Brilliance March 12 - 17

[Chip and Dale]

We just did Brilliance March 12 to 17 out of Tampa. We had a good time, we always have a good time when we travel, however, we really wound up regretting going on the cruise rather than spending the money we spent on the cruise on land and going to the beach or going to more spring training games.

 

This was a spring break cruise, and we knew it when we booked it, so nothing shocked us in that regard.

 

Brilliance does some things exceptionally well, and other things not so well.

 

We had our first D1 - 1104 aft - large balcony, very nice - 2 loungers, 2 chairs, one small table. Loved the size of the cabin ( we usually do hump E1, E2 or E3 depending on the ship). We LOVED the balcony until the last sea day (I will get to that part later) and spent a lot of time reading.

 

EMBARKATION - We arrived and parked across from the ship about 11:30ish. They need signs so that people know which ship is Brilliance and which one is Vision. I knew that Brilliance was across from the lot, but there were many confused people wandering about. We went through security and it went well, busy, but it was typical. We went in to get registered and noticed that the line we needed to be in was for Suites, Pinnacles and D+ which was nice. There was no one in line:D. When we got to the front there was a woman in the next line yelling at the attendant because the line beside her and our line was going more quickly. She kept yelling that she was Diamond and this was totally wrong. So when Allan at the desk waived for the next guest, the attendant put her arm in front of us to stop us from moving and told the woman who had been yelling to go. The attendant turned to us and said "she is upset". Allan was quite surprised and put his hands up questioning the move. When we went up to Allan after the screamer received her cards, he asked what had happened and kept apologizing. We had to laugh, honestly, we probably got on the ship 3 minutes later, so I think we were ok. Allan was a sweetheart and probably the fastest we have ever seen!

 

BREAKFAST - We are D+ and were pleasantly surprised that on Brilliance Breakfast is in Chops for Suites, Pinnacles and D+. It was great!!!!! The service was incredible, absolutely incredible!!!! The bacon was cooked perfectly :D. DH had omelettes each day and said that they were excellent, he tried the waffles one day and it was great, mine was cold when it arrived, so I didn't eat it. Not to worry, I did not starve , I ate a bacon sandwich every day YUM!

 

We did breakfast in the dining room on debarkation day and it was pretty good, no complaints. They did seem incredibly disorganized though.

 

LUNCH - We ate in the dining room on the 1st sea day. We both had the Tutti salad and DH's salad was excellent, mine did not sit well with my tummy and I believe that the ranch dressing was the problem, not sure why, but it was very runny on this ship, so I stopped eating it (I ALWAYS have ranch dressing and it is normally relatively thick on RCI). The dessert we chose was cookies and cream cheesecake and it was to die for!!!!! We were at a table for 2 and our waiter did his best but he was taking orders, serving and would have been responsible for clearing as well since the assistant did nothing but periodically fill water and run for drinks for people, actually he crawled, he didn't run at all! The head waiters were excellent at standing around chatting and doing nothing. Our waiter complained twice to the head waiter in our section that he needed help and kept pointing to the dirty tables that surrounded us, but nothing was done. He was so annoyed that he rushed clearing our plates and cutlery and dumped a dirty knife on DH's shirt leaving a nasty mess. He apologized and told us it should be fine. It took a very long time to get dessert and in that time, some of the other tables had left and we were surrounded by even more tables full of dishes, cutlery, used napkins, glasses, etc. and no one in sight was coming to clear. The white shirts were standing around chatting with each other, often laughing. They did nothing, absolutely nothing!

 

We spoke with the hostess on the way out and told her about the tables that needed to be cleared, and that it was disappointing to see the filthy tables left in our area and it reflected poorly on the head waiters that they did nothing whatsoever to assist.

