Brilliance of the Seas vets: Will you return to Royal Caribbean?

[xpcdoojk]

That would work for me if I knew that going in, and just wanted to have a relaxing time. However, for this particular trip it was all about the ports and basically the ship was just going to be a place to sleep.

 

Having cruised the Med and having visited the Med, a cruise will never equal going there as a land vacation because at best a cruise is a sampling kind of vacation. There is unfortunately no gaurantee that a ship will reach any port on its itinerary. It literally happens all of the time. Hence what seems to you to be a lack of compassion is the reflection of the reality that this sort of stuff happens all of the time. My first cruise was a Caribbean cruise to go to warm weather for my DW and my 15th wedding anniversary. We were delayed about 8 hours leaving Miami because of a huge snow storm on the east coast. We skipped Labadee because of high winds and rain. It rained all day in Jamaica and the temps were in the upper 50s. It was sunny and 70 in Grand Caymen. It was sunny in the morning at Cozumel and about 70 then a storm hit while I was scuba diving, where during my safety stop, I literally threw up underwater because of the huge waves that were now tossing the dive boat around and I honestly wasn't sure if I could get into the dive boat the seas were so rough. I threw up during the entire boat ride back to the pier as did most of the other scuba divers. The remaining sea day was cold and rainy the entire way back to Miami. I wouldn't call that a dream vacation, and yet, not for a single moment did I contemplate how to get my money back from the cruiseline. Actually, we had a great time and made friends for life with some other passengers. We are cruising with them later this month in fact.

 

It is too bad that cruise advertisements show only the shiny perfect moments and not the true reality. That is the value of a thread like this. It says that sometimes things just suck. Is it fair that you had a sucky cruise and someone a month earlier had the cruise of a lifetime? Probably not, but fair doesn't really mean much in real life.

 

jc

[jbatzmaru]

I thought they cruise Dubai during the winter and then return to the Med, because I am booked on the Brilliance next July.

 

maybe.... I was casual chatting with my waiter and he mention that they are heading to dubai area.

[xpcdoojk]

Nobody knows for sure except RCI. maybe the ship was fix but they did a patch job and something fell apart again. or the captain was scare to put the ship to the test. but all i know was that I was not happy with how RCI handle the whole situation. I am only 33 years old so I have time and money to go to europe again. but i am really piss off right about now and I am letting all my friends and family know how I feel. I already convenience 2 of my friend to cancel with RCI and book with someone else. hahahahahaaaa I am going to get my refund one way or another.

 

Sue L- If you left on 10/14 how long was your cruise and when did you get back to Barcelona?

 

Way to work the system. You must be so very proud. Is jj sending you a check, too? I would demand what he gets, don't short yourself, you are working for it, too!:D:rolleyes:

 

jc

[jbatzmaru]

Having cruised the Med and having visited the Med, a cruise will never equal going there as a land vacation because at best a cruise is a sampling kind of vacation. There is unfortunately no gaurantee that a ship will reach any port on its itinerary. It literally happens all of the time. Hence what seems to you to be a lack of compassion is the reflection of the reality that this sort of stuff happens all of the time. My first cruise was a Caribbean cruise to go to warm weather for my DW and my 15th wedding anniversary. We were delayed about 8 hours leaving Miami because of a huge snow storm on the east coast. We skipped Labadee because of high winds and rain. It rained all day in Jamaica and the temps were in the upper 50s. It was sunny and 70 in Grand Caymen. It was sunny in the morning at Cozumel and about 70 then a storm hit while I was scuba diving, where during my safety stop, I literally threw up underwater because of the huge waves that were now tossing the dive boat around and I honestly wasn't sure if I could get into the dive boat the seas were so rough. I threw up during the entire boat ride back to the pier as did most of the other scuba divers. The remaining sea day was cold and rainy the entire way back to Miami. I wouldn't call that a dream vacation, and yet, not for a single moment did I contemplate how to get my money back from the cruiseline. Actually, we had a great time and made friends for life with some other passengers. We are cruising with them later this month in fact.

 

It is too bad that cruise advertisements show only the shiny perfect moments and not the true reality. That is the value of a thread like this. It says that sometimes things just suck. Is it fair that you had a sucky cruise and someone a month earlier had the cruise of a lifetime? Probably not, but fair doesn't really mean much in real life.

 

jc

 

good write up.

 

but you can actually see the bad weather correct? I had a balcony stateroom and i was out there all the time smoking, since there was nothing to do. The weather wasn't that bad at all.

