Brilliance v. Serenade

[FoxyBride14]

I know that these are similar style ships, but I have to say that I enjoyed the Serenade SO much better. I was on both the Serenade & Brilliance for the Southern Caribbean Itinerary out of PR (before the Serenade was upgraded) and hands down the Serenade was better in almost every aspect. The food was better, the service was better, the ship was nice, etc. Why is this? I can see that on CC the Serenade has better reviews as well. It's just kind of odd to me since it is same class ship.

[Sequim88]

I think over time ships start to develop a specific "culture". Even with staff rotating on and off contracts if enough stay with the same ship then new people will pick up on the culture. Also length of tenure of the top management (Hotel Manager and Captain even) attitudes trickles down and can anchor the culture.

 

Mix of nationalities of the cultures of the staff might also be a factor. Might not be the same now but on Brilliance we noted a predominance of staff from South & Central America whereas on Serenade it was more East Europe and South-Southest Asia.

 

Except for minor decoration differences we found the ships themselves to be nearly identical except that immediately after our cruise on Brilliance it went into dry dock so might have been a little worn waiting for sprucing up then (prior to staying in the Med for a couple years). Brilliance was our first RCI ship so seemed fine to us at the time.

[island lady]

Have not been on the Serenade yet, but I have been on the Jewel and Radiance several

times. The Brilliance once. They are all identical on the outside, but I agree the quad of sisters seem quite

different on the inside...both condition, decorations, and crew. Our hands down favorite is the Jewel.

 

Hope to meet Serenade up close and personal in the future! :)

[BillB48]

Shower curtains (Brilliance) vs Shower doors (Serenade);).

[UCF_Knight]

Is there a reason that Brilliance is the only ship in the fleet which RCI distinguishes as "Brilliance of the Seas is operated by RCL (UK) Ltd. Subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd"? Could that have something to do with the differences seen onboard?

[tahqa]

Is there a reason that Brilliance is the only ship in the fleet which RCI distinguishes as "Brilliance of the Seas is operated by RCL (UK) Ltd. Subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd"? Could that have something to do with the differences seen onboard?

 

AFAIK Independence of the Seas is also operated by RCL UK -- at least I think I saw that somewhere.

 

But, yeah, a different corporate culture could permeate all the way down to the operating level.

[UCF_Knight]

AFAIK Independence of the Seas is also operated by RCL UK -- at least I think I saw that somewhere.

 

But, yeah, a different corporate culture could permeate all the way down to the operating level.

 

On all of their flyers (Tuesday Sale, Revitalization Schedule, etc), they only single out Brilliance as being operated by RCL (UK) Ltd.

[FoxyBride14]

Shower curtains (Brilliance) vs Shower doors (Serenade);).

 

I thought that I was going crazy because I could have sworn that shower doors were on the Serenade, so I was expecting them on the Brilliance too.

 

I wouldn't go out of my way to go on a cruise on the Brilliance again, but if I might for the Serenade. It was hands down the best service I had on any cruise.

 

Too bad I won't get to try out the Jewel next year. I usually always do the Southern Caribbean itinerary out of San Juan, but next year I'm getting married, so we are going to skip the February cruise and have a big European honeymoon in the summer.

[critterchick]

Is there a reason that Brilliance is the only ship in the fleet which RCI distinguishes as "Brilliance of the Seas is operated by RCL (UK) Ltd. Subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd"? Could that have something to do with the differences seen onboard?

 

She used to be the only ship under that umbrella, but there are a few more, including Rhapsody, as told to us passengers onboard her in 2011. RCI just hasn't updated things, shockingly.

 

OP, our theory about Brilliance is that she was in Europe for too long. We Americans are used to being spoiled rotten by RCI crew, and on our TA, we observed that Brilliance's crew wasn't really into that (with some notable exceptions, including our brilliant stateroom attendant). I suspect that things have already changed since she's been back (and confronted with the US market again) for some months now.

