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Brilliance Five Night January 6 Sailing


DunkelBierJay

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End of the Last a Sea Day and Reflections on the cruise:

After killing a couple hours on deck 12 after the Sexiest Man competition, which had some alcohol induced cringe moments between one of the judges and Flavio, the Activities Manager, we did some much needed napping there and a little later in the Solarium. I was sad that I was still too full after Chops to have another Kummelwick. 

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More napping was to be had, so that continued to happen into the evening.

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We had intentions of going to the farewell show before dinner. That did not happen, so we opted for the drawing to guess the carat weight of a piece of tanzanite jewelry in order to win it. I missed it by a half carat, and someone else nailed it. Congrats to him!

We listened to some music by the Kronos Band, and I shared a couple of scopes. They moved from country to Jimmy Buffet, and are my favorite musical ensemble I have heard at sea. Their range goes from Sinatra to Otis Redding, and country to metal. They were extraordinary. 

6D1F92C4-CF80-49DA-88AF-CE85EC1FA02D.thumb.jpeg.9a1f1e567c5448abf010d59f11ba7c7b.jpegScreenshot from the Periscope

When 8:30 pm came around, we headed to the MDR for dinner. 

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When we arrived, we made sure that we expressed our gratitude to two amazing waiters, Arturo and Lyudmylla. One of my favorite parts of cruising is this connection that develops which I believe is sincere on their part. I have yet to experience a cruise where a short, temporary friendship develops at a minimum and some are Facebook friends to this day. 

A4A575C1-28D6-4CF5-9BB2-8C0D2255A753.thumb.jpeg.a83621b40812dbd92cc45372bf69bfcd.jpegSo, we love giving some extra to these fantastic people! We also had a chance on disembarkation day to express the same gratitude to Bernardo, our stateroom attendant. I hope that everyone appreciates how hard they work to make guests’ experience wonderful. I will make sure they get our highest evaluation on the email request to do a survey.

Final Thoughts

Embarkation — A+

There’s something about Terminal 6 in Tampa that has it over on Terminal 3. I certainly don’t know all of the behind the scenes contributions to the experience for guests, but it was superior than my previous experience embarking on the Empress.

Stateroom 4014 — A+

  • access eas early
  • layout was perfect
  • size was perfect
  • everything worked
  • it was close to the forward elevators
  • the Centrum was easily accessible
  • This is by far my favorite stateroom in any of my cruises. I have stayed in a jr suite, Superior OV with balcony, Inside Promenade, Inside. I think it is easily the best value I have experienced, and while balconies are nice, I have rarely used them when I had them.
  • Stateroom Attendant, Bernardo — A

Main Dining Room — B

  • while beautiful, it is over-crowded and there were some organizational and procedural issues that affected others as well as us. I think it had to do with communication between the Head waiters at the two seatings  
  • Waiter and Assistant Waiter, Arturo and Lyudmylla — A ++
  • I cant speak highly enough of them. They made what could have been a difficult circumstance into not a big deal. In my view, they should run the dining room. They were that good. If you are sailing on Brilliance within the next two months, ask for them. 
  • Food — B++
  • I could be wrong, but I sensed that some of the organizational issues affected the food quality at times. It was never bad, it just wasn’t as good as I have experienced on other ships. 

Windjammer — A

  • The Windjammer on Brilliance was my favorite I have experienced. It may be because the honey stung chicken was as good as billed, and I finally knocked it off my bucket list. They executed breakfast really well. The made to order omelets were the best I have had at sea. I love the open area at the back. Love. It. I consider Rita’s part of the Windjammer and would like to see Royal Caribbean commit to it or change it into something more appealing. It seems like they are just letting it sit there without any availability of their old menu except on certain days in the Windjammer.

Specialty Dining (Chops) — A

  • i would rate it higher if the Chops on Empress didn’t edge it out by a smidgen.

Solarium — B++

  • I would rate it higher if it was a little larger. I think the Solarium in Enchantment is larger, and remains my favorite. It is a very beautiful spot on the ship. 
  • I really like the Park Cafe and the offerings there. They do Kummelwick roast beef sandwiches during lunch, which was a very nice surprise. 

Gym — A

  • good staff, layout and assortment of exercise options

Shopping — B-

  • they didn’t have a good selection of logo gear, and a limited size availability. I didn’t really look at anything else.

