Spaniel Lover

The bathroom will be much larger, and there will be a bathtub/shower in it rather than just a shower. It's a whirlpool bathtub, too. If I recall correctly, there's a glass door to the bathtub/shower... rather than a shower curtain.

There will also be a dressing area that regular cabins don't have. It's been a while since I was in a suite, but I think I recall that there were double sinks rather than just a single sink.

Your balcony will be larger than a standard balcony, too.

I don't think there will be. However, to know for sure, I'd have to know your cabin number.

Rather than having me look it up for you, though... how about if I teach you how to do it?

Go to https://www.goccl.com/~/media/Files/Irman/bookccl/the_fleet/Sunshine/sunshine.ashx and click on Deck 7 over on the left side of the screen. Then find your cabin number in the list.

If your cabin has a refrigerator, in the stateroom description it will say "minibar". If you do not see the word minibar in the description, there isn't a built-in refrigerator.

You can, however, go to guest services upon boarding the ship and request one. There are only a few, so there's no guarantee you'll get one.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong... but I think that the only cabins on the Sunshine that have built-in refrigerators are the cabins that were added during the big renovation. So, that's just the cabins up at the very top. I could be wrong about that, though. Perhaps the suites all have them. I'm not sure.

Back in the day when they originally built the Carnival Destiny, it was not a standard Carnival thing to put refrigerators in all the cabins.

Trivia question...

Anyone know which was the first Carnival ship to have refrigerators in every cabin? I actually don't know the answer. My guess would be Conquest... but I could easily be wrong.

Here's the view Sunday afternoon at about 5 PM New Orleans time when the Norwegian Jewel departed.

Shortly after this, the port cam switched over to black and white mode.

I'm glad you like it, Bill. Enjoy your cruise with John and Jaime this week. I am SO jealous! But I'm only a few weeks behind you, so I'll be fine.

- Jim Zim

a.k.a. Spaniel Lover

Having watched the conquest on this webcam probably hundreds of times, I notice right away that the ship is noticeably shorter front to back than the Conquest is.

The Sunshine is 60 feet shorter. If you were really able to notice that on the webcam, I salute you!

OK... here's a little treat for you!

It's my gift to those of you with a bad case of Carnival Sunshine Fever.

This was the view on the webcam as the Carnival Sunshine arrived in New Orleans at Zero-Dark-Thirty...

She just showed up on the web cam. Welcome home!

SoCalKJ... what kind of 2.0 stuff are you expecting to see?

As far as I know, there are no plans to add things like Guy's Burger Joint, The Red Frog Rum Bar, The BlueIguana Cantina, EA Sports Bar, etc. to any of the Fantasy-class ships any time soon.

It's possible that you may see Hasbro The Game Show and a DJ trained by DJ IRIE... but I would not hold your breath for much more than that.

Oh... I see that now, too. Making good speed.

OK... looks like my theory was as bad as my singing!

HaHa, O.P... that's what you get for asking for the guy's perspective!

I'm thinking that the Carnival Sunshine is going to sit at anchor on the river a few hours south of New Orleans overnight tonight. I think when they said they planned to "arrive" at 11 PM, they were not meaning that they would arrive at the actual port of New Orleans. They meant they would "arrive" at the point in the river where they planned to remain at anchor overnight.

I can't really imagine them arriving at the actual Port of New Orleans in the middle of the night. To tie up at the port requires Longshoremen. It would be a big mess to call out the Longshoremen in the middle of the night, and then expect them to be back again in the morning to tie up the Norwegian ship that will also be in port on Sunday.

I think the Sunshine will remain at anchor mid-river overnight, and then get moving in early morning hours so that they arrive at the Port of New Orleans at the normal time of 5 or 6 AM like they will be doing every Sunday morning.

For those of you who have not yet sailed with Consuela Ivy... please take a look at a couple of videos I shot of her singing on the Carnival Breeze earlier this year. She is FANTASTIC!

