

Exiting this side of the property where the maze is, I noted the fenced pasture in the distance that Mike had pointed out when we entered, claiming that there were "devil sheep". These are sheep which grow several horns on the heads in seemingly weird directions at random. I later learned these are called Hebridean sheep. They were endangered at one time, but not any longer. They were too far from the fence for me to get a great photo.... here's some much better pics from Wikipedia so that you can see better what I'm looking at in the fields

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebridean_sheep

 

 

 

Walking back to the other side of the property are the flower gardens.... gorgeously done

 

 

 

 

 

After about 1 hour 15 minutes here, it was time to head back from our assigned meeting time to get back onto the bus. At the parking lot there was an excellent small shop of goods that were not typical to the tourist trap market stores in the big cities, but only had a few minutes to visit before we needed to go. This was a fabulous start to our day.

[negc]

Amsterdam's Schiphol International Airport

 

I wish to point out some things you should all know about Amsterdam's International Airport known as Schiphol Airport

 

 

This airport is MASSIVE!!!... Not necessarily the terminal, but the physical area (acreage) of the entire airport. As we were landing, I noted I couldn't see the airport terminal. I did notice other planes and a large® building way off in the distance, as well as another plane landing beside us on another runway (probably a mile away I'm guessing?). Turns out our plane landed on the farthest runway possible from the airport terminal.... to make matters more complicated, our terminal we had to get to turned out being at the opposite side of the terminal and the very farthest gate of that entire wing of the terminal.

 

I remember glancing at my watch when we landed as we were about 10 minutes late. I noted this as I had a hotel shuttle booked for a certain time after landing. Not exaggerating one bit, it took almost 25 minutes for the plane to roll along at what, maybe 25-30mph, along runway after runway, crossing over a freeway, then down more long runways, and all the way around the entire terminal to get to the gate.

 

It was then another 10 minutes of a very brisk walk to get through the huge terminal to the customs/immigration desks. Thankfully, travelling in Air Transat's "Club Class" (business class) in the first row, I was able to get off first and high-tail it through the airport, arriving to immigration at a relatively small line.... US/CAD/"other country" passports on the left, EU passports on the right... extremely easy and quick.

 

Bottom line --- do not book your transportation to your hotel or the ship too early... give lots of time leeway. Imagine if that immigration line had several planes coming in at once for example! That could've added another 1/2 hour or more.

 

 

The airport is extremely easy to get around, plenty of large signs everywhere and more information desks than I can remember than in any other airport. The options are endless upon exiting... service desks offering shuttle services are right there, along with taxi's and hotel shuttles. Outside everything is clearly labelled with various pick-up points for transit and private vehicles

 

 

 

Unlike many large port cities in North America, Amsterdam (like many European large cities) has an amazing network of transit and transportation that makes it extremely easy to pick and choose for your needs ($$ vs. convenience). Post cruise, I took the the tram and direct train from Brilliance back to the Airport, which I will explain at the end of the review... so easy I couldn't believe it... all the talk about being scared of being late for a plane, not knowing what to do, booking a RCL shuttle for 5 times the cost is hogwash... just the smallest bit of planning would show many options to fit anyone's needs. I hope to dispel any myths or apprehension with this part of anyone's journey.

 

Because I arrived 2 days earlier than the cruise, I booked a hotel shuttle service called "Connexxion".

https://www.schipholhotelshuttle.nl/

 

I could not have been any more satisfied with the service and delivery. Waiting for my luggage, I found my confirmation email and quickly sent a reply stating the plane had arrived late and I missed my shuttle time. I was replied back to in 5 minutes "No problem sir. Just head on out to A7 as per the directions to find us and we'll be there for you". On their website, this map is available to find them... and it's to scale.

