DKF97

We have only sailed from NO and we love it. This June will be the first time we will actually be sailing down the river with some daylight, so we are excited about that! Never have noticed any smells at all. And having cell reception for that first evening is great and even greater is sometime between 10 and midnight on the last night cell reception comes back and I can get my internet fix again!:D

My kids are always booked late at night. They are in Circle C and Club o2. They don't do every activity the club offers, but tend to like the late night stuff. They love the family comedy shows and they tend to fall into a time slot when there isn't much going on that they like at the kids clubs. They tend to have downtime and get a little bored during the late afternoon early evening We don't eat in the main dining room so that doesn't take any of their time. That's when we like to go find a nice place in front of a window and play board games or cards. My oldest and a group of his friends from Club O2 actually spent a lot of time playing games on our last cruise, of course it was raining 90% of that cruise, so they had to find something to do.

This was not our experience last Sept. There was a special section for FTTF. Wonder why they changed it?

When we cruised out of NOLA at Christmas with F2F there was no special seating. They directed us through priority security and into the priority checkin and then that was it. I thought there was a certain area we should be while we waited to be called onboard so we asked and they said there wasn't an area for f2f and to have a seat anywhere and we would be called after regular priority. No big deal, but I thought it was a little strange. We loved having it even though we didn't use all the perks. The best thing was the priority line at guest services, that saved us a lot of line standing the first day when my husbands card wasn't opening our door and it took several trips to get it straightened out. I had tried to call guest services and they would never answer the phone, it wasn't til later that I realized we also had a priority number to guest services. Zone 1 debarking was great as I hate sitting around twiddling my thumbs on the last morning. We have it booked for our 2 cruises this year also, it will be invaluable for my dad to be able to rest in his cabin after the long walk to get onboard.

We will be on the Dream in June with my dad and he can't use the stairs. I seem to remember the elevators not working just before and during muster. If that is right, do we just have to plan to be at our muster station extra early so that we can get there before they shut the elevators off? If we don't make it will they turn one on just for him or will he just be sent back to his cabin?

Haven't been on the Dream, have 2 booked on her for this year. We were on the Sunshine for Christmas. Never again. Just wasn't for us. A poster above said the Dream was overcrowded. We found the Sunshine extremely overcrowded, so that worries me. Our biggest complaints about Sunshine were the Lido is tiny, the show lounge is tiny, the comedy lounge is tiny, and the crew was just ok. Usually the crew really makes our cruise, this crew, with the exception of a few, seemed like they were just unhappy or something. I wanted to sail from New Orleans this March, but we decided to wait for the Dream.

No reason to fear paying online by credit card, its as secure or more than your local restaurant or store.

Our favorite drink by far, even my beer drinking hubby's, is the mango margarita from the Blue Iguana. It is their strongest margarita and so good! The only problem? On the Sunshine, you have to catch Alberto. He is the only one that made them right. By the 3rd day of our cruise he would start making them for us as soon as he saw us heading his way.:D

The rule says no, you have to check it in at a table after the scanner as you get back onboard......we have never stopped at the table.

We will be going on our first summer cruise this year and my kids are asking if the waterslides will be open when we get onboard? On our past cruises it was too cool to swim, so I'm not even sure there was water in the pools that first day.

no food on the xmas cruise.

I have no experience with the Breeze, but that would definitely be our choice. We were just not thrilled with the Sunshine and we will never sail on her again. I really wanted to sail out of New Orleans in March, but decided to wait till June for the Dream. We will have to deal with hot temps, but that was worth not having to get on the Sunshine again.

Only need a passport oops and boarding pass, but even if you forget that you can still get on. I would assume it make getting into the terminal a little more difficult, but some on here have said they have done it.

How about between Cove balconies 2346 & 2350? Will the divider open?

Yes we have these rooms booked for June. The site to check is

https://www.goccl.com/~/media/Files/Irman/bookccl/the_fleet/dream/dream.ashx

Congrats!!!

We did this on last cruise and switched once we got on board. We also got an extra key to the kids' room. The only problem we had was it took about 4 trips to guest services to get my husband's card key to work in the door. They finally fixed it but it was a real hassle, so we were very glad to get a hold of someone to book the kids in their own room initially. We will go to guest services and get a key for the kids' room. It came in very handy especially because I could kick my husband out to their bathroom, lol.

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Thanks all! Leaving it the way it is. I feel so lucky to be able to grab exactly what we needed before they sold out, won't push my luck :-)

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I know this has been answered, but I can't find it. I thought I knew the answer, now I'm not sure. We were on the Sunshine last month and our cabins were booked with one parent and one child in each room. We bought FTTF for each cabin so that we could all board at the same time.

