baycruiser

Hey, sorry for the delay... I'm under the weather so to speak. I will definitely continue this and it's great to hear everyone's thoughts on the cruise. Dragon of The Seas, please do the picture review! You probably saw and shot a lot more than we did!

I guess I need to put a little mini food review in here. I don't have problems with cruise ship food unless it's inedible. I only gripe if it's not available! :D I'm on vacation, so someone else is doing the cooking and serving and cleaning! I think 14 days is max for me though because even I got tired of the same breakfasts by the last day. I do like they had a british station in the Windjammer every breakfast so if I wanted variety, I could have it.

The first night of the cruise, we ate in Izumi because my husband wanted something more familiar to him. Their prices are about on par what we pay on land, and I had the hot rock chicken/beef skewers with vegetables. It was very good. My husband said the sushi prep got better as he asked for more pieces. We had Izumi twice.

The port days, we ate dinner in the Windjammer because we were tired and I was raised to dress for dinner in a cruise ship main dining room or don't go. On sea days and basically the last half of the cruise, we ate dinner exclusively in the main dining room. We had my time dining and never had to wait more than five minutes for a table even without making reservations. I didn't make a single reservation except for the first night in Izumi. So the service was outstanding. As for variety, there was a completely different menu every night in the main dining room and I never repeated the main entree once (I am guilty of repeating the same appetizer (the caesar salad) and the dessert (the chocolate sensation and I think I put on some pounds from having that each time, it was that good). My favorite entree was the Prime Rib.

My husband is a pickier eater than I am, and our waiter accommodated him with above and beyond service. He'd bring my husband one entree, and if he didn't like it, bring him a second one. Then a second of the second one if he really liked that entree. :) My husband also did the Chops Surf & Turf, and instead of the lobster tail, they brought him a whole lobster! So I think he made out pretty well in the main dining room.

The Park Cafe had really good variety as well, and my husband fell in love with their "beef pate pastries" (their version of a Cornish Pasty but they didn't call it that) enough to make a point of getting that as his snack every night. I liked their roast beef sandwiches and they'd always add extra slices of roast beef for me I think because I complimented it (the roast beef was cooked exactly how I like it -- not super red rare but more on the pink-done side).

When we had room service, the steak sandwich was really good. Just got tired of eating the same thing there, largely because if we found something we liked, we kinda stuck with it for a few days.

In terms of beverages, I brought my own small bottle of Mio water enhancer and Starbucks Vias for the in room kettle, thinking that even if the "included" beverages were bad, I'd at least have that. I will say their Iced Tea didn't taste like anything, and I mostly stuck to the lemonade, which was pretty strong. One morning, the apple juice was off -- REALLY OFF. Almost vinegar. I said something and the beverage station guy took all the trays off the counter and replaced them with a fresh dispense that was back to actual apple juice after I "approved" the tester glass. I thought we'd get beverage packages because it was such a long cruise, but my plan was to get it on around Day 8 so I didn't 'waste' it with the port days early on. Never saw the need. Except for the last day (where my husband decided he wanted to drink alcohol), we basically had one soda (if that) from either the minibar in the room or with dinner, and one cappuccino or latte each from Lattitudes. So the package wasn't really worth it, and I didn't buy it for us. We had a platinum discount for the specialty coffee and they gave us little punch cards for a free coffee after collecting six so I think we still came out ahead of the beverage package at the end of the cruise.

Thank you everyone! :) So happy to read people want to hear about this unique cruise and my sarcastic babbling.

We had Stateroom 8082 (E1 balcony) which was very close to the port side Centrum elevators and very convenient for dining. Centrum activities were heard, but not at an annoying volume level. I just felt for this itinerary that starboard side had better views for most of the ports. We mainly faced the ocean or whatever harbor we docked in and didn't see much land from our balcony, so if we were to do this all over again, I'd pick the same cabin but on the starboard side of the ship. Just a personal preference there.