Consuela singing "I Will Always Love You" at the past-guest party:

Consuela singing Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On":

One other interesting aspect of a B2B that nobody has mentioned so far is the possibility of buying a bottle of booze at the gift shop on the last night of the first cruise. I've never tried this, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe if you buy a bottle of booze at the gift shop on the last night of the first cruise you can take it with you and enjoy it for the second leg of your B2B.

Like I said... I've never done this on any of my B2Bs... so maybe when they run your sail & sign card there is something that would pop up on screen alerting them that the passenger is on a B2B and to require that the booze be delivered on the last night of the second leg. But I kind of doubt that Carnival is quite that on top of things. I'd bet with 90% certainty that you could purchase a bottle of booze on the last night of the first leg with no problem.

Has anyone done this?

Elation is about 10-15 min away from passing Sunshine. Sunshine is at least 4hr from port.

If you're basing this statement on the information at MarineTraffic.com or any of those online ship locators... just remember that those show the last reported location of the ship. That information may be a little old, or it might be fairly current. But you should be careful about assuming that it is totally and completely up-to-the-minute.

This web page may be helpful to the original poster:

http://www.zimfamilycockers.com/CarnivalInspiration.html

It's a review I wrote about my cruise on the Carnival Inspiration. There are a lot of pictures, and I also spent some time talking about the advantages that these Fantasy-class ships have over some of the larger ships in Carnival's fleet. Here's one of the pictures I share on that page, just to give you a little taste...

To specifically answer the question about what not to miss... I would say two things: the Serenity Retreat at the back of the ship, and the comedy club. Since the OP's only previous cruise was on RCCL, I think they will find these two features of the Carnival Inspiration to be especially nice.

The Serenity Retreat is an especially nice feature. On a lot of Carnival ships, this is located up on top of the ship, at the front. That can be a very windy location. On the Carnival Inspiration, it's at the back of the ship, and set down a deck or two. Very wind protected. There are two Jacuzzis back there. It's a great place to relax.

Regarding venues that have an upcharge... I can't think of a single one on the Carnival Inspiration. As it is one of the oldest ships in Carnival's fleet, there are no specialty restaurants onboard. There's a spa and beauty salon... so you'd be charged if you wanted a massage, for example. The main things you'll pay extra for would be shore excursions, Internet access, purchases from the gift shop, and your bar tab. Things like pizza, hamburgers, and even room service are all included in your cruise fare.

Have fun!

I have an unusual request.

I am looking for someone who can shoot a very short video for me at the Margaritaville in Montego Bay. I need a video of someone shooting out of the waterslide, in to the ocean. To give you a better idea of what I'm looking for, take a look at the video at

You might be wondering why I don't just download and use that YouTube video. The reason is that I need full legal rights to the video. So, what I'm looking for is someone who can go to the Montego Bay Margaritaville, shoot a short video of someone coming out of the waterslide and splashing in to the ocean, and then I need the electronic file to be sent to me electronically. (I can give you instructions on to easily send me a large video file over the Internet.)

I would be willing to pay $50 to someone who would shoot this video, send it to me, and sign over the rights to it.

If you're interested, please contact me via email at jimzim@charter.net

Once you contact me via email, I will provide more specific instructions of exactly what I need in the video... such as what angle to shoot from, how to frame the shot, etc.

If you have a decent camera that can shoot video, and you can get to the Margaritaville in Montego Bay... this should be a relatively easy assignment for you. You'd be helping me out with a video project I'd like to put together, and the $50 would be my way of thanking you for helping.

One other thing to consider is that the Norwegian Jewel is also going to be docked at the port of New Orleans tomorrow. It's possible that the Jewel might block the webcam view of the Sunshine. It will just depend on which one docks in front of the camera position.

I reached out to John Heald via his Facebook page to inquire about this, as it was a surprise to hear from some CruiseCritic members that Carnival was still offering high-speed unlimited Internet service on a few ships.