Today I booked the Dream and finally got someone on the phone who booked the kids in their own room and my hubby and I in ours, so no hassle switching rooms onboard. There were 3 FTTF tickets left and I grabbed them up for all of our rooms (my dads also). Here's my question, did I really need one for the kids' cabin? My hubby and I will have it on our cards, so I would assume the kids could get onboard with us. The only problem I see, would be having to get in a separate line at check-in. It's not a huge deal but $50 is $50.

We had faster to the fun for the Sunshine and we were on by 11am

I'm not big on shots, but the WooWoo is yummy!

Grab a taxi and spend the whole day at Chankanaab. This was our first snorkeling experience and still our favorite. Plus a cute sea lion show and beautiful grounds to explore.

It was mostly on deck with one group in the Liquid Lounge. It was very quick, or maybe the few cocktails I had beforehand made me more tolerant :p But it seemed like it was only maybe 10 or 15 minutes at most.

Both times we've taken our kids they had an informational meeting in the main lounge an hour or so after muster. You can turn in your paperwork and pick up a schedule, then you can stay for the info or not.

My family and I were on the Carnival Sunshine for the Christmas cruise. It rained heavily probably half the time and thankfully there were periods of sun. Despite the rain, we had fun and made the most of our cruise. On a positive note, we didn't run out of sunscreen and didn't get burned! :p Here are some comments about our cruise.

 

Embarkation: A. We had FTTF and had the fastest, smoothest embarkation we have experienced yet.

 

Room: A. We had a balcony room on the Lido deck (9217). Great central location for easy access to Lido, and no elevator noise at all!

 

Service: B-. With a few noteworthy exceptions, service was just “meh” and not very friendly. The ship was jam packed with over 3700 guests (according to announcements made by Jaime the CD) and it was obvious the staff was having trouble keeping up.

 

MDR food: B/B-. Food was pretty decent in the MDR, but not 5 star dining or anything. We had YTD and service was spectactularly slow—until we found a really great waiter team and requested them for the rest of the nights. Kudos to Attila Romeo, Dannko and Viyat!

 

Breakfast buffet: B/B-. Adequate, but a lot of duplication, and I never did find the omelet station. Turns out it was in a different room entirely (Ji Ji Asian Kitchen)!

 

Dinner buffet: D-. Probably the worst buffet I have ever seen in my life, and believe me, I have seen my share of buffets! Very limited, very poor selection. I kept thinking I was missing an entire section of the buffet, but, nope, it was really that small and limited. We did not eat at Lido for dinner any of the nights, but checked it out on several just to see what they had. Felt sorry for those choosing to eat dinner in there.

 

Specialty restaurants: B. We ate at the Steakhouse and it was good, but not as good as our steakhouse experience on the Magic. We loved Guy’s burgers and the Blue Iguana Cantina and ate lunch at one of them every day. Wanted to try Ji Ji Asian Kitchen, but never got around to it.

 

Layout: C. I did not like the layout at all near Guy’s Burger Joint. The aisle was way too narrow for people to be waiting in line while others were squeezing through just to walk by and to have a drink station and ice cream station jammed in there was just nuts. Constantly clogged with people.

 

There were too many floor changes required to walk through to areas like the Limelight Lounge and the Sunrise dining room (Go up to 5 to cross through to the back of the ship, and go back down to 3). The Liquid Lounge (the main showroom) is quite small compared with other ships and as a result seating was limited. Seating in the Limelight (home of the Punchliner Comedy Club) was downright ridiculous. You had to get to the comedy show 30-45 minutes early to get a seat! IF you got in before they closed the doors due to max capacity, you had the pleasure of standing and watching the comedian on a TV screen.

 

Entertainment: B. We went to the Punchliner comedy show every night except the last night and it was great (apart from having to arrive so early to get a seat!) Comedians were very funny. Our favorite was Willie Barcena. We saw part of the Playlist Productions Latin show in the Liquid Lounge and ended up walking out and going to the comedy show. It just wasn't our thing. However, Epic Rock show was fantastic! DH and I both highly recommend it and won’t miss it on future Carnival cruises. We missed having a live band on deck, but maybe they weren’t out there because of the rain? Not sure.

 

Kids club: A. Our kids are in Circle C (12-14) and Club 02 (15-17) and both really enjoyed hanging out with their respective groups and going to their organized activities.