 

 

Aha! A7, labelled with the company's name.... just down the sidewalk from where I exited the Airport terminal

 

 

I found the representative just off to the side with the blue jacket and he checked me in. Within 10 minutes, 7 of us were loaded into the shuttle bus and off we went. I was the last to be dropped off. With dropping off the first 3 couples it was 30 minutes total from airport to my hotel in central Amsterdam close to all the site-seeing venues.

 

Cost?.... 17.50 euro per person. This includes one luggage and one carry on. Great service.... excellent communication, quick, comfortable, easy to find, not one bit stressful whatsoever. Having landed at 11:30am, I was at my hotel checking in at approx 1:15pm. Note this company will not pick up or deliver to the cruise terminal, however fully recommend them for arrival pre-cruise or after a post-cruise stay at a hotel.

 

Your experience was much better than ours. Our plane, after taxiing for what seemed like forever, dropped us off on the tarmac forcing us to go downstairs from the plane in order to board a bus which eventually took us inside the terminal. From there we passed through customs and immigration and then walked for seemingly miles to get our checked baggage, with my wife falling on an escalator and only escaping injury when one of our party stopped the escalator. When we finally secured our checked bags we had still a long walk to the pickup point of our transport van. Once we managed to locate our transportation things went much more smoothly and we reached our hotel and managed to check in early. Loved our time in Amsterdam and even more our time on the Brilliance where we were reunited with our favorite concierge, Mario Reyes. When we were in Guernsey we had a very nice lunch at the restaurant on the tender pier and managed to avoid the downpour which started just after we entered the restaurant and had stopped by the time we finished our meal. Remarkable weather throughout our trip but jet lag took its toll at the end of our trip home.

[hipster1]

Hoopster,

Fantastic review so far!! We board Brilliance next week. Your detailed review has been very helpful for our upcoming trip. I can't wait to read more. I have one small question. Was the espresso machine in the DL working!?:p On one of our past cruises, it was always broken!

 

Thanks,

Ali

[purescottish]

Absolutely loving your review, Edinburgh is my home town and your pictures have done us proud, they are amazing, Unfortunately I didn't have time to meet up with Sherri and Mike (this time) but I'm sure they will come here again...…..you don't visit Edinburgh just once right lol...

Looking forward to the rest of your review

 

Wendy

x

[Tin can]

Just catching up with this fabulous review, really looking forward to your review of Dublin!

[Hoopster95]

Hoopster,

Fantastic review so far!! .... Was the espresso machine in the DL working!?:p On one of our past cruises, it was always broken!

 

Thanks,

Ali

 

Thx Ali. Re the expresso machine.... you better believe it!!! I'd be ripping it apart in 2.6 secs if it weren't :evilsmile:;p

[Hoopster95]

Absolutely loving your review, Edinburgh is my home town and your pictures have done us proud, they are amazing, Unfortunately I didn't have time to meet up with Sherri and Mike (this time) but I'm sure they will come here again...…..you don't visit Edinburgh just once right lol...

Looking forward to the rest of your review

 

Wendy

x

 

Hey Wendy, thank you for following along and your kind words.

 

There's a few readers here on CC who have read some of my reviews, and for the most part there's been only a couple parts of the world where I specifically mentioned that a cruise did not do the country nor the site seeing justice, and now Scotland + Ireland is one of those areas. I now know I definitely need to go back.... 1 week driving around Scotland, and then another week driving around Ireland (Gallway, Cliffs of Moher, Belfast/northern Ireland/ Cork/Blarney, Ring of Kerry, Limerick... places all missed in Ireland on this cruise).

[Hoopster95]

When we were in Guernsey we had a very nice lunch at the restaurant on the tender pier and managed to avoid the downpour which started just after we entered the restaurant and had stopped by the time we finished our meal.

