Royal Caribbean - Brilliance of the Seas Review

We left for a 12 night cruise out of Barcelona Spain.  It was our honeymoon so we splurged, with a balcony room.  We did our research a head of time and book the cruise about 10 months a head of time, which I highly recommend to give to the best price and the best choice of rooms. 

The Ship:
Our last cruise was on Navigator of the seas, where I described it as being Las Vegas.  Brilliance was more like Monte Carlo.  It was a bit smaller and didn't have the roller or ice rink.  But for what it lacked in ‘flashy features" it made up for in elegance and style. 

The Room (oceanview room with balcony):
The balcony was great.  It was a long cruise, and it was nice to have our own little out door space.  We could sit out there and drink wine and watch the shoreline pass by as we read up on our next port.

Other cruisers: (children)
The only issue we really had was with the number of children who had very little respect for other adults on the cruise.  Kids will be kids, but other adults shouldn't be run over by a large group of boys racing up and down the steps. This wasn't an issue at the beginning, but as the trip continued, they became very obnoxious.  This was such an issue that the Captain made an announcement to alert parents and children of proper behavior on a ship.  We were very grateful for that announcement.

Ports:
Villefranche (Nice), France; Livorno (Florence/Pisa), Italy; Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy; Mykonos, Greece; Kusadasi (Ephesus), Turkey; Santorini, Greece; Piraeus (Athens), Greece; Naples, Italy

All the ports had great things to do.  We took full advantage of online research before we left; my favorite website for cruise research is CruiseCritic.  I highly recommend it for all cruises. We did a combination of cruise tours and on our own adventures, to get the most out of each port.  All ports, including Turkey took Euros, so we didn't worry about exchanging money.  Interesting side note: if you need more cash on the ship, don't use the ATM onboard, go to the casino and they'll give you cash and it will go on your Sea Pass card.  There isn't a fee for this, as there is with the ATM.

Something you can do on European cruises that you can't do in the Caribbean is take wine on board from the port.  We purchased wine in France and Italy.  Both times we didn't have any trouble bringing it onboard.  We drank it on the balcony with wine glasses provided from the ship.  We had our own wine opener.

The Honeymooner's Experience:
We had received a gift of the "romance package" from our wedding, so we when arrived on the ship we had a bottle of chilled Chandon Champagne and chocolate covered strawberries.  This package also included a few other items through out the cruise.  We had also let the ship know ahead of time that this was our honeymoon.  It was great, because they had a special reception for all the honeymooners on the ship to get to know one another.  It included dancing and a word from the Captain.  We also received a large piece of artwork from the ship as congratulations.

Booking your next cruise while onboard:
Before we left for the European cruise a group of friends decided to take a vacation together on an Alaskan cruise.  We visited the travel agent on the ship and we were able to book our cruise and get a $100 onboard credit for our next cruise.  This was really easy to set up and they were able to answer are questions about the Royal Caribbean Rewards credit card.  We signed up and were able to put our ship charges onto the card right away.  The nice thing is that for all RC charges the points are doubled.

Overall experience:
I loved this cruise.  It was not a relaxing lounge by the beach cruise, but a fast pace, adventure in Europe.