 

NOTE: We did go to Guest Services to see if they would dry clean the shirt to get the stain out since we weren't going right home after the cruise. The Guest Services Manager was very nice and did up a form with his card stapled to it to attach to the laundry bag and form so that it would be done at no cost to us. We left it for our Cabin Steward Janet and she took care of it, it was returned by Janet personally on a hanger, nicely cleaned and pressed the next night which was greatly appreciated!

 

DINNER - We had late seating in the MDR. I have severe food allergies, therefore, I always request a table for 2 if we travel alone so as not to inconvenience others at the table. They placed our table for 2 right in between two tables for 10 full of frat party boys who were enjoying themselves immensely. The table was actually surrounded by a mix of either all boys or girls enjoying spring break. Our assistant waiter came over and all we said was "Seriously???????". She spoke with the dining room MGR. and found a table for two that was with many many tables for 2 at the side of the MDR. She deserved a medal!!!! In the new section the Waiter Kingsley and Assistant Waiter Stacey were very good. Most ships insist that the Head Waiter handles the orders and supervises when a guest has severe allergies (3 of mine can cause anaphylactic shock - seafood, tarragon and mushrooms). Suffice it to say our head waiter was not the most efficient and when he told me he would do something I learned quickly he would not follow up. The food the first 2 nights was excellent, loved loved loved the lasagne night 2!

 

Day 3 was a Sea Day and that is when the food was not great the first time at dinner. We received a visit from the Dining Room Manager that night because we had spoken to the hostess about tables not being cleared at lunch. He also apologized for what happened with my food that night.

 

We were in Cozumel the next day and we always go to Palmeras for lunch. Somehow they recognize us and as soon as the one waiter saw us he said "Welcome Home". I had the ribs and DH had burritos by what I recall (we have had fajitas, nachos, burgers, everything on the menu really and loved it all!!!!) and frozen strawberry margaritas. We tried their cheesecake (shared) and WOW was it amazing, we will always save room for cheesecake from now on at Palmeras!

 

The dinner the final night was pretty good, other than the dressing with the turkey. I was told I couldn't have it because the chef had put tarragon in it. We never did receive cranberries which is a bummer with a turkey dinner, but we survived it:p. The turkey and mini red potatoes along with the gravy were TO DIE FOR!!!! Very tender!!!!!! I tried the pasta dish, it had a cream sauce which was great, however, the pasta was waaaay to hard to eat.

 

ROOM SERVICE - We got back to the ship after Cozumel and went directly to the balcony to read. We didn't even go to the lounge that night, we were still stuffed from lunch and lets say that the margaritas were probably more tequila than strawberries :Dso we didn't need wine that night. We watched some really dorky movies on tv and loved them, so we ordered what should have been honey stung chicken with yam fries, spinach dip and a pepperoni pizza along with 2 lemonades. The fries were kind of mushy and barely warm, the chicken was cutlettes and not honey stung - they were good though, and the little bowl that should have had ranch dressing in it was on the plate, but they were both empty. Kind of funny really. It took about 40 minutes, so they must have been busy.

SHOWERS - So here is where it gets interesting. The first morning we had hot water for both of us in the shower. The toilet flushed and didn't do anything weird (we've had problems on Serenade and Brilliance before so this was great!!!!) so we thought life is good!!!!! By the way, I brought magnets (dollar store) as I always do, and since we had the shower curtain that has a mind of its own, I put magnets down the edge that stays fixed on the left and kept one magnet inside to put on the other side of the curtain and it worked like a charm. No wearing the shower curtain. NOW the fun. On the 2nd day that I climbed into the shower there was NO HOT WATER, I cranked it up to full and got a mildly luke warm stream of water which provided intermittent blasts of cold water. I called maintenance and they said that they would check it out. 20 minutes later when DH showered it was hot so we thought it was fixed. WRONG!!!!!! Next day, same issue freezing cold with intermittent warm jolts, not hot warm. I called AGAIN. I got a phone call from maintenance saying our do not disturb was in the door and the guy needed to come in to show me "how to work the shower". SERIOUSLY???????!!!!!!! He did come in and turned it on full holding the shower head partly in the sink running full and covering the bathroom with water and had me put my hand under the running water and told me see it's hot. It was barely warm and it was turned on hot all the way. He left and said that they would meet us back there later, we told him no we would like to be out on the ship, so please come in with or without Janet and solve the problem this morning. We went to the desk and said please see that this is fixed and were told that he would ask the manager for a credit for us. I told him that is nice, but we really really want hot showers, so please solve the problem. We spoke with another couple down the hall who were on the 2nd week of a B2B and they were plagued by cold showers both weeks with no resolution. They received the attention of the Hotel Director since they had just made Pinnacle. There seems to be a problem with the area we were in. On Debarkation Day I had a hot shower and thought hey they fixed it, but poor DH wound up having the cold shower that day poor guy.