Here's what John had to say:

Yes we still on for this program on a couple of our ships. However at the end of November we will move over to a new satellite provider and will soon announce new Internet packages and pricing. We feel the new provider will give us quicker service and more details on this subject will be forthcoming. Cheers mate

Where he said "we still on for this program" I believe he meant "we still offer this program".

So, it sounds like changes are coming around the beginning of December. If I haven't heard any more details from Carnival or CruiseCritic about these changes by mid-December, I'll make a point to ask John about it again.

None of the ships have this anymore, as far as I know. It was an experiment on the Magic last year. I was lucky enough to have been on the Magic at that time and I got to experience it. From my perspective as someone who needs to be fully connected to the Internet even when on vacation, it was wonderful.

However, from Carnival's perspective... I understand that there were problems. I'm not entirely sure what the problems were, but I know the company concluded after the experiment on Magic that the whole thing was not ready for roll-out fleetwide yet.

I also know that Carnival understands that passengers want this... and that they are working towards this goal... but that the technology is not ready yet. Carnival recently made an announcement about a change in who they get their satellite Internet service from... and I'm sure that this is all part of the larger plan to improve Internet service on Carnival ships.

Hang in there... changes are coming... but I think we're talking about a few years from now, not months from now.

One thing to watch out for on a Christmas cruise is whether or not you'll be in port on Christmas day. We did a Christmas cruise once and were visiting a port in Mexico on Christmas day.

If we had been smart, we would have booked a Carnival shore excursion that day. Instead, we just walked off the ship and headed in to town to explore. Stupid me... it hadn't occurred to me that just about every shop and restaurant in town was closed down for the biggest holiday of the year.

Looking back, it boggles my mind that I just expected to be able to have a normal day in Mexico that day. What the heck was I thinking?!? So... live and learn... never visit somewhere on Christmas day and expect that the locals will be ready to feed and entertain you just like any other day.

I also booked a cruise with RCCL on the Allure on a balcony for next year for half of what Carnival wants for a 8 day.

I'm going to have to call BS on this claim.

I just did mock bookings on Carnival and Royal Caribbean for comparable balcony cabins for early December 2014. That's typically one of the least expensive times to cruise, as demand is low.

The cruise on Allure Of The Seas was $100 more than the cruise on the Carnival Breeze... and the Breeze cruise was 8 days versus only 7 days on the Allure Of The Seas.

Also, a balcony cabin on Carnival Glory that week was over $600 cheaper than Allure Of The Seas.

These were balcony cabins looking out over the ocean, priced for two people.

A further benefit of Carnival is that I would not be nickel and dimed every time I wanted a hamburger or burrito for lunch.

Riding a merry-go-round or seeing people do synchronized swimming holds no appeal to me. Getting a better burger at lunch time, and not being charged extra for it... that's fantastic to me.

This YouTube video answers your question very well:

Hands down, the Liberty wins that comparison. It's got the Funship 2.0 enhancements, which the Legend does not. Also, the Seaside Theater screen out by the Lido pool.

You mentioned in the other thread that you'll be cruising with kids. They would LOVE LOVE LOVE the Guy's Burger Joint on the Liberty. Legend doesn't have it.

Cruising on the Legend is like cruising with Carnival 10 years ago. Cruising on the Liberty.... you get all the great enhancements that Carnival has rolled out since then.

There's a Serenity Retreat on the Carnival Liberty, but not on the Carnival Conquest. Other than that and the decor, the two ships are nearly identical.

Make sure to pay attention to any differences in itineraries.

I really like the way they have the Serenity deck at the back of the Fantasy-class ships... and the way it is positioned down low, so the taller decks in front of it offer wind protection.

On the newer ships that have Serenity at the front of the ship, up on the top deck, it can get quite windy at times.

There is a lot to like about the Fantasy-class ships, for sure.