Our stateroom attendant, Asa, was so nice and extremely patient with us. I asked for ice each day and asked for an egg crate for the bed. I don't want to sound like a complainer, but that was our only major complaint about the cabin: the bed was hard. He said RCI did away with the egg crates and offered us robes instead, which of course was really nice knowing how many diamond and higher were on this ship and we were only platinum at time of embarkment. He delivered ice every morning and evening so I could put it in an ice bag for my leg issues. The other thing was the shower curtain. I thought the Brilliance had been refurbed and that included the staterooms, but yeah, that shower curtain took a day or two to figure out how not to flood the entire bathroom.

Okay, that was the bad. The good was that there are two HDMI ports on the back of the new flat screens, so I was able to hookup my laptop to the TV and watch movies on there. If you were on this cruise and kept seeing xxxx(blanking out name here for privacy reasons) TripMateElite pop up under wifi, that was us. We bought a HooToo Trip Mate elite and a portable hard drive, plopped all our digital movies on that hard drive, and up to five devices could connect simultaneously to watch movies, listen to audio books, etc. Highly recommend this travel router if you're into tech devices. Good thing too, because the ship charged $12 to watch a movie!

I did bring Lysol wipes in a little travel pack and wiped down the cabin, tv remote, phone, all hard surfaces, etc. Remember I said this. :D

We were supposed to find the Cruise Critic people for sail away, but wound up engaged in lengthy conversation with another couple by the R Bar in the Centrum for a few hours without even realizing the boat was leaving the port. They were a hoot! And when we finally realized it, we went up to the top decks to find people and couldn't. Apologies Cruise Critic people! :(

Having to get to bed early for the Normandy/Bayeux Tapestry tour I booked through the ship (it's a long tour and I was nervous about making it back to the ship on time because the traffic on the major roads there is very unpredictable), we skipped the welcome aboard show, consoling ourselves by saying it was a 14 day cruise, there would be plenty of other shows to see, etc. Again, remember I said this. :D

DAY 2 - LE HAVRE, FRANCE

There is really nothing in the immediate vicinity of where the ship docks in Le Havre. The whole place was bombed out in WWII and rebuilt, so it's largely an industrial area.

So was the ship tour to the DDay Beaches & Bayeux Tapestry worth it? Very much so. Obviously, there wasn't enough time to get really in-depth at the Beaches or surrounding towns, but the tour guide was a wonderful woman who studied history and filled in a lot of stuff about Normans and the region that made it very enjoyable to experience. She gave the French experience to the occupation, how rough it was without food, how everyone was alerted to prepare for the invasions through the French resistance, how grateful everyone was to their liberators, etc. You really need to spend at least a few days there to really get into the whole DDay experience, and this provided just enough of a taste.

We stopped at Omaha Beach (husband filled a vial with sand to bring back) as well as the American Cemetery (beautiful and very emotional), then stopped for an arranged group lunch in a Bayeux hotel before heading into the museum to view the tapestry detailing William the Conqueror's story. It was a great day, long tour with bathroom breaks on the 2hr ride each way, and we were happy with it as my husband could scratch off the Bayeux Tapestry from his bucket list. We'd love to go back and do something more in-depth regarding DDay (husband is a huge WWII buff) or the other French towns in the area. I think the Normandy region is just rich with history from various ages and I'd love to do some more explorations there. One day simply isn't enough.

DAY 3 - PORTLAND (DORSET), UK

I adore this area of Britain. I understand people come here to holiday, and it was easy to see why. We didn't really have any plans here because the tour we wanted to go on (Miterne Hotel and Cerne Abbas) was sold out really early. Husband wanted to go to Stonehenge, and this was a bit of a sore spot for us because I really didn't want to experience Stonehenge from a distance after riding all that way on a tour bus with throngs of other people who did the same exact thing. So we compromised and decided to explore Weymouth instead. We had the best fish and chips here, and this quaint town is used to having visitors. The ship provided a free shuttle to Weymouth, and it's a walking town so really easy to get around. We saw what remains of the castle Henry Tudor built long ago, and they have a DDay museum there as well. I'm a bit of a makeup junkie so I finally had an opportunity to go to Boots and pick up some things from brands we can't get here in the US. :) All around, a lovely day with a leisurely pace.

I will try to include pictures in the posts after I finish the write up part because my husband was the main photographer since he has more storage on his phone than I do. I did take some videos I will have to upload as well. Speaking of which, I just thought of another tip!