Bars

  • Pub — A+ — favorite pub I have experienced in a ship

R-Bar — A

  • Vintages — B+ — the liquor package seems to be a necessity because the a la carte pricing is quite high. The ambience and location on the ship is great. 
  • Schooner — A — great spot for a cocktail. I really like the location on this ship
  • Solarium Bar — A- — its a little small. The service is really good. 

Entertainment — B+  

  • what we saw was nice, but not set apart from other experiences. 

Music — A

  • The Kronos Band was just great. The options at Schooner are mixed. The Pub singer was pretty good, but we didn’t listen that much. 

Movie Theater — A

  • we saw two movies here, and this is such a great amenity. When you want to chill out. I’d like to see more of these in the fleet.

Special Events - A+

  • The effort and fun out into the College Football National Championship game experience on board was far over and above expectations. It was great, and I would have rated it the same had my team not won. 

Dis-embarkation — A +

  • We self assisted with our luggage. Actually, we have never used the ship’s service. That’s what wheels are for. We were able to walk off with no lines at about 8:45. There was a five minute line at customs. This is the first cruise where we did not have to fill out a customs form. We were in our Lyft 10 minutes later, and having breakfast #2 by 10:30 am.

Other — This is just an observation

  • I’ve never seen so many Pinnacles in one place as on this sailing. Everywhere I turned, I saw a name badge with Pinnacle Club on it.

Overall — A-

  • Some aspects of this cruise could have been better. The ship has an overcrowded feel, especially in the MDR. The beauty of the ship, the well known connection to the sea, the many amenities and especially the crew make for an amazing experience. 
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Wow, I didn't think there were any movie theaters left.  I always enjoyed going to see a movie in the theater.  When we did our transatlantic on Serenade a few years ago it was so nice to be able to go and sit in the theater and watch a movie.  Do all of the Radiance class still have theaters ?  It's been a while since I've sailed on a Radiance class ship.

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Great job, Jay!

Were your MDR servers MTD or Traditional?

4 hours ago, spiegeje -- DunkelBier_Jay said:

The made to order omelets were the best I have had at sea. I love the open area at the back.

I'm really looking forward to this!

4 hours ago, spiegeje -- DunkelBier_Jay said:

I’ve never seen so many Pinnacles in one place as on this sailing. Everywhere I turned, I saw a name badge with Pinnacle Club on it.

Florida + off season cruising + low fares = Pinnacles! :8_laughing:

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2 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Wow, I didn't think there were any movie theaters left.  I always enjoyed going to see a movie in the theater.  When we did our transatlantic on Serenade a few years ago it was so nice to be able to go and sit in the theater and watch a movie.  Do all of the Radiance class still have theaters ?  It's been a while since I've sailed on a Radiance class ship.

Your question made me curious, so I opened my Shipmate app on my phone to see. I have found it to be consistent with the ships I have been on and with the deck plans on the RC website.

  • Jewel -- a movie theater is on Deck 6 in the same place where it is on Brilliance.
  • Radiance -- a movie theater is on Deck 6 in the same place as Brilliance. There is an English Pub next to it as well.
  • Serenade -- same as Brilliance

So, it appears that all of the Radiance class ships still have cinemas.

The moves we saw

  • Logan Lucky -- there were five others in the theater of 48
  • Dunkirk -- there were only two empty seats

I think that is would be more popular if they promoted it elsewhere on the ship in addition to the Cruise Compass. We probably never would have walked by it if the Pub wasn't on the other side from the elevators. and not far from our stateroom. If our room was elsewhere on the ship, I am not sure we would have gone to it other than touring the ship.

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14 minutes ago, Matt said:

Were your MDR servers MTD or Traditional?

I asked for MTD so we could try it, and that was listed on our invoice, but I really can't tell the difference between MTD and Traditional the way it was executed on board. Our Sea Pass card showed a specific time on it, which was 8:30. Something about it wasn't quite right, and I haven't put my finger on it yet.

We may have availed ourselves of it not quite right, but the management issues in the MDR may have had something to do with it.

I'm really excited to read about your experiences on Brilliance when you sail on her later this month.

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30 minutes ago, twangster said:

Thanks for a great live blog!

I don't suppose you did a ping test over Voom did you?  Curious what latency or ping times were.

