We did this cruise in June this year ..... First 4 days were hectic and was glad of the sea day on what was a Saturday before arriving in Venice.... Here is our review hope it is helpful to you.
Finally for those that are cruising the Med on the Brilliance here are our thoughts on the ship and the cruise in general, the ports we have left until last.
Having arrived at the port of Barcelona it was a little dissapointing to see that everyone had to queue for quite a long time in order to hand over their details and get their sea pass card, not sure why it cannot be done by Deck numbers as it is with Princess (Deck names) but the building size may well be a factor.
Having made our way to the Promenade Deck (5) and entered the ship just past the Lifts/Elevators we proceeded to take the stairs to our Deck 8 Balcony cabin 8106 much to the puzzlement of my other half! who still believed we were in an Oceanview cabin on Deck 4..... managed to keep that one a nice suprise having changed to the Balcony cabin some 6 weeks earlier. Our cabin Steward Nichaela was great and nothing was too much for her, the Towel animals on the second week were good fun.
Once we had put our hand luggage in the cabin we went off exploring and to get some food from the Windjammer, luckily it was fairly quiet at the outside tables so we sat out in the sun which had finally begun to shine.
Once we were fed and watered we set off around the ship to get our bearings and to see the other various places.
Brilliance is a very nice ship and at the time of our cruise had a great crew as well, there appeared to be plenty of sunbeds around the decks and chairs on the Promenade deck.
We noticed that our cabin was bigger than those that my sons had occupied on the Ruby Princess last November as were the Inside cabins that we got to see on the cabin crawl.
For Breakfast we visited the Windjammer apart from the days when we had it delivered to our cabin, we were never let down by the choice of food on offer and were pleased to also see the Bacon and Sausage normally found in the UK which you can also get delivered to your cabin (unlike on the Ruby) for American cruisers there was also the Bacon that you find on cruises out of the USA and their usual Breakfast food. Room service was always punctual and pleasant regardless of the time of day though we never ordered anything after midnight.
In the Afternoons as well as the usual fare on offer for lunch there was plenty of Ice cream.
The cafe above the Windjammer also had some great food and for Pizza freaks the chance to make up one with your own choice of toppings.
Food in the evenings in the Windjammer had a wide choice of varying dishes and in the Three evenings we chose to eat there were never dissapointed.
We were dissapointed however with the lack of choice of meals in the main Dining room as were other people that we spoke to, if you are not a lover of fish or Pasta then the choice on some nights is very limited .... having said that the actual meals were mostly very good with the odd night where they were only good..... overall the quality of the food was very good...again it was dissapointing to see that the last two nights menu choices were almost identical.
Our Cruise Critic meet and mingle on Saturday 20th went well and was attended by the Captain Hakan Lindegren from Sweden and the Cruise Director Keiron Buffery from the UK, it gave us a chance to talk to the Captain about the ship and also a ship called the Vasa that we had seen on our visit to Sweden a few years ago.
After the M & M we joined the cabin crawl which included an Interior on Deck 2 Forward, Large Oceanview on Deck 3 Middle, Deluxe Oceanview Balcony Deck 7 Middle, Deluxe Oceanview Balcony Deck 8 (ours) Middle, Superior Oceanview Deck 8 Aft, Superior Oceanview Deck 9 middle, Superior Oceanview Deck 10 Aft, Junior Suite Deck 10 Corner aft, Grand Suite Deck 10 Hump and the Royal Suite Deck 10 Hump. It is always interesting to see the difference in the various cabins.
We didnt attend any of the shows due to our choice of meal times, the Schooner Bar was our main place to drink during the cruise listening to the Pianist/ Singer from Australia called Darren, the two bar staff Raul from Chile and Brendan from India were great fun as was waiter Milton.