LONDON HEATHROW TO HOTEL TRANSPORT TIP: What we do instead of hiring a car to take us to the hotel from LHR is take the train to a major stop like St. Pancras or Victoria Station or whatever big train station is closest to the hotel location, then grab a cab outside to take us to the hotel. There are lifts and whatnot to make managing multiple pieces of luggage easier. We could've taken the Underground straight to Russell Square but we skipped that because we researched that station and discovered the lifts there were in the middle of undergoing construction, plus we would've had to drag our luggage through Russell Square to the hotel (who gets a cab for two blocks?).

So we opted for the Heathrow Express train, which was a really long walk through all the LHR terminals to finally board. Maybe there was a shuttle or tram we could've taken instead. That walk was killer. It felt like we would be trapped in Heathrow forever. Endless corridors, hoping when we reached the end of one, we'd finally find the train only to be disappointed. Recommend taking the tube instead because the lifts were working at the station, and the walk from Russell Square to the hotel was definitely shorter than the walk through LHR to the express train. Also, my husband had first class on the brain and bought first class train tickets from the kiosk before I could stop him which were a total waste of money on a trip that short. It's not like someone came around offering us refreshing drinks in the first class car. We had wifi and a less crowded car. That was it. Live and learn!

Okay, to place mark: we spent the first full day in London at Buckingham Palace, and the second day at the British Museum plus a late afternoon tea and an even later dinner at the Montague Hotel. We were wiped out. I know, we're lightweights, but the first few days of the cruise are port intensive so we didn't want to overdo it and we've been to London quite a few times previously.

While I have trains on the brain, here's the biggest tip I can give anyone going to Harwich:

HARWICH PORT BY TRAIN TIP: There are only a few direct trains from Liverpool Street Station to Harwich International (not Harwich Town). Take the direct train! I repeat, do whatever you can to take the direct train. There aren't any lifts available at Manningtree with the train change!

We took a cab from our hotel (remember to check out and have the final bill in British pounds and not US Dollars, because the hotel's exchange rate will always be worse than your credit card bank exchange rate) to Liverpool Street Station, got tickets to Harwich International (they gave us round trip tickets instead of one way and said that was cheaper. How this was possible puzzled me endlessly). The train was packed. This would've been the one to go first class but apparently that was double the cost, and my once burned husband refused to "get suckered in" again. So we wound up standing for most of the journey.

But that wasn't the highlight of the adventure. Oh no, the highlight of that was dragging our luggage down flights of steps and then up a flight of steps at Manningtree. My wheeled small carryon bag was attached by a grab clasp thing to my bigger wheeled roll aboard. This clasp came undone as I feebly attempted to pull the whole thing up the stairs, and the small wheeled bag took out the shins of the poor man behind me. If you are reading this, poor man who was behind me at Manningtree, although I apologized profusely for the bruises on your shins and almost knocking you down, I again apologize for that. I am a sucker for travel gadgets and things on Amazon that look like they are going to make things easier, but in fact can turn your luggage into projectile weapons of destruction.

Finally we were on the second train leg, and had to stand again. I'm probably making people reading this tired just going through this but yes, heed my warning about taking that direct train! You will save a lot of money not taking the cruise line transfer, see some "real" England, and it's also way cheaper than hiring a private car.

At Harwich International, there was a short walk to the ship, breeze through getting our sail cards, and we were on the ship within 15 minutes. We grabbed some lunch at the Windjammer (go totally to the aft on embark day because the outside seating was plentiful and there was room to walk around our luggage while sitting at the tables there). Within the hour, it was announced our cabins were ready and we again dragged our luggage through the Windjammer to our balcony stateroom on Deck 8. :)

Who was your cruise director?

His first name was Dru but I don't recall his last name. He was very visible throughout the cruise outside of scheduled activities talking to passengers.

Still with me? Great! Moving on to London pre-cruise... Our pre-cruise days were limited to arrival day, two days touring London, and then the journey to Harwich from London to embark the Brilliance of The Seas. I discount the first day we're in Europe for planning purposes because of jet lag. If we get in during the morning destination time, we tend to ride the HOHO bus around London and then pass out for a few hours, then I force us to get up for dinner so we're adjusted to the time zone changes. Since we arrived mid-afternoon, we didn't do this and went straight to the napping before dinner. Sorry to be boring!

