wgeddings

Thanks everyone! @JamieLogical that is a perfect chart for my question. @Morgsmom of course our Cozumel stop is the last 🥴. I like soda so looks like I’ll want more than 6 a day (at 12 oz each) so I’ll have to pay the exorbitant price for the package or bring some caffeine tablets. Oh well. Thanks again for the help

I asked as part of another thread but got no responses so I thought I would start it as a topic. How much is it for a Coke (or Pepsi or whatever) on board? A single one. Non-Yacht club, no beverage package. Trying to figure out if the $126 for a 7 night cruise is as outrageous as it sounds. Not interested in alcoholic beverages, coffee or anything else other than getting a soda.

So no beverages brought on board. How much is it per soda?

I know that AARP and Allstate Rewards had discounted gift cards for Carnival, RCCL and Princess. Does anyone have discounted gift cards for MSC? I know Allstate Rewards is going away and all the other things with what gifts cards are for other cruise lines but please limit comments to only if someone knows where you can get discounted MSC gift cards and not get into the collateral other issues. Thanks!

How much is a soda? Trying to decide whether it is worth it for the non-alcoholic beverage package. Also, on Carnival you can bring a 12-pack per person of canned soda. Does MSC allow any soda to be brought on board?

Great report! Hope you had some time to enjoy Charleston.

I am looking for the MDR menus for NON-Yacht Club. There are lots of posts about what is available in the Yacht Club but I am looking for the other things. Tried a search but kept getting Yacht Club. If anyone knows if the menu should be different for a March 31 sailing on Seashore (7 nights), please mention it. Thanks!

Directions would be as I mentioned. Follow directions on the website I linked on the night before to look for closed roads and such. Traffic will be light in the port area the night before so you can get a good idea of exactly what to do Monday morning. Looks like you will be about 5.8 miles from the port and with light traffic allow about 15 minutes. For Monday morning, allow at least 30 minutes. if you get in early enough Sunday, I encourage you to go to Patriots Point where you can walk though several navy ships. Good way to stretch your legs after a long ride. If you don’t like navy ships or lots of walking, head down to the old slave market downtown. There are horse-drawn carriage tours that are great. There is also a great museum and aquarium available, again depending on how time you have and what interests you. if you do not plan to get in too early, be sure to get great food. My favorite downtown is Hyman’s Seafood. About 2 miles from the port and right next to the old slave market their food is outrageously good and very reasonably priced. The gator sausage appetizer is great. There is a place beside Charleston called Shem Creek (in Mount Pleasant so about 10-15 minutes from the Port) that is known for irs seafood. Almost every restaurant in Shem Creek is great but my favorite is Red’s Icehouse. My favorite place in Mount Pleasant is Page’s Okra Grill. Great seafood and other things. The have won tons of awards and if some of your group want non-seafood while others want seafood, this is a great place. I hope that is some help. Enjoy the cruise. I really like the Sunshine so I know you’ll have a good time. PS, watch for speed traps on I-95 in SC and when in Charleston! While in Charleston, expect to go the wrong way on a one-way street at least once. 🙂. When you get back, you might want to post your turn by turn directions and others can see if that helps or if their trip to the port will be by a different route. Tommy

I wish I could give more precise helpful directions but I would end up causing more harm than help. There are condo/apartments under construction in that area so traffic is frequently re-routed. I could give you great directions (assuming I knew great directions) and when you go, a street here or there could be closed and I would end up messing you up. If you are coming in a day early (which I highly recommend and, unless it is somewhere like Charleston to me which is only about 1.5 hours away, I always do) when you get into town, drive to the port and see. If you are flying in, since your tag mentions you are from Delaware, you would not be driving but then you would also not be asking about the route to take so I have assumed you are driving. If that's wrong, let me know. Hotel prices in Charleston can vary wildly. It is less expensive to stay further out in the city but then you have the cost/issue of coming into the city for the best food and sites. Tell me where you plan to stay, confirm if you are driving, and I will try to give you some more specific tips.

Thanks. I will get it switched.