 

On the day we were suppose to go into santonini, i was up at 6am smoking out in the baloney as usual. saw another cruise ship docking. Next thing i knew was that we were skipping the port due to weather. I could never figure this out.....

[ThatGuy2009]

Somewhere on page 4 of this post it was said that it was only the staff port holes were closed due to bad weather and that no paying cruisers lost their view.

 

We were on the October 26th Departure cruise with 4 missed ports.

 

My wife and I had a cabin on the second deck and we specifically purchased an outside room because we don't like the absolute darkness of an inside room. On the third night of sailing we came back from dinner to find our porthole closed with a letter attached to it saying the captain has made it manditory to close all portholes due to wether.

 

We were all for it if its a matter of saftey. By the end of the cruise the the port hole in our room was closed by security personell for a total of 6 days.

 

I'm all for saftey but didn't think that we should incure the financial cost of having an outside porthole room when we would have had the same experience in a cheaper inside room.

 

After calmley explaining my request to be compensated for the difference in room prices for the 6 days the guest relations put in a formal written request on about day 7 of our 11 day cruise. We got a mesasge from a guest relations manager the night before the cruise ended that our request was denied. I called this manager to complain that I was making a very reasonable request to which he agreed that "under normal conditions" my request would have been approved. Upon asking him to clarify he blaitabtly told me that since passangers were"organizing and talking" that he feared if he gave me a monatary companstation others on the floor would request the same.

 

I was outraged by this bushleague response and let hime know it very forcefully for about 10 minutes straight. He said there was nothing he could do. I hung the phone and it rang again about 5 minutes later. The same Rep informed me that he was indeed going to credit my account for the difference of an inside cabin.

[xpcdoojk]

good write up.

 

but you can actually see the bad weather correct? I had a balcony stateroom and i was out there all the time smoking, since there was nothing to do. The weather wasn't that bad at all.

 

On the day we were suppose to go into santonini, i was up at 6am smoking out in the baloney as usual. saw another cruise ship docking. Next thing i knew was that we were skipping the port due to weather. I could never figure this out.....

 

Most people here don't smoke baloney, but post it instead.:D

 

jc

[Jenagain]

Having cruised the Med and having visited the Med, a cruise will never equal going there as a land vacation because at best a cruise is a sampling kind of vacation. There is unfortunately no gaurantee that a ship will reach any port on its itinerary. It literally happens all of the time. Hence what seems to you to be a lack of compassion is the reflection of the reality that this sort of stuff happens all of the time. My first cruise was a Caribbean cruise to go to warm weather for my DW and my 15th wedding anniversary. We were delayed about 8 hours leaving Miami because of a huge snow storm on the east coast. We skipped Labadee because of high winds and rain. It rained all day in Jamaica and the temps were in the upper 50s. It was sunny and 70 in Grand Caymen. It was sunny in the morning at Cozumel and about 70 then a storm hit while I was scuba diving, where during my safety stop, I literally threw up underwater because of the huge waves that were now tossing the dive boat around and I honestly wasn't sure if I could get into the dive boat the seas were so rough. I threw up during the entire boat ride back to the pier as did most of the other scuba divers. The remaining sea day was cold and rainy the entire way back to Miami. I wouldn't call that a dream vacation, and yet, not for a single moment did I contemplate how to get my money back from the cruiseline. Actually, we had a great time and made friends for life with some other passengers. We are cruising with them later this month in fact.

 

It is too bad that cruise advertisements show only the shiny perfect moments and not the true reality. That is the value of a thread like this. It says that sometimes things just suck. Is it fair that you had a sucky cruise and someone a month earlier had the cruise of a lifetime? Probably not, but fair doesn't really mean much in real life.

 

jc

 

You are certainly correct about the sampling, and I've already decided after only getting to Rome and not Florence/Naples that I will do an Italy trip via air and train next time.

 

Also, just to clarify I made the best of a bad situation, but still think that there needs to be fair compensation for "the worst cruise the CD had ever seen"- a 25% coupon that is only good for 1 year is not going to work for me - my job is such that I just can't get away again after just taking almost 3 weeks off.

 

Also, RCL made up any money they lost in the bar and casino during our additional days at sea, and they will make money again when passengers use the offered discount coupon.

[Jenagain]

good write up.

 

but you can actually see the bad weather correct? I had a balcony stateroom and i was out there all the time smoking, since there was nothing to do. The weather wasn't that bad at all.

