All Activity

I just googled it, and it said 30 minutes from LGB to the hotel.

LA traffic is extreme. I took an uber at 3 and it took 45 minutes if I recall. It will depend on when you arrive.

Yes Navigator. Probably Long Beach airport. Looking at the Doubletree. So should it take very long to get from the cruise port to Long Beach airport on a friday ?

Yes you can book as much as you want. From what I have experienced I went to the same comedian on the ship on different nights and the guy had the same set for the show. They have the same comedians throughout the cruise. Back in the day they use to fly new ones into ports and switch them out, but it seems like now they stay on a ship for a few months and then move around. You can also go in the stand-by line and usually get a seat, but it is free to book all the shows so do as many as you want.

It might be but it might not be, either. I've experienced both. You can check previous cruise compasses, but in this case you might just want to keep an eye on the app. Entertainers like comedians have different kinds of contracts and will sometimes get on board/off board mid cruise and be replaced with a different one. It's no big deal to cancel once on the ship, imo. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compass

Are you sailing on Navigator? There are 2 cruise ports in LA. Royal sails from San Pedro and Carnival from Long Beach. When I sailed on Navigator, I flew into Long Beach (much better than LAX) which is a lovely small terminal and an easy ride over to San Pedro. I stayed at the San Pedro Doubletree which I recommend. It was next to docks full of private sail boats and was charming. The cab the next morning to the cruise terminal was 5 minutes. Doubletree had on premises dining and a bar, but you have lots of dining in the area if you want to walk and explore.

Do they charge for those beds ? I couldn't tell, the one and only time we have been there. No way I would pay anything for those beds....nice as they are. They have NO shade whatsoever and that's a big NO for me !

I know! I think the key is to arrive early (on sea days) after breakfast before the pool opens (9:00AM). We got there between 8:00AM-8:30AM each time and wound up with spots right behind the infinity pool on the perimeter behind the expensive beds in the water. You can enjoy a more chill atmosphere... think Coco Beach Club. Caribbean music piped in, no crowds, excellent drink service, etc. Pool was nice and the temp was warm even in the morning this time of year! If you're in the party mood (think Oasis Lagoon Pool or Hideaway Beach), then the afternoon is best with the DJ! It starts to get busy around lunchtime. Thanks, but I give my wife, Christine, all of the credit. She is terrified of heights. She does not like window seat on planes (awesome for me!) and definitely no rollercoasters! She has to slowly approach any balcony rail, etc. I was also so impressed when she went up in the North Star on Odyssey!

We're going too!!! Dorothy and Steve... can't wait!!! Never been to St Lucia or Barbados.

YUM lobster hideaway pool looks so nice…. without any humans LOVE the balcony shots. you guys are so brave, doing crown's edge!!!!

Congratulations on your [well deserved] retirement ! Thank you for all the years of service !

Six adults are going on Harmony this summer. We were able to book reservations for Adult comedy a few different nights. Is it the same comedian and same show the entire cruise? If so, we want to cancel so others can get in. I've never cruised before so any advice is appreciated! Thanks!

Absolutely awesome blog and review. Thank you !

*** ALL CRUISE COMPASSES *** While it's on my mind , here are all of the digital Cruise Compasses I downloaded during our sailing including the original Day 4 (Costa Maya) edition and the updated edition once the port was cancelled and turned into another sea day! Remember, this is the Western Caribbean itinerary (Roatan/Costa Maya/Cozumel/PDCC)... Day 1_Compass_Icon 05.11.24.pdf Day 2_Compass_Icon 05.12.24.pdf Day 3_Compass_Icon 05.13.24.pdf Day 4_Compass_Icon 05.14.24_ORIG.pdf Day 4_Compass_Icon 05.14.24_UPDATED.pdf Day 5_Compass_Icon 05.15.24.pdf Day 6_Compass_Icon 05.16.24.pdf Day 7_Compass_Icon 05.17.24.pdf

Wow 35ys, thank you for your service. It takes a special type of person to do that type of job.

Thank you for your service. Have fun in your next adventure.