 

Jewel and Radiance (haven't been on Serenade in too many years to compare) have crews that will do backflips with a smile to make their passengers happy.

[FoxyBride14]

She used to be the only ship under that umbrella, but there are a few more, including Rhapsody, as told to us passengers onboard her in 2011. RCI just hasn't updated things, shockingly.

 

OP, our theory about Brilliance is that she was in Europe for too long. We Americans are used to being spoiled rotten by RCI crew, and on our TA, we observed that Brilliance's crew wasn't really into that (with some notable exceptions, including our brilliant stateroom attendant). I suspect that things have already changed since she's been back (and confronted with the US market again) for some months now.

 

Jewel and Radiance (haven't been on Serenade in too many years to compare) have crews that will do backflips with a smile to make their passengers happy.

 

They haven't changed all too much. I was just on there last week. I mean some people were really nice, but others were just eh. I had a better experience on Serenade and Adventure.

[Denise Ann]

We too, felt Brilliance wasn't up to snuff. To many little things fell through the cracks for us. No notice of the B2B meeting, so our boarding next morning was a mess. (we should know better, next time when Friday rolls around, we'll ask) Dinner, 10 people assigned to a table of 8. and a few others. We still had a great time, and love the southern route. Hope Jewel is better. Does the Jewel have a shower curtain or door?

Densie

[FoxyBride14]

We too, felt Brilliance wasn't up to snuff. To many little things fell through the cracks for us. No notice of the B2B meeting, so our boarding next morning was a mess. (we should know better, next time when Friday rolls around, we'll ask) Dinner, 10 people assigned to a table of 8. and a few others. We still had a great time, and love the southern route. Hope Jewel is better. Does the Jewel have a shower curtain or door?

Densie

 

I love the southern route as well. And I was laughing when my friends who went to Florida during presidents week said it was "freezing" aka 50s and 60s while I was nice and toasty in high 70s/low 80s weather.

[JaneStarr]

We too, felt Brilliance wasn't up to snuff. To many little things fell through the cracks for us. No notice of the B2B meeting, so our boarding next morning was a mess. (we should know better, next time when Friday rolls around, we'll ask) Dinner, 10 people assigned to a table of 8. and a few others. We still had a great time, and love the southern route. Hope Jewel is better. Does the Jewel have a shower curtain or door?

Densie

 

 

Our experience on Brilliance (both times) was the same as yours. We much prefer Jewel and Serenade OTS. As a matter of fact, I do not plan to sail on Brilliance again. The tone of the most of the staff on the ship was to "just say no" to reasonable requests. This is the polar opposite of how I felt aboard her sister ships. On Brilliance, they would make mistakes on bookings and then have a really bad attitude when you politely tried to get what you had booked. One example is that the spa manager was particularly unprofessional and disagreeable. It was in regards to a formal night hair appt they had apparently double-booked. They canceled on me w/o notice. Really rude & unprofessional behavior when I tried to discuss options.

 

As far as the Jewel, I vaguely remember the showers (in D1 cabin)having doors.

Jane

[Epaul3]

Having sailed the Serenade, I absolutely loved it! Will be sailing the Brilliance in April. These negative comments are making me a little nervous. Can't cancel now. I am really hoping we will have a positive experience. Hopefully if we go with a good attitude and just want to relax....... all will go well.

[Kellie Poodle]

I'm not happy to hear such comments about Brilliance, either. I sailed her in 2007 and found the crew to be fantastic, but that was a long time ago. I've got 27 days scheduled next summer.

 

I do feel that a cruise is what one makes of it and the crew can be nice when you treat them nicely or nasty when people are nasty to them, so I am not too worried.

 

I like sailings that are not in the Caribbean . There is a different demographic on European, Asian and TA cruises than on Caribbean cruises and I find them more to my liking.