We are booked on an inside cabin on Carnival Magic (cabin 9312) and it is located beneath the Lido Deck "Beach Pool". I am worried it might be really noisy or that the bands and other noise from deck parties will make it noisy. Does anyone have experience with cabins on the deck right below Lido deck, especially below the open areas? Thanks

Absolute best place is Hyman's Seafood. The only REAL BBQ is South Carolina pulled port BBQ. To me, vinegar based sauce of the best but sometimes I will tolerate the mustard base sauce of the low country. 😀

We live near Charleston and have cruised out of there a few times so I will try to answer. There is the parking lot and there is the pedestrian path. The pedestrian path is where you see people walking from the port down a causeway into Charleston. That is the people who are going for a cab or rideshare. It is a bit of a walk but since non-port vehicles are not allowed near the embark/debark building, it is what it is. If you wanted to take the pedestrian path and walk to your car parked at the port, it is possible but a bit of a longer walk. The alternative to the pedestrian path is a shuttle/bus that will take you to the parking area inside the port. There is often a sizable line at debarkation but it does move pretty quickly and given the oppressive heat/humidity we have in South Carolina, a long walk after a restful cruise is not an option I would take so I always wait for the shuttle. The shuttle takes you to a building sort of in the middle of the parking area and it is a short walk to the cars (mostly). Parking at the port can be confusing. There are signs but, as with most places, the signs are not overly clear. Here is a link with more information - https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles/charleston-cruise-port-parking-address-amenity-info. The entry into the parking area is not where you think so unless you follow the directions, you are likely to have to double back. The cost is $21 per day (as of 8-1-23). It is secured and patrolled. Vehicles with a valid handicap placard or license plate are free. Credit cards, debit cards, or money orders are accepted but note that cash is NOT accepted. There may be other areas to park nearby but parking is always a problem in downtown Charleston and seldom cheaper so for me (who is very cheap) I park in the secured parking for the port as the best option. Getting from your car to the ship will sometimes be a challenge but it is not as hard as it sounds. Things change so I can only speak to how it was last year when we cruised. We parked and there was a guy with a little shuttle bus who picked us up and took us to the embarkation building (NOT the same as debarking). There we checked in, left out luggage, etc. and then boarded another larger shuttle bus that took us to another building were we went through security and eventually boarded the ship. That was the same building you go through at debarkation. The embarkation building where we checked in was mostly temporary type buildings (think old mobile classrooms) but clean and most people were nice. The shuttle bus driver from embarkation building to the building where we board the ship was not nice or helpful but of course had a tip jar. The security people were decidedly unfriendly in my opinion but I may just have encountered some people in a bad mood. Try not to let them ruin your time. Suggestions and thoughts - the port does not open for parking all that early and there is quickly a long line of cars waiting to get in. If you have one of the first boarding times, you may want to either arrive really early to avoid the line or arrive a little late to avoid the line that will have built up waiting for the port gates to open. When disembarking, there will be guys with luggage carts offering to help you but that is just to help you get the luggage to the shuttle bus (not from the shuttle to your car) so keep in mind you will be tipping them for a pretty short trip distance wise. Traffic is sparse leaving so don't let the traffic when you are getting in make you think it will be bad leaving. At the best of times, traffic in Charleston is confusing and you should plan on at least once going the wrong way down a one way street since it is inevitable. Don't panic. Overall, stay calm and be prepared to follow instructions and you will have an easy time. Stress too much ahead of time, which is easy to do trying to figure out Google Maps, will make things worse. You will probably think "they should mark this better" or similar but remember that the City of Charleston dislikes the cruise port and is closing it soon so they can build more condos and shops so making things easier for cruisers is not something they are interested in. The Carnival workers there do care and will try to do their best. As for Charleston itself, this is a port where you should definitely arrive a day or so ahead of time or plan to stay a day or two after the cruise. There is so much to do and see and i find it a challenge to find a bad meal in Charleston. The restaurants are all terrific (including my favorite place - Hyman's- right downtown). I'll watch in case there are any other questions but please keep in mind that the directions on that site I linked are far better directions than I can give so asking about specific street names will likely not be helpful.

Sorry I did not respond sooner and hope it is not too late. First, we were on the SunSHINE, not the SunRISE and they are very different ships. i will assume you meant the SunSHINE out of Charleston. To answer your question, we never had to wait more than 10 minutes at anything other than peak demand times. MDR never a wait and buffet no waits. Pizza, deli and Mongolian Wok wait would depend on exactly when you went and sometimes there was a line, sometimes not. But those are always busy on every cruise I have been on at peak times. Pasta bar, Guys Bugers, and the Taco/Burrito places were all pretty quick.