We booked the Montague on the Gardens hotel due to its proximity to the British Museum and short walk to the tube stop. It seemed every boutique hotel in this area charged around the same room rate but had various TripAdvisor reviews regarding rooms. If you want to be right next to the Russell Square tube stop, then I suggest the Morton Hotel instead of the Montague. If you want an authentic old school service hotel, book the Montague. We loved the Montague even though their rooms were on the small side. This hotel had character and we snagged a package through the Luxury Collection (available through the Chase United Mileage Plus Explorer Card -- I promise I don't work for Chase or United Airlines!) that included complimentary breakfast and one authentic afternoon tea per stay, as well as robes and slippers. The service at the Montague was outstanding. They brought us cookies each afternoon for in room afternoon tea, the desk was fully stocked with any and every office supply you can imagine, and they accommodated every need and whim we had. The king size bed was incredibly comfortable, the complimentary WiFi was fast and consistently available, and we really liked the charm of the hotel.

The way we approached the planning was supposed to be simple: divide up the ports and days so my husband was responsible planning some days, and I was responsible for others. If you keep reading, you'll eventually figure out who actually held up their end of the deal. :D

That in mind, the first full day in London was mine and I haven't been inside Buckingham Palace on our previous trips to London because the Queen was there and never invited us to see her house (this is a joke for those who take things seriously). Anyway, I booked us the full Queen's Day Out which included the Royal Mews, the Royal Gallery, and the State Rooms. This took pretty much the whole day, but we loved it! We got hooked up with a tour guide/employee of the Mews and got a much better tour of that part of the palace than if we used the self-guided audio tour. I wish we had one for the rest of the day. No picture taking allowed in Buckingham Palace Gallery or State Rooms, but the memory of seeing Rembrandt's self portrait and other works you cannot see outside of Buckingham Palace is ingrained in my mind. That made the whole price worth it. If you plan on doing this, you have to schedule a time on your ticket for the Gallery and the Mews are about an hour, so arrive early and get that done before the Gallery, then spend the rest of the afternoon at the State Rooms (longest part of the day). Mews -> Gallery (time you book online) -> State Rooms and Gardens. There is a concession for drinks, sandwiches, and pastries at the end of the State Rooms tour.

TIP: We have iPhones and had them unlocked by Verizon for international usage before we left the US. Vodafone has stores all over London, and we stopped by one to get SIM cards to put in our iPhones. We opted for the Pay As You Go way for calls/texts/data and our phones worked (as phones) for the duration of the cruise, limited to 3G service for data in ports which was fine enough to load maps and check emails. If you select the Pay As You Go option, you need to calculate five British pounds per day put on your Vodaphone account because the minimum set up is £10 but they take £5 out per day in foreign ports. If you absolutely must keep in contact with people back home and with each other on the cruise ship, top up your Vodaphone account before you leave London with the amount of days x £5 and you'll be fine. You'll get a text message each time you reach a new port saying you have 100MB of data and £5 was deducted from your account. If you don't have those pounds on there, your phone will not work. Sea days, they only worked for roaming calls and texts without data. Let me know if you have more detailed questions about this and I'll be happy to answer.

The reason why we stayed so close to the British Museum was because I have issues with my legs and needed an available escape back to the hotel if I overdid it. I'm glad we booked so close, because my husband was intent on viewing every gallery and exhibit he could cram in. I headed back to the hotel early while he happily explored the British Museum.

First a little bit about us: we are a couple in our 40s celebrating our ten year anniversary. We have some cruise experience but never one greater than ten days, and this 14 day cruise would be our first transatlantic. We really didn't know what to expect except that we found out this Brilliance of the Seas cruise is pretty popular for its itinerary and booked it when we were on our Bermuda cruise on the Explorer. Coming from the western US, this seemed to be an ideal way to experience diverse port variety as well as some restful sea days without a huge flight timesink both ways.