Thanks for asking. I just realized that I didn't grade VOOM above. I give it a C+.

I used speed test in a couple locations, and when the area wasn't crowded, it tested pretty well. In our stateroom, the Solarium, and a few others spots, it was as fast as our home. The current version of Speedtest on my phone doesn't seem to have a history feature like the last version did, so I can't post it here.

Here's the rub:

It was extremely difficult to get my iPhone 7+ to connect. The staff at the VOOM desk helped tremendously by setting the ISP address for the login uRL (I don't know why that was necessary) and then going into Settings/Privacy/Location Settings, then scroll to the very bottom/System Services, and then turn off Share My Location and WiFi Networking. Ugh...without the crew member, I would still be trying to connect. Even as it is, I think there are too many steps to connect.

Also, VOOM went out a few times completely at inopportune moments, and that was frustrating. I also think that when we were docked next to Liberty in Cozumel, that the VOOM on that ship was what appeared on the WiFI queue on my phone rather than Brilliance (it just said royal-wifi), because I kept getting an error message that my login was not valid when we were docked together. I would have investigated on board if I wasn't in a hurry to get to Nachi. Liberty was sailing away when we returned, and I was able to reconnect when we got back on board.

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15 hours ago, spiegeje -- DunkelBier_Jay said:

I just realized that I didn't grade VOOM above. I give it a C+.

That sounds like what I'm expecting.  Between Brilliance, Rhapsody, and Explorer, going to be some long nights trying to upload my live blog over next three cruises...

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2 minutes ago, Matt said:

That sounds like what I'm expecting.  Between Brilliance, Rhapsody, and Explorer, going to be some long nights trying to upload my live blog over next three cruises...

Yep...I ended up using my phone for everything since transferring pics using Google Photos was out of the question. My laptop won't transfer pics with a cable...at least I haven't figured out how to do it.

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All the more reason to reduce image size.  I typically use no more than 700 pixels wide on here and keep files under 200 kB unless there is text like on menus, then a higher resolution makes it easier to read.   Typical smartphone images are 2-3 MB which take 10 times longer to upload over Voom.  

2 hours ago, spiegeje -- DunkelBier_Jay said:

My laptop won't transfer pics with a cable...at least I haven't figured out how to do it.

Being all Apple I use Airdrop to move files back and forth but there are many image transfer apps in the Play store that use wifi to move images.  

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1 hour ago, twangster said:

All the more reason to reduce image size.  I typically use no more than 700 pixels wide on here and keep files under 200 kB unless there is text like on menus, then a higher resolution makes it easier to read.   Typical smartphone images are 2-3 MB which take 10 times longer to upload over Voom. 

When I could connect the upload speeds weren't a problem. The files I uploaded ranged from 1.5 MB to 2.5 MB that I remember, and I always selected "small." For some reason, the on land regular transfers to Google Photos didn't work, and I couldn't do it manually either. I would love to get my pics to look as good as yours though...

 

2 hours ago, twangster said:

 Being all Apple I use Airdrop to move files back and forth but there are many image transfer apps in the Play store that use wifi to move images.  

I Airdropped some pics to my wife's iPad...and then I couldn't log onto the Message Board on it. If it wasn't one thing, it was another....so, my phone ended up being the only thing I could use.

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4 minutes ago, rjac said:

Definitely interested in that one, will be there this March and need to "convince she-who-must-be-obeyed" that Nachi is a great place. Please let us all know where we can find it on youtube, when you have the time that is. Thanks!:27_sunglasses:

Sure thing. There will be a link in this thread either this evening or tomorrow. 

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27 minutes ago, mom2mybugs said:

Can't wait to see it too!  We are booked at nachi in March on a day with tons of ships.   Looking forward to  the limited crowds and warm weather!   Jane

Yes! There were seven ships and about 20,000 people on Cozumel the day we were there. It took a little while to get past the traffic at the International Pier, and when we arrived at Nachi, it was full and didn't feel crowded at all. My next post will have the Nachi video....

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On 1/10/2018 at 8:16 AM, Floski said:

So, did you enjoy Nachi?  I can't wait to get there.  

I also want to go to a grocery store or someplace off the beaten path to look for some tequila.  

Hoping everything works out!

Let me know how your tequila shopping goes, i want to do the same in March.

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