[JaneStarr]

Having sailed the Serenade, I absolutely loved it! Will be sailing the Brilliance in April. These negative comments are making me a little nervous. Can't cancel now. I am really hoping we will have a positive experience. Hopefully if we go with a good attitude and just want to relax....... all will go well.

I'm sure you will have a great time, no matter what. Just go with the right attitude. Even though I choose not to sail on Brilliance again, that doesn't mean I didn't have a good time. I just prefer a different service "vibe".

I've done a variety of cruises -- Caribbean, Panama Canal, Russia, Europe, Alaska, Trans-Atlantic & River boat cruises. Brilliance is the only ship where I've really felt the service was lower than expected. We even gave them the benefit of the doubt and took a 2nd cruise on Brilliance. We enjoyed the cruises with our family and friends, in spite of some of our on board experiences.

Please don't worry; enjoy your cruise.

Jane

[island lady]

We too, felt Brilliance wasn't up to snuff. To many little things fell through the cracks for us. No notice of the B2B meeting, so our boarding next morning was a mess. (we should know better, next time when Friday rolls around, we'll ask) Dinner, 10 people assigned to a table of 8. and a few others. We still had a great time, and love the southern route. Hope Jewel is better. Does the Jewel have a shower curtain or door?

Densie

 

Yes, the Jewel has those curved round plexiglass shower doors. The Brilliance still

has those "TSA inspection" shower curtains that just can't help giving you a full body

inspection as you shower. Yuck!! :eek:

 

Very disappointed that the Radiance did not upgrade from those curtains to the

plexiglass doors when they did the major renovation. They spent the money on

"pay for" restaurants instead. :(

[UCF_Knight]

Very disappointed that the Radiance did not upgrade from those curtains to the

plexiglass doors when they did the major renovation. They spent the money on

"pay for" restaurants instead. :(

 

Sure they added a bunch of extra-cost specialty restaurants and took away our favorite SeaView Cafe when they "upgraded" Radiance. But on the plus side, they also spent the money on adding quite a few new cabins so there are more passengers and less public space! Oh... wait... that's not a positive either.

[critterchick]

I'm not happy to hear such comments about Brilliance, either. I sailed her in 2007 and found the crew to be fantastic, but that was a long time ago. I've got 27 days scheduled next summer.

 

I do feel that a cruise is what one makes of it and the crew can be nice when you treat them nicely or nasty when people are nasty to them, so I am not too worried.

 

I like sailings that are not in the Caribbean . There is a different demographic on European, Asian and TA cruises than on Caribbean cruises and I find them more to my liking.

 

The crew weren't nasty. They were uninspired, and it had nothing to do with how the current group of passengers were treating them. We had a terrific time, just noted that the crew weren't delivering the Gold Anchor Service that we are used to.

 

And, having just come off Jewel in an E-1, I can confirm the glass shower doors.:)

[JaneStarr]

The crew weren't nasty. They were uninspired, and it had nothing to do with how the current group of passengers were treating them. We had a terrific time, just noted that the crew weren't delivering the Gold Anchor Service that we are used to.

 

And, having just come off Jewel in an E-1, I can confirm the glass shower doors.:)

 

This is exactly what we experienced.

The crew just didn't seem to feel "ownership" for delivering the service vision. It seemed they didn't have the authority to do any of little things that have been done for passengers in the past. Because of this, they just didn't deliver the kind of experience we have come to expect on Royal Caribbean. It's hard to explain this w/o sounding like you're whining, but I will give the following small example from our first sailing on Brilliance OTS:

 

Teenage son walks by another passenger in the DR eating his favorite food in the world -- shrimp cocktail. We ask waiter if son could possibly get some one night of the cruise. Waiter can't possibly authorize such a big request. We have to talk to Head Waiter. HW does not have "Can do" or even "will try" attitude. We tell him to forget about it. He comes back later and says maybe he can get just 1 order for son only -- but repeatedly asks us to confirm that nobody else will ask for any. Sheesh! He made son feel really bad for even asking. Contrast this to the cruise on Serenade the prior year when the Asst. waiter used to find son in Windjammer and bring him shrimp, never mind bringing it to him in the DR.