Here is the Brilliance of The Seas Harwich, UK to Boston, MA itinerary:

8-31-2014 Harwich UK

9-1-2014 Le Havre, France

9-2-2014 Portland (Dorset), UK

9-3-2014 Cork, Ireland

9-4-2014 At Sea

9-5-2014 Klasvik, Faroe Islands

9-6-2014 At Sea

9-7-2014 Reykjavik, Iceland

9-8-2014 Reykjavik, Iceland

9-9-2014 At Sea

9-10-2014 At Sea

9-11-2014 At Sea

9-12-2014 At Sea

9-13-2014 At Sea

9-14-2014 Boston, MA

Enough about us, let's get on with the review! I'm going to structure this with three sections: flights, pre-cruise hotel & activities in London, then one or two posts with details on the North Atlantic ports and the ship. Please don't hesitate to ask questions; I think I have all the Cruise Compasses for each day as well.

FLIGHTS

I'm including this because hopefully this will help some people booking Europe cruises from the Western US. My husband is extremely picky about aircraft and seats, so he had his heart set on flying United's 787 Dreamliner to London Heathrow. Okay, great. :roll eyes: Prices for BusinessFirst seats on the Dreamliner are usually $1500+, and the Dreamliner doesn't fly direct from SFO to LHR -- just the 777 which has a 2-4-2 BusinessFirst configuration because United likes to pack everyone in a three class aircraft in like sardines. Even in a lie flat seat, my husband objected to the direct flight on the 777.

I did some extensive research I'm not going to bore you with, and the results were basically this: get United BusinessFirst Saver Award tickets on the Dreamliner out of Houston with 2-2-2 seat configuration. To do this, we had to get Chase United Mileage Plus Explorer credit cards and charge/pay off everything we could every month leading up to the cruise because it gives you 30,000 (sometimes 50,000) award miles. One way Saver Award tickets cost 30,000 miles for Economy, and 57,500 miles for BusinessFirst. We bought Saver Economy tickets as placeholder, then waited until a few days before our flights with a lot of frantic refreshing during the wee hours of the morning to see if two adjoining BusinessFirst Saver Award seats on the 787 would open up. Sure enough, they did! And we got a 787 from SFO-IAH and again for IAH-LHR.

Was this craziness and nail biting worth it? You bet. Flying BusinessFirst on the Dreamliner to Europe for less than $200 per ticket is hands down one of the most amazing experiences ever. The airplane has huge overhead bins, extremely comfortable lie flat seats, and no spastic gymnastics for the person in the window seat to climb over the person in the aisle seat to get into the bathroom (which itself is probably the biggest bathroom on an airplane I've been in). The cabin is pressurized at 5,000 feet, which not only is the altitude we live at, but really helped overcome jet lag (along with the LED lighting that simulates wake up gradually instead of the bright, harsh cabin lights in other aircraft). You don't hear the engine noise, and it is so quiet. You get a pillow and a thicker blanket more substantial than the thin one in domestic First Class, on demand video entertainment, etc. Okay, this isn't Singapore Airlines or anything like that but the seats were so worth it.

And flying BusinessFirst on an international itinerary gave us access to the United Club in SFO, which isn't a great lounge to begin with, but it was still better than hanging around for a few hours at the gate. They had relatively good WiFi, plus complimentary beverages and some light snacks. We didn't have time to check out the United Club in Houston because the connection was relatively tight, nor did we take advantage of the United Arrivals lounge in Heathrow because we got in around 2pm London time and headed straight for the hotel.

The experience completely ruined the flight home from Boston on an aging 757's domestic First Class. The seats were old, creaky, and it was back to gymnastics climbing over the aisle seat. :(

We tried Princess, and we have to book with them to sail to Hawaii. I can't stand the layout of Princess ships, and really miss RC's promenade. I actually got a little claustrophobic on Princess because there were traffic flow issues. I didn't really feel like the service was comparable either. The food on Princess was better, but I felt we had more options on RC. The cabins and balcony felt smaller on Princess.

I think if I wanted to "step up" then I would try Celebrity. I used to think Celebrity and Princess were equivalent products before we actually tried Princess. If RC had more Hawaii itineraries, then we'd sail more with them out of any West coast port but unfortunately they only have repo cruises for the Alaska ships.