Same thing happened to us on Liberty with a balcony except our room stank of the smoke no matter what we did. It made me furious you could call security directly and have to call “guest services” (who are almost always the opposite of helpful). GS seldom answers the phone and when they do and contact security, by the time security gets there, the smokers have gone back in. We asked GS to give us at least a way to contact security quickly but of course that is not allowed. Instead they put a reminder letter under everyone’s door 2-3 cabins to either side of the smokers because GS did not want to single out the partners and smokers. on embarkation day, they were on the balcony smoking up a storm and I reported it to 3 crew, our cabin steward AND an officer who each said they would take of it. The next day when I went to GS because they would not answer their phone, they had the nerve to say I should have reported it earlier. Said there was no record of any of 5 actually doing what they said and implied it was MY fault. Carnival is not at fault for idiots who will not follow the rules but they ARE responsible for failing to take action and for lying about things.

A rideshare (or friend dropping you off) uses a different entrance. They drop you at the first building so cuts out the shuttle/walk from the parking lot. You still have the other stages and a shuttle from check-in to security/boarding area. ‘Coming back, you can avoid the shuttle from security to parking lot but it is still quite a walk to get to an exit where you can meet a rideshare.

Ah, i see.

You might be right about it being a little rough going against the gulfstream. At least that makes sense to me. I was not complaining about it because it was not a problem but just wanted others to be aware and not to worry that the whole trip would be like that. Also, I got a call from someone at Carnival who confirmed that they cannot just reload a gift card. Sebastian was full of bull although the customer service rep made it sound at first like it was my fault for not knowing that and correcting Sebastian. She was nice though. Their system showed that a new gift card was issued to me and e-mailed to me but I did not receive it. So yet another fun thing with Carnival's guest services and she said she would try to run it down and have them re-issue. She has been helpful.

This had nothing to do with size restrictions. I stand by my caution about making sure the porters do not grab your carry on.