 

Ship: C-. The ship itself is indeed beautiful, but we found lots of problems. I found it completely unacceptable that the elevators up to the Serenity decks were down 90% of the time, and said so to Guest Services. I would have been really mad if my room was up there (which it originally was—we switched from a Cloud 9 Spa balcony to the regular balcony when we learned there was no thalassotherapy tub). I resented having to walk from Deck 14 down to Deck 9, but glad that I am physically able to. Felt sorry for a man on a scooter was was waiting up there for a really long time. The elevators in the aft section of the ship were frequently down, as well, causing a major clog of people outside the Sunrise restaurant. You often had no choice but to take the stairs up a few flights to be able to walk over to the atrium elevators. The ADA would have a field day with this ship! Public areas of Deck 4 near the atrium/photos smelled like sewage much of the time. Yuck! Thankfully the smell didn't continue to where the steakhouse and sushi place are. Re the frequently mentioned buckets--I didn't see any.

 

We did not like that the only pool not teeming with dozens of splashing kids was the waterfall pool on Deck 12 of Serenity. It was freezing cold at all times, so no one was ever in it other than to take a quick dip to cool off or dangle their legs. I think removing the adults only aft pool and putting in the Havana Bar was a bad idea.

 

The water slides and ropes course were open on a very limited schedule, but luckily my son and husband got their fill of them by the end of the trip. Re Serenity, I am so glad my husband is a very early riser! He was able to snag one of the “front row” clamshell loungers on Serenity 2 out of 3 sea days. We did not hog the chair, though—between the two of us, one of us was on it at all times from 7 AM to probably 3 PM on it and it was heavenly. Much of the Serenity area (including where our clamshell chair was) was not very serene. Loud music from the pool area blasted into Serenity, as well. That said, DH assures me that the back of Decks 12 and 14 Serenity area were indeed quiet and serene.

 

Overall

 

DH and I both agreed that we'd grade this cruise a B-/C+. We had a nice time on this cruise but it would have been much nicer if the weather had been better. Not Carnival’s fault, obviously, and that does not reflect our grades here. We will continue sailing with Carnival, but we probably won’t take a Christmas cruise again (at least, not out of the Gulf of Mexico) and we won’t be cruising on the Sunshine again unless significant infrastructure repairs are made.

 

We were disappointed that many of the Christmas activities mentioned by John Heald did not happen. No caroling. No snow in the atrium. No "gifts for every child." Luckily, I did not tell my children about these activities so they didn't miss them. They had a Mardi Gras party (?!) in the atrium area on Christmas. No holiday trivia. No Christmas movies on the Dive In Theater. Very strange. Except for the decorations in the atrium and egg nog available in the Lido, it didn't seem very Christmas-y.

 

I'm not a "cheerleader", but I never thought I'd agree with the folks here who said that fixing up Destiny and turning her into Sunshine was "putting lipstick on a pig," but now that we have sailed on the Sunshine I have to agree with that assessment. Sunshine is bright and shiny, but there are too many underlying infrastructure problems that probably didn't get a passing thought in the "Sunshining" of the ship.

We were on this cruise also and your review is perfect, our experiences exactly. We however never eat in the mdr and yes the buffet was exactly as you described. Still not worth sitting for hours in the mdr for us, so we just dealt with it.

We did come across some buckets catching leaks and one leak near our room on lido port side that had no bucket but the spot on the carpet grew throughout the cruise, never saw a drip, just an increasingly larger spot on the floor. There was apparently another leak (hubby said they were fixing a leak, didn't ask how he knew) in our hall as there was drilling and a ladder set up outside our door for awhile. Not a huge deal, but since the links have become a topic....

We never noticed any sewer smells anywhere.

We never got a seat in Serenity, we just aren't into the chair race in the morning. The one time we thought there might be open seats and headed up there, the chairs were sopping wet.

I think our biggest complaint was the service just wasn't the same as on our 2 other cruises. We did seek out Alberto in the Blue Iguana Tequila Bar for our drinks. He was very friendly and frankly the only bartender that made drinks consistently good. We got the Cheers program and even though we didn't come close to breaking even, I'm glad we had it because it gave us a chance to try some new drinks, plus we had quite a few drinks that we just didn't drink because they were just not made correctly.

The layout on the Blue Iguana side was just as ridiculous. The line for Blue's goes down an aisle leading to the lido marketplace. Its just wide enough for 2 people, but with people standing in line it makes it a real pain for traffic coming in and out. I don't know how they could have thought that was an ok design. Just doesn't make sense.

While it might not sound like it, we still had a great time and we didn't let these issues ruin our vacation. But we will never sail the Sunshine again. Hoping the Dream will suit us better in September.

It's on the menus on the Sunshine. I ordered it from 2 different bars, but they couldn't find any.

I would love this if I had small children! Dr. Suess was very popular with my kids and me when they were little.

Too bad now we have to hear from all the fuddy duddy's on here that will complain that they are getting nothing from this latest announcement and how it will just completely ruin their next cruise :rolleyes: