Brilliance - Repo cruise, Cape Liberty to San Juan review.

[Mademypoint]

At long last I have finally started to get enough time to get this all written! It will take a little bit of time to get it all sorted but it's a start.

Day One - November 2nd, 2012

 

This was my second “solo” cruise but unlike the last minute (booked a week ahead of time) one I did last year, this one was planned a bit better and with a few friends so right off the bat it was going to be better. I have been on Explorer three times but had not been on Brilliance before so I was eager to see the differences in the two ships. Previously I was in a grand suite, an owner’s suite and an inside cabin, this time I was in a balcony on deck 9, port side, forward.

The days leading up to the cruise were incredibly stressful, not because I worried about what I might forget, but because I was unsure whether my house had survived the wrath of Sandy. When my power went out Monday morning at 8:30 I made the decision pretty quickly to gather up all things “critical”, round up and force the cats into carriers to head north to my mother’s apartment. We stayed for two days and while my cats settled in well to their new, temporary “home”, it was far less fun and enjoyable for my mother and I as she had no power and lived on the 10th floor.

 

Fortunately, I returned home to find my house standing, only slightly worse for wear as a 70+ foot tree fell towards the house, landing less than two feet from the back. One of the larger limbs on the now deceased tree did give it a parting glance though, leaving my gutter pulled back a few feet along with a few bent pieces of siding. The cats and I were quite pleased to be back in our own home even if that home had no power, but we could do something about that so I went out and fired up the generator (amazing how many “manly” things I have had to learn), plugged into the transfer switch, flipped on the breakers and I could now charge my phone, recharge the laptop and start on laundry. Once I started to read online about how bad things were in my town and how scary it felt to see the national guard hanging around down the street I really was unsure how I felt about heading out of town knowing how bad things were here. I was also concerned that my friend who comes in and checks on the cats would have a problem finding gas to be able to come by. After a good night’s sleep I decided I needed to go, not because I wanted to, but if I had to spend another four days sitting in the house alone I’d go crazy so the cruise was the cure to that little predicament.

 

I had just enough gas in the generator to finish all my laundry, but unfortunately, the furnace stopped putting out heat so I decided when I got up Friday morning that rather than taking a shower than and running the risk of getting sick that I would do that when I got onto the ship. For the first time ever, I was actually completely packed and ready to go two hours before the car service was ready to come and get me. I think I much prefer running around packing right up until the time the car service shows up! Anyway, I was picked up on time and despite a few detours made it to the pier around when I had expected to. The line to get through TO the counters was fairly long and it moved incredibly slow. I guess it’s just me but if you see everyone in front of you doing things like taking coats off and emptying pockets it’s pretty much a given that you’ll have to do the same thing too but that doesn’t stop most from having to pass through repeatedly as each time the buzzing triggers the memory that says “I did put something in THAT pocket”… once I got through there (I am always surprised that this is the one section where I never see those people again) it was a matter of minutes before I got onto the shuttle and headed onto the ship.

I had expected that my friends who had arrived at the port quite a bit earlier than me would have been ensconced in their cabins when I first opened the door to mine but unfortunately they ran into their own set of problems so I had enough time to take a quick look around the cabin and make the first phone call of the day which was to the spa to set up an appointment for a pedicure since I was unable to get one before I go on board. I was definitely in good company there as many people had problems even getting an appointment the first four days! I did not get an answer then so I called guest services to inquire where the sail away basket of fruit/cheese and champagne were that I had ordered and paid for was. They told me that I would get it closer to sail away time so I decided that I would take a shower and only nibble before dinner as we had a meet/greet before the official meet/greet at 6PM at Chops.

 

To be continued..

[will773]

AWESOME!!!!! Can't wait for the rest!

 

 

P.S. Glad to hear that your house got away will no significant damage! Which beach do you live in? Our summer home in Cape May luckily didn't get any damage at all, just lots of leaves and debris!

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the review!

[Mademypoint]

I live near Sandy Hook.

 

As soon as I got out of the shower I tried the spa again and this time I was able to get someone on the phone. Apparently other people had the exact same “top two” as I did because I was unable to get an appointment until the third day! It was right around this time that my friends came by the cabin and I handed them their little “gift bags” which contained a door sign, silly party hat and a bunch of things that could be waved from the balcony. The intent was to make it impossible for anyone watching the cam to miss us, but sadly the innkeepers decided to zoom in on the ship in front of us and not us so other than getting a good workout from waving the streamers and being incredibly grateful that WE were on vacation, nobody else got a good look at us in all our silliness.

 

 

 

Now it was time to go and muster and I still did not have my fruit and cheese basket so I crossed my fingers that when I got back that they would be waiting for me but that did not happen so before heading off to one of my friends cabins (she was on starboard) I called guest services again who apologized, put me on hold, called room service and then told me it was coming “right up”. I thanked them, hung up, waited five minutes or so and decided to call room service myself where I was told it was on the way. I asked how long it would be and I was told 15-20 minutes so I told them to cancel it. I called guest services back and said I did not want it that if I had wanted it for after sail away that I would have ordered it for after sail away and there was no excuse for failing to deliver it, especially since I had been told it was “on the way”. They promised to cancel it so I went to my friends for a bit, came back to the cabin to put the hat away and headed off to meet our new friends at CHOPS. Since it was now well over 30 minutes it was a safe bet that they were lying.