 

We also had issues with our cabin attendent not making up our room until late afternoon the first couple of days. We tried politely speaking to cabin attendant and ended up having to escalate to his supervisor after the 3rd day. Made for a very uncomfortable feeling whenever he came into the room.

 

I am NOT saying our cruise was ruined or that this is why we choose to avoid Brilliance OTS. These are just 2 small examples of many which led us to feel let-down by our 2 experiences on this ship. At the time, I remember stating that it felt like Brilliance OTS was run by a different company. Interestingly, I later found out that this ship *is* run by a different arm of the company.

[NemoCrownie]

We just finished a B2B on the Brilliance last Saturday. We absolutely loved our room steward and head waiter (same both weeks). We had a fantastic two weeks. I do concur with your opinion, though. We sailed Serenade twice, and Adventure once. We love the S Caribbean itineraries out of San Juan.

 

We also didn't receive notification for the consecutive cruise meeting, and had numerous small issues.

 

My key card quit working every day the first week and 3 times the second week. Guest Services first blamed me - I wasn't carrying a cell phone or credit cards so that wasn't the problem - they then called maintenance who said the lock was fine but the card wasn't. I was never issued a new card, maintenance was there twice. It wasn't a deal breaker but standing in line every day at Guest Services did get annoying.

 

Our originally assigned dinner table for 4 was in a horrible location - behind the service station with a large pillar. We were able to change it and had the same table confirmed for the second week. When we arrived for dinner the second week there was a party of 4 already at the table and we found out we had initially been assigned the same lousy table for that week and the other 4 had been assigned that table but it wasn't ever changed on the Sea Pass cards. The head waiter came to our rescue and confirmed that our cabin numbers were assigned to that table. The Maitre De (sp) seemed as if he could have cared less. We ate at the Windjammer so as not to move the others who'd just been seated but if not for the Head Waiter and our persistence I doubt the table situation would have been corrected in our favor. The 4 people bumped to our originally assigned table were not happy.

 

Our assistant waiter the first week was good but both head waiters were so-so and our assistant waiter the second week was in way over his head. There were no horrible experiences, it was the little things both weeks like the waiters having to read your names from their notes EVERY night and us requesting the exact same drinks every night and not having them served until the meal was being served (coffee for me and tea for two others). It did always get a little better each night but not what we have experienced in the past.

 

The shower curtains were annoying but the binder clip trick I learned on CC really helped and the shower curtains never touched us. Thanks CC.

 

The only other petty annoyances for us were the pool music being so extremely loud and entirely too much classical music in the various venues. Those are just personal opinions, though.

 

One of the crew members said he was hoping to get on a different ship after his contract is over and said that the captain and management on the ship set the tone for the staff and that all decisions are totally budget driven. He elaborated that the working environment on the other two ships he had been on was much better for the crew. We had two crew members state that even though they are supposed to have one day off per week that the norm on this ship was usually two half days off instead. I think the crew is probably exhausted and maybe understaffed.

 

Again, we had an awesome two weeks, we loved our balcony - room 8102 with a gigantic balcony on the hump - and had several great crew members. The experience was just different from our other cruises on RCI.

[island lady]

Sure they added a bunch of extra-cost specialty restaurants and took away our favorite SeaView Cafe when they "upgraded" Radiance. But on the plus side, they also spent the money on adding quite a few new cabins so there are more passengers and less public space! Oh... wait... that's not a positive either.

 

Actually the one thing I really did like on the Radiance after renovation was the addition

of the DL. It is a great location with fantastic sweeping views. Perfect for Alaska

travels with cocktail in hand! :)

 

Unless things have changed, this will also be the location of the DL on the Brilliance and later

on ...the Jewel after those sisters go into dry dock.

