Carnival Sunshine Review

Southern Caribbean Cruise

Review for the Southern Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Sunshine
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jimbert
6-10 Cruises • Age 70s

Rating by category

Cabin
Value for Money
Embarkation
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Additional details

Sail Date: Nov 2018
Cabin: Balcony

We chose this cruise because of the itinerary. We had never been to Aruba before and were looking forward to it. I had researched the Sunshine and had read some bad things but I also new that the ship was going to dry dock before this cruise so it should be in pretty good shape. Then we heard the news about the issues the ship had on the cruises coming out of dry dock and it had us a little worried but I also knew that Carnival would address the issues. This cruise was incident free for us. The Sunshine is a remodeled ship and is unlike any other carnival ship we have been on, from reading previous reviews I was ready for the different ship arrangement. On most Carnival ships when you leave your cabin you just have to think what deck your destination is on and you can take any elevator to get there. Not the Sunshine for this ship you not only have to think about what deck your destination is on but also what elevator you need to get on to get there. Just getting on any elevator will not get you there. Some of the elevators also will take you to the Sports Court or the Serenity area but only if you push the proper up call button, there are 2 up call buttons for some of the elevators and those elevators will not stop on your floor if you do not push the proper up button. It took us a couple days to figure this out, until we figured it out we thought the elevators just had a mind of their own and was part of the entertainment. Because of these reasons the elevators are always busy all the time. I was also surprised at the size of the public areas, they were smaller than other large ships. There is no theater, just a lounge where they have the musical review shows, Liquid Lounge, and the lounge where the comedians are, Limelight Lounge. The public areas being smaller gives the ship the feel of a smaller ship that is crowded. The serenity area on the Sunshine is one of the best I have experienced it is large, spans 3 decks and has its own pool, hot tub and water fall, like all of Carnival's serenity areas they are popular and you have to get there early to get one of the better locations, but we could always find someplace to set in this area that was shady with as much privacy as you can expect with 3000 people on board. The Sunshine has all of the restaurants that Carnival currently offers on its ships except for Guy's Pig and Anchor barbeque. All of the food we had on board was very good. The Lido buffet was small but it is forward of the Havana Bar, The Italian restaurant and the Asian restaurant and all of these locations also serve food during lunch and breakfast and their seating areas are available to the buffet, so we never had an issue finding someplace to sit. The only specialty restaurant we tried was the steak restaurant and it was worth the extra amount of $38.00. We had a great experience there. The main dining room was very good and we enjoyed all of the food we tried. The waiter's and waitresses were very good but also very busy. My favorite part of this ship was the crew, they were very welcoming and always had a smile on their face and willing to speak to you and greet you. Another surprising thing also was the availability of live music around the ship. Besides the musical review shows I am accustomed to live singers, pianists and such being around the ship playing music in the atrium and other places during the day, especially on sea days. This type of music didn't usually start until 5PM and by the time we ate dinner and took in a performance by a comedian or watched a show, they were usually on break so we saw very little of the individual performers. The movies on the big screen were good and we enjoyed watching a couple of these at night during the cruise. We had a balcony stateroom that was on deck six and it was nice, had plenty of storage a refrigerator and a great balcony. Our stateroom steward was wonderful, never disturbed us and always seemed to know when we were in or out of our stateroom so he could clean it. He also did a great job and he was great with the towel animals and always greeted us by name when he saw us around the ship. Our stateroom number was 6227 and it was between the forward and mid elevators so, it was convenient to everywhere. It was also quiet. The bed was comfy and we slept well. The cruise director was Mikey and he was great and very entertaining and he made himself very available all the time. I am a veteran and Mikey did a great tribute to the Military and first responders that was attended very well. We did not particularly like the layout of the ship but we had a great time. I do not consider embarkation and debarkation to be cruising because it is always a horrible experience. With the way Carnival does embarkation now if you arrive during your assigned check in time then it is a fairly smooth process, if you arrive early or late you are toast, long lines await the early and late. For debarkation it did not go as smoothly as possible, For the self debarkation or express debarkation which we did where you carry your own luggage. It didn't go as planned. They announced that everyone was to be off the ship by 9 am and then they took forever, they had to call your deck number before you could go to the lobby to get off the ship and this took forever. We finally got off at 8:45 AM which is not bad, but they had not called all the decks and then they were going to have to call zone numbers for the ones who checked their baggage. we had also gotten up early because we knew that they would start debarkation at 7AM and we thought we would be able to leave the ship as soon as they got the FTTF, platinum, diamond and suite people off. So we waited longer than usual due to having to wait for our deck number. We only did one excursion and this was at Grand Turk. We had been to Grand Turk several times and decided to do the "Home Sweet Home" excursion. This is where they take you to a beach house and everything is included, drinks, water toys and they also serve you lunch and it is a smaller group probably about 30 people. This was a great excursion, the staff was attentive and available and they were on the beach taking drink orders and letting you know when the food was ready. The beach was sandy and beautiful. Overall the cruise was great with only the ship layout being a negative. Aruba by the way is beautiful, we walked around the town, had a drink at Iquana Joe's and ate dinner at the Old Fisherman, a great seafood restaurant that is right off the cruise port.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin 8C

Great Cabin on deck 6. Lots of storage, great location convenient to 2 sets of elevators. It was quiet too. This cabin is above Cherry on top on deck 5, so you don't hear a lot of noise from deck 5.

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