 

 

 

CHOPS is quite a bit smaller than I had expected and that’s probably why they are not able to put together a bunch of tables to accommodate large parties. This meant that our group was forced to sit at two separate tables that could be defined as being “in the vicinity” of each other. We were each waited on by a different set of waiters and therefore ordered and got our food at different times. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know our new friends and spending time with the friends that I knew before. Just a bit about the friends that I knew before! Just about a year ago we started a thread over in the solo forum here (yes there is a sub forum dedicated just to this very subject!) and over time as various people stumbled into it we sort of found ourselves in a situation where we all wanted to cruise together. Our goal was to find a cruise that we could all go on and while THAT particular cruise is not going to happen for just about a year, we have all pretty much gone or are going on other cruises in the interim. Two of us booked this particular cruise at the same time and another decided to join us so the three of us (there are 10 going on the cruise next year plus another 10 who are part of our group but so far are not) got to spend these eight lovely days together. I had met three of the people in our group in person before this cruise but was really glad to get to know another. I should add that without permission I really don’t want to refer to them by name and since I was unsure when/if I was going to actually write about the trip I did not ask them.

 

 

 

So, dinner was amazingly fun and quite delicious! I would go back there anytime and I do find it well worth the money, but in all honesty, I’d really need to be really hungry and most days I’m never quite “that” hungry.

 

 

 

I returned to my cabin a few hours later and I was shocked to find a basket of fruit, a plate with those ugly looking plastic covers over it and the champagne. I called guest services and told them they need to come and take it away as I am not paying for it. They told me they issued me a credit, I would see it shortly and I should just keep it. I said I did not want it so I would have my steward (loved him!) take it away in the morning. I read for a little while, checked the tv to see if I got the credit and when I did not see it, I called again and said “I do not see the credit”. They told me it has to go on the card so I won’t see it until I get off the ship.

 

 

 

Well, I learned a long time ago not to trust people who are never accountable for what they tell people so I just made a note to follow up with amex after I got off the ship. In the morning I told my room steward to take the fruit and to throw out the whatever kind of cheese it was.

 

 

 

I shall continue tomorrow….

[ILoveScotland]

Loving the review, and you can use my name as one of the two friends.

 

I liked your description of our waving from the balcony hoping to be seen by friends and family when it turned out the webcame was on the Norwegian Gem which was in front of us. We still had fun, and I brought the streamers home with me for another time.

 

Looking forward to the next segment.

 

Beth

[PathfinderEss]

Enjoying your review, looking forward to the rest.

[Mademypoint]

There’s very little in the world that is as pleasant as the first time you wake up and realize that you are on a cruise ship and as unpleasant when you realize that it’s before 6AM and you are wide awake. I knew I had ordered room service but I could not remember if I had it for 7:30 – 8 or 8 – 8:30 so I got up, got dressed, went onto the balcony with a book and read for a little while. My breakfast showed up about 8:20 and while the eggs arrived hot so did the yogurt. I’m not sure what was up with THAT but rest assured I had no desire to interact with it so that was the last time I even looked at any all week. I was quite excited to get out and about so once I was done I headed out of the cabin.

 

Having been to several meet and mingles before where they had predominantly been the former without the latter I was unsure whether this one would be any different. Fortunately, this one was not held in a dark and small room so right away I knew it was going to be infinitely better. I arrived early for it and that’s when I realized that my friends and I have more in common… we are always early! The upside to that is that when you set a time to meet you know you’ll never be kept waiting.

 

The meet and mingle was a blast. They really wanted to make sure we got up and mingled. They offered some really nice prizes and while I believe there were some people who did not make it, there were 120 who had signed up. Many of these were people who participated in our roll call so it was a great opportunity to put faces to names and start getting to know each other or to pick up from where we left off at dinner the previous evening.

 

There were a lot of people on the ship who were from the NY/NJ area and almost all had their own story about what they had gone through before getting on the ship. Many had been without power too and at least one had lost everything. It was quite amusing a few days later after the snow storm came through because a few people either did not know to convert CM to inches or converted it the wrong way because someone insisted that parts of my area got 2 feet of snow.

 

 

I am going to refrain from discussing trivia in this review as it is no longer the game that it once was and it’s not worth my time or yours to talk about it.

 

I need to upload my pictures so I can include them but the hotel I’m in is really slow so I will have to do that when I’m home tomorrow night.

[BillOh]

Thanks in advance, a repositioning cruise is still on my list of things to do, so I'll read your review with interest. I've been on Jewel, but not Brilliance, but I'll be interested to see the pictures.

[Mademypoint]

Bill,

 

The best part of going on a repo cruise is you get to visit more ports! The differences between this cruise and the previous one's which were not are more along the lines of the size of the ship, the amount of people who were on it and no sea days at the end to "wind down" from all those excursions! I'll try to get into the specifics and make comparisons when I have a chance.

 

Stacy

[Mademypoint]

Here are a few pictures from around the ship. I tried to share one's that I have not seen too often.

 

Deck 9

 

 

Solarium

 

 

 

 

 

seaview menu

 

Fixture at the pool.. I tried to find someone to go sit on her lap or something to make the picture more interesting.

[Mademypoint]

 

Putt Putt

 

 

Self Explanatory

 

Looking Up

 

[Mademypoint]

 

 

 

 

[lauraapp]

Great pictures...keep them coming! Going on the Brilliance in April!

[phaeton]

On board on December 22nd. Getting excited to be on board.