[sr4mjc]

We'll be on the Brilliance in a few weeks, having already sailed on Radiance, Jewel and Serenade. We shall see! I'm not worried though, I won't be at work :)

[mickeymouse12]

We just finished a B2B on the Brilliance last Saturday. We absolutely loved our room steward and head waiter (same both weeks). We had a fantastic two weeks. I do concur with your opinion, though. We sailed Serenade twice, and Adventure once. We love the S Caribbean itineraries out of San Juan.

 

We also didn't receive notification for the consecutive cruise meeting, and had numerous small issues.

 

My key card quit working every day the first week and 3 times the second week. Guest Services first blamed me - I wasn't carrying a cell phone or credit cards so that wasn't the problem - they then called maintenance who said the lock was fine but the card wasn't. I was never issued a new card, maintenance was there twice. It wasn't a deal breaker but standing in line every day at Guest Services did get annoying.

 

Our originally assigned dinner table for 4 was in a horrible location - behind the service station with a large pillar. We were able to change it and had the same table confirmed for the second week. When we arrived for dinner the second week there was a party of 4 already at the table and we found out we had initially been assigned the same lousy table for that week and the other 4 had been assigned that table but it wasn't ever changed on the Sea Pass cards. The head waiter came to our rescue and confirmed that our cabin numbers were assigned to that table. The Maitre De (sp) seemed as if he could have cared less. We ate at the Windjammer so as not to move the others who'd just been seated but if not for the Head Waiter and our persistence I doubt the table situation would have been corrected in our favor. The 4 people bumped to our originally assigned table were not happy.

 

Our assistant waiter the first week was good but both head waiters were so-so and our assistant waiter the second week was in way over his head. There were no horrible experiences, it was the little things both weeks like the waiters having to read your names from their notes EVERY night and us requesting the exact same drinks every night and not having them served until the meal was being served (coffee for me and tea for two others). It did always get a little better each night but not what we have experienced in the past.

 

The shower curtains were annoying but the binder clip trick I learned on CC really helped and the shower curtains never touched us. Thanks CC.

 

The only other petty annoyances for us were the pool music being so extremely loud and entirely too much classical music in the various venues. Those are just personal opinions, though.

 

One of the crew members said he was hoping to get on a different ship after his contract is over and said that the captain and management on the ship set the tone for the staff and that all decisions are totally budget driven. He elaborated that the working environment on the other two ships he had been on was much better for the crew. We had two crew members state that even though they are supposed to have one day off per week that the norm on this ship was usually two half days off instead. I think the crew is probably exhausted and maybe understaffed.

 

Again, we had an awesome two weeks, we loved our balcony - room 8102 with a gigantic balcony on the hump - and had several great crew members. The experience was just different from our other cruises on RCI.

 

We are going on a B2B in March on the Brilliance. I would love to hear further details on binder clips. Are you able to simply clip them to the shower sides? We were on the Radiance last fall and they had the shower doors and that was great.

[NemoCrownie]

We are going on a B2B in March on the Brilliance. I would love to hear further details on binder clips. Are you able to simply clip them to the shower sides? We were on the Radiance last fall and they had the shower doors and that was great.

 

I think some people call them alligator clips. I took 5 of the large clips but only used 4. Just clipped them on the bottom of the curtain - one on each end and two spaced in the middle. We also seemed to be able to avoid the wet floor by keeping the shower head aimed towards the back wall of the shower. The only time we had a lot of water on the floor was when I forgot to aim the shower head back before I got in. The only issue was that the clips rusted over the two weeks and stained the curtain at the bottom. I would suggest covering the inside of the clip with duct tape or packaging tape.

 

Have a great time. It was an awesome two weeks for us. The ports are great and we had fantastic excursions - We even enjoyed Guadaloupe - we did St Anne on Your Own through the ship. I hope you enjoy your trip, too.