 

On the day we were suppose to go into santonini, i was up at 6am smoking out in the baloney as usual. saw another cruise ship docking. Next thing i knew was that we were skipping the port due to weather. I could never figure this out.....

 

I agree...have lovely pictures of Santorini taken from the Windjamer at 7am. We were probably less than a mile or so away, there were some little whitecaps and the skies were gray, but it didn't seem that bad.

[coxswain]

The ship was fixed when we left Barcelona, it is why we stayed in port all night and didn't leave until the morning of the 14th as they worked all night on it. They originally had announced that we would not be leaving until mid-late afternoon. At 9:15 am or so we were awoken by an announcement that muster would be in 30 minutes. During muster they said the repairs were completed ahead of schedule and we would be leaving around 11am and we did. We were sailing at 22+ knots when the weather permitted on ours.

 

So my question is how is everyone claiming the ship was damaged when we saw it was fixed? Are you saying there was further damage or they didn't really fix what they were fixing that night?

 

 

 

Fixed or temporary fixed ?

 

 

 

 

 

jj.....

[coxswain]

Somewhere on page 4 of this post it was said that it was only the staff port holes were closed due to bad weather and that no paying cruisers lost their view.

 

We were on the October 26th Departure cruise with 4 missed ports.

 

My wife and I had a cabin on the second deck and we specifically purchased an outside room because we don't like the absolute darkness of an inside room. On the third night of sailing we came back from dinner to find our porthole closed with a letter attached to it saying the captain has made it manditory to close all portholes due to wether.

 

We were all for it if its a matter of saftey. By the end of the cruise the the port hole in our room was closed by security personell for a total of 6 days.

 

I'm all for saftey but didn't think that we should incure the financial cost of having an outside porthole room when we would have had the same experience in a cheaper inside room.

 

After calmley explaining my request to be compensated for the difference in room prices for the 6 days the guest relations put in a formal written request on about day 7 of our 11 day cruise. We got a mesasge from a guest relations manager the night before the cruise ended that our request was denied. I called this manager to complain that I was making a very reasonable request to which he agreed that "under normal conditions" my request would have been approved. Upon asking him to clarify he blaitabtly told me that since passangers were"organizing and talking" that he feared if he gave me a monatary companstation others on the floor would request the same.

 

I was outraged by this bushleague response and let hime know it very forcefully for about 10 minutes straight. He said there was nothing he could do. I hung the phone and it rang again about 5 minutes later. The same Rep informed me that he was indeed going to credit my account for the difference of an inside cabin.

 

 

 

 

Maybe the same Cpt when its rough might suggest that all guests eat their dinner in the lifeboats just incase lol

 

 

 

 

jj......

[CRUISING71]

Well, my next cruise is a 13 day cruise, and there are 8 sea days, including 6 in a row. I didn't book it thinking was going to be torturous. I must be crazy as I am very eager to go.

 

I understand and sympathise with your cruise not being everything you hoped it would be. I truly do.

 

jc

 

 

But you book this cruise knowing it will be 8 sea days!...These people booked not knowing they were given 7 sea days!...big difference. Plus...you were not on this cruise, so you don't know what they are experiencing.

[CRUISING71]

Please don't flame me for having two cruises with Carnival and this is a RCCL forum!:eek:

[Sue L]

Nobody knows for sure except RCI. maybe the ship was fix but they did a patch job and something fell apart again. or the captain was scare to put the ship to the test. but all i know was that I was not happy with how RCI handle the whole situation. I am only 33 years old so I have time and money to go to europe again. but i am really piss off right about now and I am letting all my friends and family know how I feel. I already convenience 2 of my friend to cancel with RCI and book with someone else. hahahahahaaaa I am going to get my refund one way or another.

 

Sue L- If you left on 10/14 how long was your cruise and when did you get back to Barcelona?

 

We were on the October 13th cruise, the one before yours, we boarded 6 hours late due to one before us being late, but we didn't leave until the morning of the 14th and then we were the ones the day late that ran into your time on the cruise.

[jbatzmaru]

We were on the October 13th cruise, the one before yours, we boarded 6 hours late due to one before us being late, but we didn't leave until the morning of the 14th and then we were the ones the day late that ran into your time on the cruise.

 

Sue- what what i was told.... your cruise ran into a storm toward the end of the cruise correct? thus causing the delay. I was also told that this was when the ship was damaged and the port hole got knocked in. So you are saying that when you board the ship on 10/14 you were delay also due to the boat being fix?

