SugarStar00

Captains cocktail party

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I got to meet John Heald too, some people hate him but I think he's funny!

Is there a cost for the orange juice in the Havana?

 

 

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Yes unfortunately, see bottom left

Throwback Sea Day

So since this was a Journeys cruise, we had a throwback sea day on the second day at sea. It was a rainy dreary morning which made it easier for me participate in some of the day’s events since I’m normally a sun worshipper. In the morning they had the “roll the dice horseracing” hosted by John Heald and Jamie Dee the cruise director. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was actually pretty cool. After the horse racing we played throwback bingo, which was just bingo without the computers. Later in the day they had some throwback pool activities as well. They had a knobby knees contest which was similar to the hairy chest contest, and the super popular frog racing. Seth and I each purchased a $5 frog and entered the contest. This event was very chaotic, and probably needs some tweaking to make it run smooth but it was fun overall. There were so many participants it had to be broken down into 5 rounds or so. The wind and the motion of the pool from the ocean caused the frogs in the first round to not really move, so John Heald had everyone grab their frogs and start over. This time you were allowed to “splash” your frog across the pool. Seths frog never even swam, once it hit the water it just died!! I went in a different round and my frog started off strong and quite possibly would have won, but they so brilliantly had THREE people (Jamie Dee, videographer, photographer) in the pool so every time they moved, they caused the water to swirl and it swirled my frog around and it started going the wrong way. I know carnival needed to get their all important advertising video but geesh...not really fair!! Anyway, we failed miserably and took our froggies home to keep as pets. Hehe. They were playing 80’s music on the lido for a bit and the crew was dressed in traditional 80’s gear, tutu’s, legwarmers and headbands. The evening part of throwback day was the Captain's white glove cocktail party. They had two sessions, 5pm and 7pm. There were waiters walking around with a choice of drinks (I had a few whiskey sours) and some h’orderves like mini quiche, pigs in a blanket, fried shrimp etc. I had a taste of each but didn't want to fill up before dinner. We got our picture taken with the captain, but by the time we got to him he seemed a little tired and over the whole picture thing. They had a little ceremony where they introduced the senior officers and then we headed to dinner. That night was also the night they had the Midnight Gala Buffet. We headed up there around 1230 I think and the line was still ridiculously long to get in, we waited forever and it was pretty picked over by the time we went through although most of food didn't seem that appetizing to me. I think it was more about the carvings and decorations than anything, which is why it took so long to get through is because everyone, myself included, was taking a million pictures. I think it took us almost 45 min to get through and I only tried a little piece of pistachio cake. It was all incredibly beautiful but I couldn't help feeling bad over how much waste there was.

Throwback Capers

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First time seeing orange loungers... Neat!!

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Weird spin bikes in the gym

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No full length mirror in the room but the elevators were ALL mirror!!:eek:

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As I said before, we really enjoyed the Sunshine and tried to partake is as much as she had to offer.

-The piano bar was moderately busy, the singer (Russell Blues) was fun and enjoyable.

-The main show lounge doubles as the dance club at night which we stopped in a few times and there was never more than 8 people in there just sitting around.

- The only show we saw in the main show lounge was the epic rock show which was 70s and 80s music, it was really great except we got there late and the seats were full! We had to sit on the side of the stage.

-We spent most of our late nights in the punchliner comedy club, and the lines for those shows made up for the lack of lines everywhere else for sure! You really need to be in line 30 min before the show to get a seat for the 830-1030 shows. They empty the theater after each show and make you walk up and around and back down to get in line for the next one, meanwhile the line has already started forming before the end of the previous show. The theater fits more people than you’d think and we never got turned away.

-The alchemy bar was our favorite bar, Daniel, Mario and Aleksander were our best friends the entire time! I’m not sure about the other bars but Alchemy was frequented by the same people each night, it felt like our own little community!!

- This was a premier casino cruise so the casino was pretty busy every night, I did manage to dump about $50 in the slots and didn't spend anymore time there.

- We participated in a few bean bag toss tournaments, played a round of mini golf, and BARELY made it down the water slides the last day, which were so much fun I wish we had done them all week. They also had a beer pong tournament in the red frog pub which we watched but did not participate in.

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We had balcony room 6316 towards the aft, which was right above the alchemy bar. It was very convenient to everything except the comedy club, main theater and the pool (all in the front). We never heard any noise from other passengers or the ship but the overhead vent in the room was pretty loud all the time which made it so we didn't need our “white noise” fan at night. Some other things of note was, the room had a huge shower, no refrigerator and NO full length mirror (gasp!) It also had a very strong greasy smell on and off each day the entire length of the cruise, which was almost nauseating to me at times. I don’t think it was just our room though, later in the week I realized it seemed to be the whole back third of the ship, I could even smell it on the outer decks further back also.

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Carnival Sunshine Journeys Cruise

November 28th-December 9th 2015

Port Canaveral, Grand Turk, St.Thomas, Tortola, St.Kitts, Dominica, St.Lucia, Antigua, St. Croix, San Juan

In the past I’ve gotten very detailed with my reviews, but since I’m a few weeks late and there’s already a few reviews from the same sailing out there, I will try to keep it somewhat brief. I’m happy to answer any questions you have if I miss something.