 

Ah, great timing on your part. I was caught inland on my rental bicycle trying to stay dry and let rains subside... I'll get to that in a few days :)

[Hoopster95]

From Cawdor it was a short drive to Clava Cairn, a group of Bronza Age burial sites (about 4000 yrs old).

https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/clava-cairns/history/

 

 

Mike did a great job explaining the history of the sites, why/how they were erected, and their meaning

 

 

There's plenty of signage here, and very easy to follow and read. If you hadn't done any homework prior to visiting here, you can pick up the very basics quite easily and look on-line later for more. I tend to do that alot... get interested in a place after reviewing photos and then when I'm reading more detailed info I say to myself "Hey, I saw that. So that's what it meant"

 

 

There are 50 cairns in the area around Inverness, however this site is the most well known and preserved.

 

 

All three of the entrances into the cairns on this site face in the exact same direction, aligned towards the southwest

 

[#55worktoplay]

YES!!! Sherri is back!

 

Haha... For those of you who are unfamiliar, Kanscocoa is an iconic reviewer on CC.... for me, made famous by her hilarious "Middle Aged Drama Queen" solo-Allure review several years ago. Many of you might remember it

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1781792&highlight=middle+aged+drama+queen

 

She has several others as well (insert "Middle Aged Drama Queen" into the search tool here on CC and scroll down).

I had the honor to have dinner and hang out with Sherri & Mike much of this cruise.... what a blast!

She is so not a drama queen.... other than when dh leaves her stranded on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere with no one else in site (foreshadowing) LOL!! :halo::evilsmile:

(do keep your Seattle idea in mind, k? I'm all over it.... or you guys detouring to Vancouver and I'll show you around :D)

 

Or sets off alarms in very serious, quiet famous location😀. I remember her reviews very well.

 

I can’t wait to read your review the last one was sooo good.

[Hoopster95]

Mike gave us some free time to walk around the site and check out the other 2 cairns, read the signage and get a feel for things.

Being a "home-brew" whiskey maker and whiskey expert, Mike also offered the group a tasting of his own moonshine. He did mention it was not yet aged, so possibly a little bit on the harsh, high alcohol side of things....

 

 

Holy cow!!!! Knock your socks off!

 

 

This site only needed about 25-30 minutes with about 15min free time. Here's a full shot of the site with the three cairns at the entrance so that you can judge the spacing/size of the site and how much you'd need to walk around.

 

 

On our way out of the site and just down the road, a Roman aqueduct still stands.... but wait, is it really roman?

Sure looks like it but it isn't.... built in 1898 it was part of the railway! At 1800 ft it's the longest masonry viaduct in Scotland... while providing a great photo op while so close to other historical sites, it's not a "real" historical site in the true sense.

 

[Hoopster95]

Another short drive led us to the famous Culloden Battlefield, a Scotland National Trust property and a very sobering site where the Jacobites were thoroughly destroyed in battle by the British Government in 1746. Here's the main website

https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/culloden

 

A full description of the Battle of Culloden is way too comprehensive for me to try to explain in a couple of sentences... just know that the battle lasted mere hours with very few casualties for the Brits, however Highlander families (Clans) fully wiped out. They are buried here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Culloden

 

 

This wall is a visual reminder of the number of casualties suffered by both sides... the stones which are set out of the wall represent the dead Jacobites.... then a 10 foot flat space.... then more outset stones representing the dead English.Can you see the space where it separates the Jacobites from the English? Right... you can't from here! Go all the way to the very end of the wall after about 2000 (dead Jacobite) stones, then you'll find the space and the other 50 stones right at the end representing the few English casualties.

 

 

Mike again made a great explanation of things here, and also demonstrated us some weaponry the Jacobites would have used in battle

 

 

We continues into the fields which are expansive. A guide here is almost essential to understand where you are standing. There were several unmarked graves here behind Mike.

 

 

The red flags mark the English battle lines... the blue off in the distance of the fields mark the Jacobite's

 

 

Each flag has signage to mark what the site represents... here you can see the colored red flag of where we are standing and the proximity of the blue flags if you continue on

 

[Hoopster95]

Mike gave us some free time to explore the site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We all headed back towards to museum building from where we entered and were given a choice for free time of either a lunch, or a quick tour inside the museum itself. Mike had told us the displays and set-up inside were excellent, and since have seen a couple of reviews saying the same, however hunger hit home and this was our only stopping point for lunch as a ling drive was coming up. The whole group elected lunch and a little relax time, and I got to try a local brew.... very good!