BALCONY - We got on the ship and got into our cabin at 1:00 instead of 1:30 which was very nice. We did sail away with champagne on our balcony which had it's very own swimming pool and as soon as the ship started moving, the water pooled on our balcony right in front of the glass where we were standing. I was glad that I had taken my sandals off since the water ran over my feet as I stood there. I thought maybe they had hosed the balconies down or maybe the glass and that was where the water came from but NOPE. We found out where the water came from as we were sitting on the loungers on the balcony on the last sea day. I could hear a hose above us and figured, ok they are cleaning the open area of the WJ. The most surprising part of this activity was when they either went whole hog with the water in the hoses wide open or squeegeed the area off and all of the filthy water came over right on top of me, my book, my DH and what was at one time a dry balcony. Thank goodness I hadn't changed into my evening outfit and I was wearing black. I yelled that there were people on the balcony, and YUP, they did it again. We went out to the open area and yelled for them to look over. They said "oops sorry". Well this kind of did it, and sorry didn't cut it!!!! We went up to the WJ and spoke with the Manager, who apologized and got our cabin # and went to report it to guest services as well. We were told that they wanted to do something for us. We came back after dinner to find a plate of petit fors and a note from the WJ Manager saying that they were sorry for the "misunderstanding that occurred in the WJ that day". Now honestly folks, I was angry, really angry when I spoke with the WJ Manager (this was definitely the fault of someone not paying attention in the WJ) and also with the sweet girl at guest services (not her fault). I did apologize to the girl at guest services for shooting the messenger but I was standing there soaked and my book was also dripping wet! She said it was too late to clean my clothes since it was the last day.

 

DEBARKATION - We have cruised out of Tampa 3 times including this one. The first one was smooth getting off, the 2nd one was pretty bad and took forever to get off and then go through immigration and this one shocked us in a big way. We were some of the first in the dining room for breakfast. We did what we always do - we have breakfast, go back and shower, get ready, pack up our little duds and get off between 9:30 and 10. This cruise we were in a hurry since we were going to a ball game in Dunedin. At about 8 a.m. someone knocked and then tried to come in the room (the do not disturb was in the door), then Janet came knocking on the door and we told her we were about to leave, about 8:15 someone called the room, we didn't answer since we were trying to hurry. THEN they started calling names over the intercom, not cabin number, NAMES. They must have called our names 20 times and were telling us we needed to exit the ship immediately because immigration wanted to see us. We have been on many many cruises and do exactly the same thing for disembarking on every single one, with the exception that we were targeting being off the ship earlier than usual at 8:30 for this one, which we were. When we got off at 8:30 we were very sternly told that we were the last people off.