 

I guess the ship was damage more then we thought.

[Jenagain]

Sue- what what i was told.... your cruise ran into a storm toward the end of the cruise correct? thus causing the delay. I was also told that this was when the ship was damaged and the port hole got knocked in. So you are saying that when you board the ship on 10/14 you were delay also due to the boat being fix?

 

I guess the ship was damage more then we thought.

 

I believe the damage to the ship happened during the 10/1 cruise, not the 10/13 cruise.

[Sue L]

Sue- what what i was told.... your cruise ran into a storm toward the end of the cruise correct? thus causing the delay. I was also told that this was when the ship was damaged and the port hole got knocked in. So you are saying that when you board the ship on 10/14 you were delay also due to the boat being fix?

 

I guess the ship was damage more then we thought.

 

NO, it was not more damaged, your events are out of ordered. You were given misinformation, the damage occurred on the last night of the October 1st sailing, on the night of the 12/13th. They arrived into port at 12:45pm the afternoon of the 13th. . We were delayed boarding until about 6pm on the 13th (the day we were supposed to board) and we spent the whole night at the dockyard in Barcelona to fix the damage, it was ALL fixed when we left at 11am on the 14th.

 

When we left Corfu , day 9, there were storms in the area, with lots of thunder and lightning. Later that evening we were watching CNN and we saw storms everywhere for hundreds of miles. The whole area was colored red for severe storms and they were reporting tornados and tornado warnings in Croatia, where we had left the day before. The next day the Captain said because of all the storms that we were skirting the coast and we could see land the whole way. We had seen the awful storms on CNN and they were saying how the winds in those storms was near or exceeding hurricane strength,

 

It was because we followed the coast around and didn't go straight across (into the storms), that we were the 15 hours late getting in to Barcelona.

[busyissy]

Brilliance of Seas vets: Will you return to Royal Caribbean?

After being on the Oct. 13-25 sailing from Barcelona, I have mixed feelings about Royal Caribbean. Absolutely no human controls the weather, of course, but I feel like communication about our late departure and particularly our late return was so poor that it exasperated an already bad situation. While (I'm convinced) RC executives debated compensation and other legal issues, hours passed, leaving passengers so little time to try to reach airlines, hotels and family. A change in course means a change in hours, and that should have been shared immediately with the passengers. The cost to change get-home arrangements was phenomenal - often far, far more than the cruise line offered. And to make matters worse, some of the computers were out of order at such a challenging time. Overall, the Brilliance experience was wonderful. It's a shame to let such an episode shade perception of Royal Caribbean, but I'm afraid it does. How do other veterans of this cruise feel about Royal Caribbean?

Having been on this cruise which should have departed from Barcelona on 13th October, I will be reluctant to book another RCI cruise, although we were on the Navigator last year with no problems, but I found the Brillance cruise a rather stressful cruise due to the late arrival of luggage - we did not get our luggage until almost 1 am and I was unpacking in the small hours of the morning. I had to arrange next day flights, due to the later arrival in Barcelona and wish to ask has anyone been reimbursed yet...

[bawe]

I was on the October 26 cruise. I paid for 12 nights. RCI gave me 11 nights. They should refund 1/12 of my fare. How much simpler can it get than that. Yet, RCI refuses to do so.

 

Understand that we were not permitted to board the ship until 24 hours after the time in my contract.

 

 

IN MY OPINION:

1. RCI should have expedited our departure from Barcelona so that we could leave earlier in the day, thus making it possible for us to stop in Florence on time.

 

2. Because of the bad experiences during the prior two cruises, the youthful Captain was overly cautious in navigating toward Naples to avoid all storms. I wonder if other ships missed Naples.

 

3. The CD was not helpful. His interviews with the Captain were more of a monologue, with the Captain appearing to be part of the scenery. In a way the interviews were comical, with the CD showing pictures of storms without any reference to the ships position or land reference points, and the Captain nodding while the CD continued with his narrative.

 

4. The food, the shows, and the senior personnel were not up to the standards we had come to expect from RCI.

 

5. RCI lost a lot of goodwill by refusing to recognize the value of good customer relations. This was our 9th cruise on RCI, which had been our favorite line. I don't expect to cruise with RCI again any time soon.

[dramaqueen4lyfe]

good write up.

 

but you can actually see the bad weather correct? I had a balcony stateroom and i was out there all the time smoking, since there was nothing to do. The weather wasn't that bad at all.