As promised, more details. Rough - we have been on cruises most of the year and normally the roughest is around Thanksgiving. However, the first day or so of this cruise was rougher than normal. None of our group got seasick but you felt the boat swaying a lot. It smoothed out later in the week and some might have been due to weather Mon/Tues but people usually ask how calm or rough it was. I STRONGLY recommend that everyone go to Walgreens, CVS or Walmart and get a pair of SeaBands. SeaBands are like wristbands with half a marble on them that press on a pressure point on your wrist. I did not believe they would work but they really did for me and my family. Guest Services - and I use that term loosely because customer service is NOT good. There was usually a long line for this so I try to avoid it but most of the time that is impossible. From our April cruise, we had problems I will not go into here and as a result Carnival gave me, wife and daughter each a $50 OBC for our next cruise. I told them thank you but I wanted something in writing. "Oh, it is on your VIFP account so it will automatically be applied.". I said "no offense but I have seldom had anything you tell me be the truth so please put it in writing." They did. Of course, on this cruise, it was not on any of our accounts. So I had to go to "Guest Services" and wait in the line. Of course their response was that there was no such credit and they have no record of it anyway. BAM - here is the e-mail with the person's name and info and proof it should be there. He seemed so disappointed that he might have to do something so resorted to "I will check on it and we will let you know." I also e-mailed the customer service rep who sent me the e-mail about being sure it was on my account. The next morning, bright and early, Guest Services called the cabin to wake us up to say that it was applied. Then they waited a few minutes for us to go back to sleep to call again and ask if we wanted it applied. We said yes, and went back to bed. A few minutes later, they called a third time to let us know that it was applied. Then later in the day left messages on the phone that it was applied. Somehow, even correcting their errors managed to become even more annoying! "FREE" Drink on last night - As gold members, we were supposed to get a free drink the last night of the cruise. We ordered from a lady at the Lobby Bar but we could not understand her due to her very heavy Russian accent, the loud music and her mask. She kept putting in the information wrong and trying to tell us something but we could not understand her. She realized it was supposed to be free so kept re-entering it. Finally she just said she would take care of it later and made the drinks and we thanked her. Next morning, as we were preparing to disembark, I looked at our bill and sure enough, we were charged for those 2 drinks. So I had to go back to guest services and wait. Again. This time a guy named Sebastian tried to help. It only took him 3 tries to understand were supposed to get those free and several minutes of looking at the bill to try to come up with why that was incorrect until he finally agreed and removed the charges. He printed a new bill showing that I was to receive $37.08. Then he tried to give me that in cash. So it was another good wait while he kept trying to enter something over and over again. Then he finally said "Oh, it was part of your gift card.". I had used a $500 gift card to pay the other charges which totaled $462.92. Reasonable thought and he said that the $37.08 was going to remain on my gift card. I asked him to check to verify it and he said that they cannot but he assured me it was there. Yeah, right. Got home and checked the gift card balance and it was $0.00. So I have contacted Carnival about that and we will see. Bottom line, if someone from Carnival tells you anything, get proof and it is safe to assume it is not true. Yeah, sour attitude and sorry if that offends everyone but they seem to do something like this every cruise. Nassau, Bahamas and Half-Moon Cay - Those were our two stops. I think every cruise I have been on for the last 6 has stopped at Nassau so I did not get off the boat nor did my wife. My daughter and her friend walked to the straw market and around town a little since the friend had not been there before. We did no excursions. At Half-Moon Cay, my wife, daughter and friend all got off the boat and said the water was fabulous. It was good as usual. Nothing really to report other than the water was always a great temperature and of course beautiful. Noise - This time we had 2 4J cabins. Those are outside cabins with obstructed views on Deck 3 that are billed at about the inside rate. We could see out of our windows and see the bottom of the lifeboats (or "survival craft" as they are now called). There was a walkway outside the window too but I was pretty happy because you had a good enough view. Then I learned why they were cheaper. Boy was it loud! Crew working on things sounded like they were in the cabin with us. People walking on the walkway or the walkway above sounded like stampeding elephants. In Nassau, they were conducting a life boat drill for the crew so we were awakened nice and early by what sounded like a group of people kicking buckets against our window (no idea what it really was but I think it was crew getting the lifeboats ready on Deck 4). I am NOT complaining, because no one said it would be quiet, I am just saying that I will think long and hard before getting another cabin like this. That combined with the fact that the cruise director made announcements every 2 second (okay, not really but it felt like that) which came right into the cabin through the speakers outside the cabin meant lots of noise. I do not know it was speakers in the hallway or on the walkway that made all announcements so loud but one or the other did. Havana Bar - In April we were on the Liberty. I figured out the difference with the Sunshine and the Liberty and similar ships. On Liberty, at the back of the boat, through the buffet, is another pool and the seafood shack and Pizza Pirate are located there. Other boats are similar. On Sunshine, they removed that pool and enclosed that area. Now that area on the Sunshine houses the Havana Bar and JiJi Asian restaurant and Cucino de Capitano. The Havana Bar was a nice uncrowded area to eat or drink or watch the waves. The 2 restaurants were great and I ate at the Mongolian Wok (which is the JiJi Asian place for lunch) everyday. The Cucino de Capitano is closed for dinner but has a pasta bar for lunch (you fill out a piece of paper and they cook your pasta for you). Overall - I really liked the Sunshine and would definitely sail on her again. I did not like the port of Charleston but I liked how much closer it was. I did not like the noise in our cabin but otherwise it was a good cabin. The food was above average and our cabin steward (Henry) and our MDR servers were terrific. Guest services were a nightmare as usual. Casino was okay but people determined to see if they could smoke an entire pack of cigarettes in 15 min or less remained annoying. Bartenders remain a bad part since there are too few of them and thus they get very surly. Your cruise might be different but these are my opinions. Happy Cruising! Tommy

My gut feeling is it was probably just that particular driver. The later driver was not rude, but not nice, and also had a tip basket but did not harp on it.