 

DIAMOND LOUNGE and CONCIERGE LOUNGE - We went to the CL most nights. We walked into the DL the first night and met the Concierge, he was very nice. We loved the bartender in the CL - he told us he was the "Chocolate Tsunami". We always referred to him as the Chocolate Tsunami and he took excellent care of us. He was so much fun and very efficient. The Concierge in the CL (cannot remember her name) did practically nothing. We are so used to seeing them running around and she sat at her desk the whole time or was gone whenever we were there. It wasn't really busy in either lounge and the tables were filthy. No one cleaned them after people had sat and drank and eaten. The last night it was busy in the CL, so we went into the DL. When the waiter came over we asked him to clean the guck off of the table. He brought our 2 glasses of wine and a napkin. He wiped the area with a napkin and left most of the guck on the table, the wine was actually warm white wine. So we went back to the CL and found a table near the bar. The Chocolate Tsunami was horrified at warm wine and brought us cold wine and took those away, he was pretty upset about it.

 

CABIN STEWARD - Janet Samuels was our cabin steward and she was great! Our robes, champagne, glasses and chocolate covered strawberries were in the cabin when we arrived. We aren't difficult to take care of (although I'm sure Guest Services may disagree :p) we are pretty neat and organized and don't make much of a mess. We did receive one towel animal. Janet gave us the Suite amenities which was very nice. She was a sweetheart and one of the best cabin stewards we have had on a cruise.

 

All in all the cruise was ok, it was great until the first sea day which would have been day 3. We loved Key West and Cozumel as always. There was the beer chugging one night in the dining room, but it was spring break, so ok. We did not use the buy one get one coupons for Specialty Restaurants on this cruise since we felt we didn’t want the extra food we feel compelled to eat. We did consider it since the breakfast in Chops was fabulous, but no we decided to try to eat less on this cruise.

 

We received a 15% discount on a future cruise for the cold showers and a plate of snacks we didn't eat for being half drowned on our balcony with dirty water, go figure. We became that couple that everyone talks about on CC who seems to be at the Guest Services desk frequently. What can I say, things went wrong. We were not sad to disembark, especially after feeling like we were being thrown off of the ship! That was a totally new experience for us and not in a good way. We did not book another cruise onboard. We have a 3 nighter booked for NYE 2016 followed by an 11 night on Serenade with a group of friends. I will think long and hard about booking another cruise for a while.

 

EDITED to ADD - The WJ food was good the first day for lunch. On the last sea day it was really bad, probably the worst I have seen in regular food. The dessert, however, this day was many many large apple pies. The crust wasn't great (I make really good pie crust) but the apple filling was amazing, beautifully spiced! They had vanilla ice cream to go with it. I really would love to teach RCI about how to serve food in an efficient manner sometimes. The fact that one person was cutting and serving the pie in front of the table and then had to go behind and serve the ice cream meant that there were huge lines most of the time and it could have been avoided. It would be sooooo nice if they did pie like this on all of the ships!

 

Dee

Edited March 22, 2016 by Chip and Dale

[KirkNC]

Thanks for your report.

[Clarea]

Very well written report, thanks.

[Keith1010]

Excellent report.

 

Thank you.

 

Keith

[Merion_Mom]

DINNER - We had late seating in the MDR. I have severe food allergies, therefore, I always request a table for 2 if we travel alone so as not to inconvenience others at the table. They placed our table for 2 right in between two tables for 10 full of frat party boys who were enjoying themselves immensely. The table was actually surrounded by a mix of either all boys or girls enjoying spring break. Our assistant waiter came over and all we said was "Seriously???????".

 

You sound like me. :D ;)

[springmac]

My husband and I were on this cruise as well and had a similar dining room experience. Surrounded by spring breakers, some of whom were long gone. We became worried, but the rest of the cruise, they were nowhere to be found (in the dining room). We enjoyed our trip. It was my DH's first cruise. Food was just ok, not fantastic. We ate at Chops on the last night, and it was fantastic.

[Chip and Dale]

My husband and I were on this cruise as well and had a similar dining room experience. Surrounded by spring breakers, some of whom were long gone. We became worried, but the rest of the cruise, they were nowhere to be found (in the dining room). We enjoyed our trip. It was my DH's first cruise. Food was just ok, not fantastic. We ate at Chops on the last night, and it was fantastic.