 

On the day we were suppose to go into santonini, i was up at 6am smoking out in the baloney as usual. saw another cruise ship docking. Next thing i knew was that we were skipping the port due to weather. I could never figure this out.....

 

I'm wondering what you were smoking because cruise ships do not dock in Santorini, they anchor out and tenders take the passengers in.

We were on the Oct 1st and the Oct 13th cruises. Welding equipment was brought on the ship on the 13th and removed on the 14th after the repairs had been made. We watched the comings and goings from our balcony. We had no problems with the speed of the ship and maintained between 18 and 22 knots most of the way until the night we left Corfu and as has been reported, there were massive storms all around which necessitated hugging the coast all the way back. There was nothing wrong with the ship.

[coxswain]

I'm wondering what you were smoking because cruise ships do not dock in Santorini, they anchor out and tenders take the passengers in.

We were on the Oct 1st and the Oct 13th cruises. Welding equipment was brought on the ship on the 13th and removed on the 14th after the repairs had been made. We watched the comings and goings from our balcony. We had no problems with the speed of the ship and maintained between 18 and 22 knots most of the way until the night we left Corfu and as has been reported, there were massive storms all around which necessitated hugging the coast all the way back. There was nothing wrong with the ship.

 

 

Excuse me you don't know for sure there was nothing wrong with the ship !!!

 

 

 

We were told we'd get port fee's back for Cannes still waiting - i still say the Cpt was avoiding rougher weather because he was worried about the integrity of the new portholes

 

 

 

 

jj......

[xpcdoojk]

Excuse me you don't know for sure there was nothing wrong with the ship !!!

 

 

 

We were told we'd get port fee's back for Cannes still waiting - i still say the Cpt was avoiding rougher weather because he was worried about the integrity of the new portholes

 

 

 

 

jj......

 

I will waste my time again, but there you go posting another baseless rumor. Please provide proof. Of course, you won't and you can't.

 

jc

[Jenagain]

I'm wondering what you were smoking because cruise ships do not dock in Santorini, they anchor out and tenders take the passengers in.

 

We were on the Oct 1st and the Oct 13th cruises. Welding equipment was brought on the ship on the 13th and removed on the 14th after the repairs had been made. We watched the comings and goings from our balcony. We had no problems with the speed of the ship and maintained between 18 and 22 knots most of the way until the night we left Corfu and as has been reported, there were massive storms all around which necessitated hugging the coast all the way back. There was nothing wrong with the ship.

 

There was a ship at Santorini the day we were supposed to come in....no other cruise ships were due in port that day, so it could have been a very large ferry.

 

One of my biggest problems with the 25th cruise was bypassing of Naples due to storms and not being able to go to any other ports according to the Captain or we would not make it to Barcelona on time - then fast forward a day and we are traveling at about 10 knots or lower and then staying just a mile off of Barcelona 12+ hours prior to when we are scheduled to be docking.

 

Secondly I also agree with one of the other posters about leaving earlier on the 26th. We left after 7pm when we could have left much earlier. RCL had put everyone up in hotels the night of the 25th, had already registered/checked in those of us who had to go to the port on the 25th to be given a hotel. Frankly there is/was no reason we could not have left by 2-3 pm.

[coxswain]

There was a ship at Santorini the day we were supposed to come in....no other cruise ships were due in port that day, so it could have been a very large ferry.

 

One of my biggest problems with the 25th cruise was bypassing of Naples due to storms and not being able to go to any other ports according to the Captain or we would not make it to Barcelona on time - then fast forward a day and we are traveling at about 10 knots or lower and then staying just a mile off of Barcelona 12+ hours prior to when we are scheduled to be docking.

 

Secondly I also agree with one of the other posters about leaving earlier on the 26th. We left after 7pm when we could have left much earlier. RCL had put everyone up in hotels the night of the 25th, had already registered/checked in those of us who had to go to the port on the 25th to be given a hotel. Frankly there is/was no reason we could not have left by 2-3 pm.

 

 

 

 

Sounds weird to me - just adds to the mystery

 

 

 

 

 

jj........

[SmokinActuary]

I am just sure that those passengers who question the Captain's judgment have plenty of experience in running a cruise ship.

[coxswain]

I am just sure that those passengers who question the Captain's judgment have plenty of experience in running a cruise ship.

 

 

 

Does that mean we're not allowed to ? or was he being pressured from above - because believe me in my past line of work i know it goes on - pressure to keep to a schedule !!

 

 

 

 

 

jj.......