Thank you for all of your service and congrats on your retirement!!! I love that itinerary... very similar to our Liberty sailing out of Bayonne back in 2015! Bermuda is amazing! Have a great time!!!

Day 6: * Sea Day * (CONT.) Let’s wrap-up Day 6! We went back to our cabin to get ready for the second formal night. Tonight is “The Royal Night” menu. For starters, I had the French Onion Soup and Christine tried the Avocado and Melon Salad… We both had the Maine Lobster Tail. Shhhh … they do give you more than one tail at no additional charge… YMMV… I noticed the table in the next section asked for additional tails, so I asked and our waiter took care of us as well! For dessert, we both went with the Baked Alaska! Back to the cabin once again to change to something more comfortable for tonight’s show, “The Effectors: The Origin Story” in the Royal Theater. We heard the earlier performance had been cancelled due to technical issues and had hoped the issues had been resolved. After waiting for the show to start, Gemma (CD) came out to explain the show would have to be cancelled due to issues with stage lighting. Both of today’s cancelled performances would be rescheduled to 7:00PM and 9:00PM tomorrow evening (Day 7) and would be open seating since it was too late to move all of the reservations in the system. Disappointed, we headed back to the cabin and changed to hit the pools and hot tubs. After an hour or so, we called it a night knowing tomorrow (PDCC) was going to be a long day!

Hello Everyone! Leaving soon for Liberty, NJ to board Liberty! Lets honor America's military men and women who lost their lives in service to their country.. This is my retirement cruise..35 years of Military and Law Enforcement, so I'm starting my next career as a Cruise Ship Captain..haha. I wish..see ya onboard.

Just woke up from my nap. Dinner is at 7:30. Oddly enough I switched to MTD and haven't been able to make reservations in the app. Not that it matters, since I have no plans to eat there. When I went to the casino there was almost nobody there and those that were there, were doing the most. A lady was either drunk or delirious because she kept asking if I seen her phone and why were there no crew. Her machine was loud as hell. Eventually I went over and told her the phone was right there on the machine. She laughed and lost it an hour later. Another guy sat at one machine drinking coffee and chain smoking, talking to himself......he could have had an ear piece because I was at a machine on the opposite side. As I have stated, the wifi is bad in our room. My brother ended up going to the library to work while I slept. Also none of the amenities were sat up in this cabin. The water that comes out of the basin smells like sewer. I normally wash my face before I get in the shower, but the water makes me leery. Yesterday the thermostat didn't work. So my brother turned it halfway on warm, now it's too hot in the room. I used no vouchers yesterday but I will use them up in Giovanni's today. My cooler isn't super cold but it's currently filled with water, sodas, sparkling water and 2 Stellas. I need to drink them. The drinks really pile up when you are on foe 11 days.