There were Three formal nights on this cruise which were held on the First sea day (day 6 Captains Welcome Party) After leaving Venice (day 8) and the Second sea day (day 11)
With regard to the ports... at around 10am on the Second day we arrived and Anchored off Cannes, once the Tenders were available we headed to Deck 2 once our tender number was called (tickets available for those wanting to get off early) Once off the Tender we headed for the Train station which took around 20 minutes walking, the Train to Monte Carlo was 9 Euros pp for a return ticket.
The following day we left the ship at Livorno having got our bus tickets from passenger services ($12 pp return) the bus takes you to Piazza Grande... we were heading for Pisa and so bought our public bus tickets at the kiosk where the bus stops for 2 Euro pp return....the bus stop is back up the street and outside the church. The Train fare to Pisa was 7.20 Euro pp return, once at Pisa we chose to climb the tower the cost of which was 15 Euro pp.
Civitavecchia was our 3rd stop and we took the Free bus to the Port Gate and walked to the Train station which took around 10 minutes, we were like many people heading for Rome.... the Train tickets were 9.60 Euro pp Return. Once at Rome Termini we decided to buy tickets for one of the Hop on Hop off bus tours (20Euro pp) that go around the route of the Famous landmarks .... we chose to see the Colluseum, Vatican, Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain before returning for the train which for some reason left Rome Termini some 30 minutes late! we arrived back at Civitavecchia with about One hour to spare.
Day 5 and Port stop number 4 was Naples a bustling Industrial city and just like Rome the day before the Traffic was loud and busy, we again decided to walk to Garibaldi Centrale Train station in Garibaldi square which took longer than we had expected some 30 minutes! There is another station closer which is Stazione Circumvesuviana and this is the start point for the train to Sorrento and the stop at Pompeii Scavi.... the first stop from here is Garibaldi station! where we boarded having bought a combined return Train ticket and Entrance to Pompeii ticket for 32 Euros for us both.
The journey took around 40 minutes to Pompeii Scavi and at the little Red kiosk we handed in our voucher to get our Entrance tickets, the entrance to Pompeii is about a 50/60 yard walk from the train station and there are many cafe`s and kiosks selling drinks ie Water for 1 Euro a bottle.
Pompeii is an amazing place and having spent around 5 hours there thought we had seen most of it... how wrong we were! we took the 4pm train back to Naples.
On day 7 at around 1pm we arrived and docked in Venice opposite the MSC Musica and behind the Costa Serena, having been to Venice around 2 years ago we chose to once again buy a 24 hour Vaparetto pass which was 18 Euros pp, in the evening we went down to St Marks Square which unusally for Summer was Flooded. One of the cafe`s had a small Orchestra playing outside and funnily they were playing the theme from the Titanic movie....
Day 8 the ship left Venice at around 3pm and headed off towards Croatia so it was a Sunbathing afternoon.
Day 9 was a visit to Dubrovnik and we moored in front of the P and O Aurora.... the weather on arrival didnt look to bad and we chose to take the bus from the ship to the Old Town ($10 pp return) taking with us our raincoats, we bought tickets at 50 Kuna pp (7 Kuna to 1 Euro) so we could walk around the walls of the Old Town.. after about 10 minutes the rain and Thunderstorms started and didnt stop until around 3pm.... by this time many had remained on the bus and gone straight back to the ship. The sun having come out gave us a few more hours sunbathing.
Day 10 was a visit to our Beloved 2nd home of Corfu where we hired a car in advance from Oceancar.gr at 40 Euro and went off to visit our builder to try to clear up a few problems, sadly we didnt find out the information we wanted and needed so we will have to go back again, we then decided to visit some of the many friends we have made on the island before returning to the ship.
Day 11 and 12 were sea days and were spent mostly sunbathing at the rear of the ship above the Windjammer.
All in all the trip was a good one and we enjoyed the Brilliance of the seas apart from the points raised earlier, for anyone who decides to make their own way to the places we did be warned that the first 4 days are hectic! and we believe that the cruise would benefit from the 2nd day being a sea day and Cannes being visited on day 12 but that is just our opinion.
To anyone going on this trip enjoy the ship and the various ports and places.
Dave and Kerry.
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