Brilliance of the Seas is a

cruise ship Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports-of-call, where passengers may go on tours known as ...

belonging to the Royal Caribbean's . ''Brilliance of the Seas'' is operated by RCL UK Ltd., a subsidiary of

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. Royal Caribbean Group, formerly known as Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., is a global cruise holding company incorporated in Liberia and based in Miami, Florida, United States. It is the world's second-largest cruise line operator, after Carnival ...

Brilliance of the Seas has a maximum capacity of 2,543 passengers and carries 848 crew.

Areas of operation

''Brilliance of the Seas'' undertakes Western Caribbean cruises out of

Tampa, Florida Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough ...

during the winter season and cruises Vancouver to Alaska in the summer. Now it also offers cruises to the Bahamas and to the Caribbean.

Incidents

Heeling incident

On December 11, 2010, ''Brilliance of the Seas'' left

Rhodes Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the S ...

, Greece on a cruise around the eastern Mediterranean, and experienced very high seas and wind gusts. At around 2:15 AM, it was reported that in a cluster of ships rushing to enter the port of Alexandria, a freighter turned in front of ''Brilliance of the Seas'', forcing the ship's captain, Erik Tengelsen, to slow below the necessary to maintain her stabilisers' function. The ship started to

heel The heel is the prominence at the posterior end of the foot. It is based on the projection of one bone, the calcaneus or heel bone, behind the articulation of the bones of the lower leg. Structure To distribute the compressive forces exer ...

to port and starboard violently. Passengers reported that they were thrown out of beds; furniture and unsecured objects tossed and slid about their staterooms. Two

grand piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

s broke free and were demolished during the incident. Windows and mirrors were smashed, and the spa basins were damaged. A reported 138 passengers needed medical treatment for their injuries, the most serious of which were two guests that sustained broken bones. The heeling incident lasted several minutes, after which the captain acknowledged that it had been a "horrifying experience." Captain Tengelsen reported to news outlets that he was taken by surprise at the force of the storm when, he said, weather reports leaving Rhodes only forecast winds at with gusts of . It is for that reason that many passengers felt the Captain and Royal Caribbean were partly responsible for the horrifying heeling incident that passengers were subjected to, since they knew well in advance what the potential for trouble was. The next morning, Royal Caribbean International announced through its crew that a $200 per-stateroom refund would be given. Following a brief, but vocal outrage by passengers, Royal announced that on top of the $200, passengers could also expect a full refund of each passenger's stateroom fare. A lawsuit brought by the husband of Barbara Davey, a Scottish woman who fell into a coma three days afterwards and later died, claimed that her death had been caused by head injuries sustained during the incident.

Disappearance of George Allen Smith

George Allen Smith disappeared on July 5, 2005 when the ''Brilliance of the Seas'' was between Greece and Turkey. He was a passenger on his honeymoon. Blood was found inside and outside his room. His family accuses Royal Caribbean of failing to adequately handle the case. The case led to an FBI investigation and a congressional inquiry in the United States.

References

External links

*
Transcript of an interview with family of George Smith
on ''

Larry King Live ''Larry King Live'' was an American television talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was the channel's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly. Mainly aired from CNN's Los Angeles ...

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Brilliance of the Seas Cutaway
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brilliance of the Seas Ships of Royal Caribbean International Ships built in Papenburg Panamax cruise ships 2001 ships