 

 

And here's a wide angle panorama shot of the rear of the museum and the battlefield... it's expansive for sure. We definitely could've spent a good 2 - 2.5 hours here easy, but not on the schedule we're on we couldn't. This was just a taste.... another spot to come back to someday to learn and reflect on more

 

[Hoopster95]

From Culloden, we had a long'ish 45-50 min drive through the beautiful Highland scenery to the Dochgarroch Lock... a starting point for our 1 hour "Jacobite Cruise" through Loch Ness to Urquhart Castle. Check out Jacobite Cruises website... I am so glad this was part of our tour.

https://www.jacobite.co.uk/

 

 

Jacobite offers various cruises of various lengths from different starting points, so check out which suits you best. We arrived to these locks just in time to watch one of the vessels just coming out of the locks and continuing on to Loch Ness without stopping here at this site.

 

 

The locks have only about a 2 foot difference in height to the next level, so they are small locks for local traffic only... looks like the Jacobite boats are the largest that go through here

 

 

 

There was also a residence right there at the locks... and a very nice local selling a souvenir pebble with a painted Loch Ness monster as well as Scottish flap Jacks (they're like oat bars).... Why not?! I couldn't resist so I bought one of each.

 

 

[Hoopster95]

Our wait to board the Jacobite cruise was only about 15 minutes, and a small group collected at the entrance to the boat as the tour time approached for boarding

 

 

And the boat staff opened the gates to allow boarding. The boats are well appointed with a top deck viewing level and indoor level, I estimate probably about 60-70 people in total on either deck.

 

 

We pulled away from Dochgarroch Lock and began our journey up the Inverness River to Loch Ness

 

 

 

The upper deck are open bench seats. The lower deck has open (but covered) seating facing aft as well as a small strip of about 8 seats out front through door from the inside. The inside holds more comfortable appointed seating with a full bar for snacks/drinks. Each table conveniently has a map of Loch Ness with all the stops/view points labelled. On this sailing I estimate we had about a total of only 30 people on board. In chatting downstairs with Mike and the captain, he mentioned in the morning the sailing was at capacity with all seating upstairs full and downstairs about 20-30 more with several tour groups jostling for space.

 

 

Along the way the captain narrates the travels with points of interest as we sail pass, as well as other statistical info (ie. size of the lake, Loch Ness sightings, history of some of the estates we're passing, etc)

 

[travelfool]

What an amazing review! Thank you for sharing this incredible journey--this is now a MUST DO trip on bucket list!

[Hoopster95]

After seeing passing the mouth of the River Ness where it connects to the locks and seeing several Estates, we finally reached Loch Ness where it opens up to the full lake ahead of us. Loch Ness is about 22 square miles so quite expansive, but also 800ft deep.... so that the Loch Ness monster, Nessie, can easily slip into the shallows and disappear from the public whenever she needs to.

 

 

We passed a couple of other notable estates... this one a castle called the Aldourie Castle Estate. This is a private full property rental hire for weddings, events, groups. Could you imagine staying at this 500 acre estate and having morning coffee from a balcony at this place?

 

 

Well, that would be cool, however here on the Jacobite Rebel I'd have to "settle" for an Scottish hot chocolate from the bar downstairs.... hot chocolate with a shot of local single malt whiskey

 

 

Cheers!

 

 

This 1 hour sailing was just right for this day. Unfortunately we never got a glimpse of Nessie, however we surely got a glimpse of our final destination as we approached, the Urquhart Castle. What a gorgeous site coming in by the water.

 

 

And once we got closer my excitement really jumped! This property is beautiful

 

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