Welcome to the Royal Caribbean Blog podcast, a weekly look into the world of Royal Caribbean cruising. I'm your host, Matt Hodgeberg, and this is episode number 122. Well, I'm back from Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas. In this week's episode, we're going to talk all about my experience on board, from dining to activities, to more dining, what I did on shore, and everything else in between. There's a lot to cover in this episode and talking about my experience on board, and I want to share it all with you. So let's jump right into it. Here we go. As many of you know, I was on Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas just this past weekend over Thanksgiving for a four-night Western Caribbean cruise to Cozumel.

And it was my first time I'm Burlington of the Seas, and I'm back, and I'm happy to say, hey, I had a great time. And I want to share the details of it with you. So for anyone who's considering a Brilliance of the Seas cruise or even a Radians class ship in general, I think this will be very helpful for you. So as many of you know, I booked Brilliant to the Seas over Thanksgiving weekend, and it was kind of a lot of first, right?

My first cruise over a holiday, a major holiday like Thanksgiving. It was the first time on a refurbished Radiance class ship. I was on Jewel of the Seas, but that ship hadn't been refurbished yet. And also the first time going on a cruise without my kids, me and my wife just alone, it was kind of an interesting experience there as well. So a lot of first, and this was kind of that, this is what it attracted to this. So first foremost, we went over Thanksgiving weekend. What is it like cruising on a holiday like Thanksgiving and what do they do on board that's different? Probably the most common question I get when people were asking me about this cruise. Here's what I'll tell you about it. Firstly, it's kind of interesting because Roe Crimin does special things on board. So for Thanksgiving, mainly what you saw was a special menu on board, right? In the main dining room, there was a special menu in addition to the regular menu. You had the regular menu, and then you had a couple of items. Obviously, there was turkey. There was a pumpkin bisque soup, there was pumpkin cheesecake,

and a couple other items as well for you to choose from.

And that was essentially the extent of any Thanksgiving specials that were on board,

because, I mean, let's face it, otherwise, what else would you really expect to have on a Thanksgiving cruise?

The thing I will tell you is it's kind of, it's really good for people who don't necessarily want to celebrate the holiday in the traditional sense, because you're definitely not going to get that on board. Quite honestly, it almost felt like we skipped over the holiday. I mean, we celebrated in the sense that we had, I had turkey for dinner that night, and it was quite good, actually. It was very, very good, the food they offered. But, you know, looking at it now, you really feel like you didn't have that holiday.

I'm not sure if it's the same thing for maybe like New Year's Eve, which essentially you're going to do the same thing, whether you're on a cruise, you're at home. You're going to have a lot to drink and you're going to be partying until well past midnight. Maybe that's different. But I think for holidays like Thanksgiving, even Christmas, July 4th, all those kinds of the holidays, because you're doing a non-traditional holiday, you get a very different experience. So if your goal is to go on a cruise and have the same experience you have at home but on a cruise ship for Thanksgiving, that's not going to happen. But if you want a special way to celebrate or just go on a cruise over, you know, four days that a lot of people already have off. It's a great way to do. And I think a lot of people do use these Thanksgiving cruises as a way to kind of get around that. Either they don't have a lot of family around or it's too hard or whatever the case may be. You know, they're looking at this as another way. But again, I was fine with it. I honestly had a great time. And just in general, I thought brilliance of the season was a fabulous ship. We had a really great staff on board. We had a really good time as well in terms of the activities. I did a lot on board the ship. I did a lot of the trivia. I had done a couple of trivia events before, but this time I did a lot. I attended a lot of them. I won my first, actually went two event trivia. One was a general trivia in the morning, and the other was a Royal Caribbean Crown and Anchor

trivia, which was just Royal Caribbean trivia.

And we had a fabulous time.

It was a lot of fun.

I really enjoyed that a lot.

And it was just a cool experience.

Even when we lost, we had fun doing that.

So from that standpoint, it was, I guess it's my first time really doing trivia, and I totally understand how a lot of people do it, because it's just a great, first of all, it, you know, you test yourself basically, you know those kind of stuff. It's, it's a fun activity. But also, it's a great way to meet people. I met a lot of people through trivia, because what I would do is I was often often either with my wife or I was alone, maybe my wife was at the spa or taking a shower or whatever, and I would go and just say, hey, can I join your group? And I would randomly do this and I've met a lot of people on board just by doing that. So it worked out really well. And I think so if you're looking to meet people on board if maybe you're going solo or you just want to meet new friends on board

boy going to trivia is a great easy way to meet new friends. Just go up there and be okay, can I join your group? A lot of people will be more than happy to have more folks in your group because obviously the more people you have on your group, more likely you are to win because you have more knowledge, collective knowledge amongst yourselves, right? So that worked out.

Now, another first, I mentioned first earlier in this cruise, and one of the big first that we did was the first time we booked the unlimited drink packages. Now, many of you know my opinion in the drink package beforehand, I would always tell people, well, do the math on it, but I don't necessarily think it's a slam dunk deal regardless. and I did it.

We had the premium package.

We, my wife, did it.

I think we broke even every day of the cruise. Maybe there was one day we didn't. But pretty sure we booked, I broke even at least. Every day of the cruise. Breaking even meaning I purchase enough drinks daily in order to have got my monies back on it. This is what I'll say. Let me start with the positive, and then let's go to the negatives.

The positive and the cheap one that I learned from this experience was the real benefit

of the unlimited drink packages is your ability to basically get drinks in addition to just

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