Phew. We are home! I never like a red-eye, and this was no exception. Tack on a 3.5 hour drive home and then dashing to our son's first post-season baseball playoff game and we were TOAST by 9 p.m. ET. I managed to make a small dinner, do 2 loads of laundry, and clean up all the dog hair that accumulated over the week before passing out. I usually struggle with jet lag on day 2 after coming home but today hasn't been that bad. My sister is feeling a lot of land sickness, though. Mr. Regular is usually a little woozy for a week after disembarking, too. Anyhow, here are some wrap up observations and final thoughts on our Brilliance of the Seas Alaska cruise. Like with most opinions, these are mine. They may not be yours. They may align with your previous experience and worldview, they may not. And that's all ok. Please avoid slamming mine for slamming's sake, though here on RCB there's so much less of that than of FB or other sites. The Itinerary We picked this itinerary because it went to Alaska, lol. It also aligned well with the timing of my super short break from school and earlier in a shoulder season made the price point such that we could afford the aft balcony room we had. If I could change anything it would have been trading the stop in Sitka for Ketchikan but only because the photos I've seen of Ketchikan are so cool. We would also re-think sailing out of Vancouver. While we really enjoyed the city, traveling in and out of Canada so much and having to clear customs multiple times was draining on my aging parents. Next time we will probably aim for Seattle for ease of travel. The Ship This ship is showing her age. She needs some major updates, new furniture, replacement mattresses, new fixtures, and pluming. Our bathroom smelled like our septic tank most of the time and no air freshener would make enough of an impact. Sometimes I could smell it in the aft hallways. Common areas of the ship are a bit run down, furniture is really showing wear and tear. However, it is SPOTLESS. Crew are cleaning all the time and take a lot of pride in making the best out of what they have to work with. I don't mind a small ship, but I did find myself missing some of the amenities of the larger ships in the fleet this cruise. We did spend a lot of time on our balcony as a result, so I guess that's a positive! The Crew The crew on the Brilliance are absolutely outstanding. One of the other benefits of a small ship is you get to know the crew on a human level because they aren't stretched as thin as on larger ships. We have sailed the Rhapsody, Mariner, and Anthem and this crew was the best since our Rhapsody cruise. We feel strongly crew are not there to cater to our every whim or be at our beck and call. Crew are humans with interests, families, and inner lives and deserve to be treated as such, so we like to get to know them and have conversations and build rapport. The only other ship we've had an opportunity to do that on was Rhapsody. I understand that not every crew member appreciates that so your mileage may vary. Anyway, our room steward and dining team were absolutely fantastic. We had some dietary needs and allergies in our party and the wait staff made sure everyone was accommodated and could enjoy meals in an equitable way every night. The entertainment crew are a small but mighty team of only three people to run all the events onboard. The cruise director is a friendly guy but I usually don't connect well the the CDs, I usually like to interact with the activities staff much more. We were so pleased with all the service we received this sailing! Other Guests and use of space There were under 200 children onboard, and they were mostly littles and elementary aged kids. We noticed maybe 4 teenagers the whole sailing. A mix of nationalities like most other cruises I've been on, but a very noticeably high concentration of Aussies onboard. We met many who were on a land tour in the USA and Canada before boarding the ship. Since this isn't a fun-in-the-sun style cruise, there were no chair hog issues on the pool deck and most people in the Solarium were great about not saving a chair and disappearing for hours. The ship was pretty full but it was fairly easy to get a seat at a show 15 minutes before curtain, but closer to the start time some shows got quite full. The Windjammie at breakfast was the only space that was very difficult to navigate. In cold weather, there simply is not enough indoor seating for everyone that wants to eat between 8 and 10 a.m. Several mornings we made plates to go and ate on another deck inside or in our staterooms. If the weather is nice enough later in the summer there is outdoor seating to the back of the Jammie which will help. But if it's raining or under 60 degrees f, you will struggle at peak times for seating. The entertainment & activities A tradeoff to a small ship is an equally smaller number of things to do on a sea day or evening after being in port. Alaska is a port heavy itinerary and we were struggling with the jet lag so we only caught 3 of the evening headliner shows. We walked out of the "comedian" on night 5. He was not very engaging to us. The ship orchestra, singers, and dancers are all very talented people but the material they have to work with is not good. The Broadway review show had some good numbers in it but they did 3 songs from The Full Monty, which hasn't aged well at all as a show. It was popular when Brilliance launched and it hasn't been updated since. The Center Stage show, which is a similar variety hour style review, was much better. But my favorite thing to see on a ship is the crew flag parade. I LOVE this event! They do it in the Centrum and the crew come out to represent their countries, culture, and people. I always get very moved while watching it. We also participated in some trivia and name that tune games, and