winged wheel

Sailed on Carnival Sunshine Dec 9-17. Overall had a nice cruise even with the hurricane damage forced port changes. This was our 6th Carnival cruise, but first time on the Sunshine. There were a few things about the ship we really liked, such as the Havana bar. The Cuban bites there at lunchtime were really quite good, as was the Cuban coffee. Lido was easy to navigate and the food was usually hot and really good.

Now for the weird stuff......We like to walk and thought it odd that apart from the sunny windy track on the sport deck, there wasn't anywhere to walk a lap around the ship. On the inappropriately named promenade deck, big sections of the bow and stern are blocked off, so you can really only walk less than half of the length of the ship before you're forced to about face.

Kind of along the same line was the weird layout of the interior decks. Other than the purely cabin passageways, there really was no deck to walk from stem to stern without an obstacle course other than deck 5. This was OK as a lot of points of interest were on 5, but it seemed odd that everyone was channeled on this thoroughfare.

Casino was SUPER smoky. Not trying to open a can of worms as I'm a former smoker myself, but it was terrible. I usually game every night for hours on end, but I didn't play at all on our cruise it was so bad. Even the casino bar which is half "non smoking" was intolerable to me. They really need to work on a ventilation solution to this, as I'm sure I'm not the only gamer who was chased out by the smoke.

Also, although the serenity area was nice, quiet and kid free, it has only one spa and one very small pool which I can only assume is fed by a glacier given its temperature. Much prefer the water slide at the bow with an aft pool for adults like the Dream.

Anyway, just a heads up.

Sweet. Thank you!!!

Does anyone know if there are self service laundry facilities on Sunshine? Thanks

I have Verizon as well and was on island last Summer. Although your phone will swear it's roaming, there will be no additional charges either for talk or data. We confirmed this with Verizon before we went and did not receive a surprise bill afterward. Not the strongest signal, but it worked in most places.

Recently had a stopover in San Juan, PR. While walking down the front street with DW was approached by a white American type touristy looking guy. About 6', early fifties and claims to be from Wisconsin-which may be true. Dressed like he was on vacation. Anyway, he asked us if we spoke English, when we said we did, he went into this long sob story about he and his father being mugged and he needed $6 to catch a cab to rejoin his father at the hospital. Seemed like an oddly specific amount and his story just didn't seem credible so we lied and said we only had credit cards,Sorry and walked off. Didn't think much else about it until a few minutes later when my wife called a friend of ours who was keeping an eye on our place. It just happened that our friend had been on a cruise with a SJ stop last year. The wife mentioned this guy to him and he said the same dude had scammed him out of $20, with the promise to mail it to him, of course. Pure scammer. :mad:

I'm booked on the Niew Amsterdam Dec 18th sailing. Curious to see what the truth is. I'm a former 3 pack a day 40 year smoker with almost 3 years of non-smoking bliss under my belt. DW and I booked a verandah, so I'll be interested to see if there is smoke wafting into ours. Will not ruin my cruise if it does as the smell of fresh smoke doesn't make me recoil, as I still work with a lot of smokers and vapers and actually find the huge plumes of vapor more off-putting, but that's me.

I made an oath to myself not to become one of those militant non-smokers once I quit. I think we can all get along with some common sense. I'd be more in favor of making the casino non-smoking as I don not care for that stale smoke/ashtray smell. I'll up-date with the facts once I return.

Jim

Yeah I never even though of celebrity before because of their restrictions!

Hands down. It's a pretty good taxi ride from port o Frederiksted, but well worth it. Nice eatery across the road too.

Hi all!

Will be going on my first cruise as a non-smoker this December!! We have always sailed HAL in the past because they were the most smoker friendly. Well, that's not so true any more anyway, but what line would you recommend? I'm not offended by smoke as I understand the addiction now, but now that I'm not limited to "smoker friendly" who should I try? DW and I are late 40s and pretty active.

I use an application on my cell phone called My Fitness Pal. I am sure there are others out there like it. It give you information on the foods that you eat. Enter small apple and it gives you the carbs, calories and other information. You can get pretty good numbers for most things. It will even scan bar codes of packaged foods and gives you the correct info.

 

Ditto. Get the app!!

Sweet! Thank you!!!

Jim

Good morning, fellow cruisers. Just a quick question about the fitness center on the Dream. Does it have resistance machines and free weights, or just treadmills and the like? I've been body building for the last 6 months or so, and would really like to maintain my routine while on our Jan 25th cruise. Thanks.

jim

Just returned from a cruise with a STX stop, and went to Cane Bay. I didn't rent a chair, but there was a gent there renting them, although he had no takers the day I was there as it was raining, and I was snorkling.