We are a couple from central Connecticut in our mid 30’s, and this was our 7th cruise, 5th on Carnival. This was our first time on the Sunshine, I was pretty excited because it was very different from all the other ships we had been on, but also nervous since I had read so many reviews saying it was over crowded. As it turns out, the Sunshine is my favorite ship so far! We didn’t feel the ship was crowded at all. I think the layout of the buffet area and all the different dining options available, kept the lines to a minimum. I never waited in a line longer than 4 or 5 people for any of the the food. The weather wasn’t so great on the two sea days, but we never had any problems finding loungers by the pool either. Since this was a longer cruise, the crowd was on the “older side” compared to other Carnival cruises we’ve been on. There were a lot of platinum and diamond guests, and something like 500 people doing the back to back for a 21 day cruise! Yikes, we are not retired or independently wealthy so we had to get back to work after 11 days.

Since the weather can be unpredictable this time of year, we flew down to Florida a day early, which for this trip was “black friday”. I was expecting the airport to be a complete nightmare with endless lines and chaos, but I couldn’t have been more wrong! We arrived several hours early and had little to no waiting anywhere, it was amazing. The flight down went smooth and we arrived on time. We had reservations to stay at the Comfort Inn at Cocoa Beach, the same hotel we stayed at in March. We did a fly, snooze and cruise package customized for us, it included a shuttle from the airport to the hotel, the hotel stay and a shuttle to the ship the next morning. The shuttle picked us up a few minutes after we gathered our luggage and the drive was about an hour to the hotel. This time we had a room in the taller building in the back of the property, it was a bit of a haul with all the luggage, and we were on the 4th floor. The room was like a little suite. It had a “living room” when you first walked in with a couch, tv and desk, then the bed is through a little hallway in the back and then there was a balcony off the bedroom. The hotel is older, and the room had been updated but still felt a little dingy. The front sitting room had a very strong musty smell, but the bedroom was fine. We got the room around 830pm and walked down the street to the Sandbar Beach Bar for some food and a few drinks to start off vaca. We did the same thing in March, its a nice little routine! We were assigned the 915 shuttle to take to the port the next morning, which went pretty smoothly and we arrived to the port super early. We bought FTTF again this time so we wanted to make sure we were able to take advantage of early boarding. We had to wait for a wedding before they let us board, and FTTF was called after diamond and platinum, I think we were on board just after noon. I felt the boarding process was a little unorganized, people were cutting in line and refusing to sit down when workers asked them to, they were all hovering around the doorway trying to be the first through the gate, which agitated other people and more and more people were rushing the door. We boarded pretty early, so i’m not sure how ugly it got behind us.

Once on board we headed to the red frog pub hoping to be the first, but some of the people (later found out they are very obnoxious “diamonds”) who were refusing to sit in the terminal and hovering around the door, beat us. Go figure. We were pleased to head straight to our room and drop off our carry ons since we had FTTF. We then purchased the Cheers! package and went to find some lunch. We opted for La Cucina del Capitano since it was brand new to us. You fill out your menu checklist and hand it to the hostess, they give you a beeper and you wait. It took maybe 10 minutes to get our food which was quite yummy even though I’m not a huge pasta person. We explored the ship after lunch, did the muster drill routine and then raced up to the lido to watch sailaway. We were supposed to sail at 4pm but we still hadn't even started our engines by 530 so we headed back to the room to unpack and get ready for dinner. I’m not sure what time we actually left but I guess were delayed because we had to load so much extra stuff due to the longer sailing.

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Loved it! I will say though to skip the shrimp dumpling for appetizer-they were terrible.

Haha that's the only part of the meal I liked!! I really didn't care for ji-ji and would not go back. My meat was very fatty (shortribs) and everything had some sort of spice on it I simply didn't like. I actually left there hungry, but It seems I may be the one one....:rolleyes:

Just my opinion

I was looking forward to your review of this day! You handled your young friend's antics very well!!! [emoji5]️

I've stayed in that exact room on the pride, there are a few pics in my review (link in my signature). You can sit in a regular chair facing forward but the lounger will not fit forward nor would it on a standard balcony. It's nice to have it though!

Enjoy!

Sailed with you, interested in reading your point of view. Looks like maybe I won't need to write a review now...

I checked out his blog- didn't see anything about an 80s dance party

Thank you :)

Great thanks, you're always so helpful [emoji4]

Are these rates still accurate? Are there cabs that will fit 10 people?

Thanks

Hmmm this is helpful. Still not sure about clothing,maybe I'll just wear normal clones to dinner and change into 80s clothes for deck party later? Is the party like around 10 like usual?

I can't seem to find my answer maybe someone can help...I know there's only been two or so journeys cruises so far but I'm curious about the 80s throwback stuff. Is there an 80s themed deck party? Or is it just a daytime thing? Trying to figure out what to bring for throwback clothing if anything.

Thanks

I'm sorry if I missed it, what night was the 80s party? And is the whole day 80s themed or just dinner/deck party?

Thanks

Can someone tell me which beach is closest to the rum distillery? I'm looking to go to either rainbow beach or sandcastle beach by taxi.

Thanks!

Ps why can't I edit the subject line??

Does Magen's bay rent chairs and umbrellas?

Thank you!!! [emoji4]