listened to some of the bands in Schooner Bar and the Centrum. We enjoyed the piano and violin duo and Blackjack Band very much. When we weren't at an activity you could usually find us on our balconies, because even though the ship may be light on activities, an Alaska cruise IS part of the entertainment just watching the inside passage go by or spotting whales and other marine life swimming near the ship. The ports & excursions We decided to book our excursions through Royal via the cruise planner for convenience sake. Since I had booked our rooms so early, there was nothing to book excursion wise until about 8 or so months before the cruise. I was able to take advantage of the lowest prices before they got outrageous. If I hadn't, I think we would have done more on our own or with a 3rd party. In Sitka we did the Bike and Hike, which was so fun despite the rain. In Juneau we went to the sled dog run. And we had ample time to explore Sitka and Juneau after the excursions, which was nice. We didn't have time to explore Skagway at all, which we were unhappy with. That excursion was from Haines. We docked, then took a ferry to Skagway, boarded the train at the port, took the train up the pass and then returned to downtown where we only had 30 minutes before we were required to get on the shuttle to the port to get the ferry back to Haines. The excursion was billed as 7 hours with more free time in Skagway than we got, which was disappointing because we had picked out places to visit and eat in town. We asked if we could get a later ferry and were emphatically told no, mostly due to capacity on the ferry that runs between Skagway and Haines. I appreciate not displacing full time residents and locals, but I wish the amount of time in Skagway had been better communicated beforehand. There were many from our ship on this excursion that were also expressing displeasure to the guide. It wasn't the guide's fault, but they bore the brunt of everyone's disappointment. We had some unexpected free time in Haines, where there wasn't that much to do other than eating a very late lunch. It was a nice meal but we would have much rather been in Skagway. Our glacier viewing day was spectacular! While not a port or excursion it was a truly remarkable way to spend a morning. The Food and Drink Food on this cruise was ok. It wasn't bad, but not much to write home about. I've felt ambivalent to "meh" about the updated menus. There were benefits and tradeoffs to the change last year, one benefit being a more streamlined experience and tradeoff being loss of variety and lower quality in the dining room. We tried the Windjammer for all three meals over the course of the week and I was pleasantly surprised at how good dinner was. Even though Windjammie dinner menus aren't much different from selections in the MDR, it's nice to have the additional options of the pizza, salad bar, other desserts, and soft serv if we wanted it. I missed getting to the MDR in time to get the Italy menu so I went up to the buffet and sampled almost everything anyway and had extra desserts! I ordered room service breakfast twice. The first was the free continental items like croissants, coffee, and fruits. The other time was hot breakfast of an omlette, bacon, hashbrowns, coffee, and toast. Both times were fine but I wish the hot breakfast was included like it used to be when the restart was happening. It wasn't worth the delivery fee. Bar service was fine, some bartenders were better than others but overall met our needs. We had refreshment packages and carried on 4 bottles of wine plus ordered wine and cheese delivery to our rooms through Royal. We ordered cocktails a la carte and spent waaaaay less than a deluxe beverage package would have but Alaska vibes are very different from Caribbean vibes. Final thoughts Would we go to Alaska again? YES! Would we do some things differently next time? Also yes. What would we do differently? If we could have traveled to Vancouver earlier than the day before the cruise, we should have done that to help us adjust to the jet lag. We would have also thought about mobility and accessibility needs more after MIL's stroke. We were caught unaware about how much disembarkation would be hard for her and there were only 5 wheelchairs available that could only be operated by staff so the wait to disembark was excruciatingly long. Would we sail on the Brilliance of the Seas again? Unlikely. This is no shade or a knock on the crew or the ship itself. There was nothing terrible about our experience. But, I think if we were to do Alaska again I would advocate for either sailing from Seattle on a more modern ship or even think about a different cruise line from Vancouver that may be visiting other ports. Please post questions if I can help with your future Alaska cruise or sailing on the Brilliance from other ports of call!

I've only had bridge tours available since the restart as a suite guest. No galley or backstage tours.

Yes, you should ask the Concierge about any tours they may offer on your sailing. Most of the tours these days are request only….meaning that they don’t routinely organize and advertise them like they used to. Whatever tours are available, the Concierge will assist you with them. Congrats on your first suite. Enjoy it !

We purchased passports for my kids age 1 and 2. Took about 4 weeks for them to come in back in January.

We are staying in a Grand Suite on the Liberty of the seas next month. I see that the Bridge tour is something that is offered to suite guests. Do I ask the concierge to set this up for us? I have never had a concierge before so I really don't know what they do. I already have dining reservations and excursions booked and I know about the suite Lounge. I don't think we have to make reservations for shows on the Liberty. Am I missing anything that they do? thanks