 

The spring breakers were to our right and they were there every single night. We were almost sequestered, it was like being put in the corner :p but in a good way! The waiter brought out many trays loaded with glasses of wine, numerous times. The beer chugging was kind of funny. We have 3 kids who are now married and all attended university to obtain multiple degrees. Mommy and Daddy are very glad we were not present for some of their "parties" :rolleyes:.

 

We enjoyed the food the first 2 nights, but it went downhill from there.

[cruisingsince94]

The spring breakers were to our right and they were there every single night. We were almost sequestered, it was like being put in the corner :p but in a good way! The waiter brought out many trays loaded with glasses of wine, numerous times. The beer chugging was kind of funny. We have 3 kids who are now married and all attended university to obtain multiple degrees. Mommy and Daddy are very glad we were not present for some of their "parties" :rolleyes:.

 

We enjoyed the food the first 2 nights, but it went downhill from there.

 

We were on the cruise with you, I'm the one who did all the surprises for my wife because of our anniversary. We had a table for two surrounded by large tables but they were not spring breakers. We were by a window and a few tables away but could see and hear them.

Sorry to hear about your issues during the cruise. For once, we had none, and the surprises all arrived on time. Our balcony view was fantastic, no WJ waterfall. We had hot showers every day. In fact, your choice was hot or hotter.

We are D+ also and I read here on CC that the CL was not very friendly or helpful. Her name is Charmaigne. On the other hand the DL Concierge Rafael was the opposite. We talked with him on several occasions. The DL was clean and never crowded when we went ( 7-8pm), so maybe it was just a bad time.

Our stateroom attendant made us 3 towel animals including lovebirds on our anniversary. It was the best cruise for us in many years from start to finish. It just goes to show how with so many people onboard how different the outcome can be.

[Chip and Dale]

We were on the cruise with you, I'm the one who did all the surprises for my wife because of our anniversary. We had a table for two surrounded by large tables but they were not spring breakers. We were by a window and a few tables away but could see and hear them.

Sorry to hear about your issues during the cruise. For once, we had none, and the surprises all arrived on time. Our balcony view was fantastic, no WJ waterfall. We had hot showers every day. In fact, your choice was hot or hotter.

We are D+ also and I read here on CC that the CL was not very friendly or helpful. Her name is Charmaigne. On the other hand the DL Concierge Rafael was the opposite. We talked with him on several occasions. The DL was clean and never crowded when we went ( 7-8pm), so maybe it was just a bad time.

Our stateroom attendant made us 3 towel animals including lovebirds on our anniversary. It was the best cruise for us in many years from start to finish. It just goes to show how with so many people onboard how different the outcome can be.

 

I am so very happy for you that everything went so well on your cruise!!!!!:) I know how much planning you put into everything!

 

Our stateroom attendant Janet was very sweet and did a great job. The only thing she missed was washcloths a couple of times, but I could peer into some of the rooms she needed to clean as we went by and WOW do some people make a mess!!!! Not a problem.

 

Yes Charmaigne was the CL Concierge and quite useless, although at times chatty. When we went into the DL the last night the waiter was very upset about something someone had said to him and spent about half an hour ranting to one of the guests and not doing anything else.

 

We had 2.5 great days :p. Fortunately we had had such an amazing time going to games and the hotels took great care of us. But we were really glad to exit Brilliance which is sad. Oh well, time to do more land vacations. This is why I get so frustrated when people are attacked on these boards when they post a negative experience. Here we have 2 couples on the same ship with two entirely different experiences. Attitude had nothing to do with cold showers (they really sucked!!!! Charmaigne told the other couple that the cold showers were due to it being hot outside) or idiots dumping water on me on the balcony. Our attitude was fine, we kind of do our own thing and can figure out how to have fun no matter what. We were fortunate that our table was by a window as well, nice people around us after we were moved.

Dee