More details to come but I wanted to clarify about the port (esp a 9:30 check in). First, you have to keep in mind Charleston does NOT like having the port (yes some do but those with power do not). As you get to the port it is easy to see why. There is tons of construction happening all around it. Then there is huge parking lot and lots of prime real estate begging for offices, restaurants and condos. Cruising brings in $$ but not compared to the offices, restaurants and condos. Tourism is not lacking in Charleston anyway so losing cruise tourism is not likely to matter to anyone except those of us who want to cruise out of there. Port personnel want to keep it open. Anyway, you have to keep in mind that “they” do not want to encourage cruising so making the port difficult is preferable to “them”. Embarkation you have to enter the parking lot through a curving path. Although the information says they check to be sure all passengers in the vehicle have valid boarding passes, no one checked. Then you reach tellers who take payment for your parking (check port of Charleston website for current rates and note handicap parking is free). You then get to a porter area where they take your luggage. Fast and efficient enough but be careful that they do not take your carry-on by mistake. In 2019 a porter told me he had to take my bag with sodas in it and then the sodas were confiscated because I did not “carry them on”. You are welcome to tip these porters but be aware none of these will be putting your luggage on the ship or delivering it to your stateroom so tip or no tip has no impact on your luggage. After the porters you are directed where to park. Then you can walk to the first staging area or catch a shuttle. The first staging area is part warehouse, part tent. Here the usual cattle queue with multiple check-in points. Moved reasonably well. We used VeriFly and everything was smooth. From there we proceeded to another building, like a temporary classroom. Here we were chevked in again and had our pictures taken. Went smooth enough and then we exited that building to board a shuttle to the ship. The driver watched with disinterest as I struggled to board with my carry-on and his comment was only that I needed to keep it on my lap. The entire ride to the ship (no walking allowed because you have to exit the secure area and then re-enter for the ship) the driver gave a spiel about he needed tips (and I refrained that the best tip was be nicer to passengers). Then you proceed to another building where you have to go through security. I had sodas in my bag in the carton but the X-ray tech insisted I had to go have a very rude woman “inspect” my sodas. While doing that, she noticed my power bar (that I have taken on 6 cruises in the last 9 months) and decided it was not allowed. She was quite rude about. Then we walk a little further, up a flight of stairs, and your boarding pass is scanned to let you proceed to the ship (which means walking up several ramps). Disenbarking was bad. First, the cruise director had announced it would be a “silent disembark”. Meaning there would not be announcement so we were all to watch channel 14 for when we could leave. Normally we carry everything off but decided to check most of our luggage so we would not have to wrestle it onto shuttles. Turns out luggage pickup was right as you get off the ship so we still had to roll the luggage but at least they had porters this time to load/unload the shuttles. Many people opted to skip the shuttles and walk but I don’t recommend it. Why was it a “silent disembak” you may ask. Because all the folks in the condos can tolerate the construction noise but not the sound of a ships speakers apparently. We left our room at 8:30 and got to our car at 9:45 (admittedly I had to stop at guest services due to yet another guest service blunder I’ll explain later. As we exited the parking lot, no new cars were being allowed in and there was a huge crowd waiting. If someone got something to check-in at 9:30, that is NOT going to happen. New cars are not allowed to enter until the cars there have left. I believe they do not let anyone into the parking lot until close to 11:00 and right at 11:00 I imagine the mob descending on the facilities will cause quite a backup. For those considering parking off site, check Lyft and Uber to see what the ride will be back and forth. When I checked, rideshares were quite high.

Room service readily available through HUB app is the one where items are $5 or more. The only way to access the free menu is through a QR code usually on or near the main mirror in the room. An inexperienced cruiser would not realize there are 2 menus, one free and one not. Easy way for me to tell is the free one has PB&J but the pay one does not. Free one is not available through HUB. Yes, you call the same number to order but to see the menu to know what to order is different. parking is $105 for 5 days I think. It changes so just Google port of Charleston parking for accurate up to date info. We had a handicapped tag so it was free (which is rare). Epic Rock was the show tonight and early show was packed! I have to say that even though I have seen it several times on other ships, this was the best. The giant video backdrop really added to it and the performers really gave 110%. Not the best singers but the tried harder. Many more details after I get back home tomorrow. Tommy

I don’t drink coffee so can’t really answer. there were no hanging tags in our room but I never use them so did not enquirer. Seems they were there in earlier cruises but I can believe Carnival discontinued it. They made room service harder by making the pay version easy to find but the free version harder.

Bambam, there are several good options. There is the Javablue on deck 5 near Ocean Plaza with lots of pastries for a fee. Beyond that, you have the Lido buffet or room service or, on SeaDays, the Brunch. There were other places pre-Covid but I haven’t seen any others. If it were me, I would probably use the room service card that you hang on the door. DW, DD and her friend went ashore to Half-moon Cay. They said it was great and the water temp already wonderful. I decided to stay onboard since beaches aren’t my thrill. Ate a snack today at about 5:00 and noticed many messy tables and few servers. However, I believe it was shift change or they were all busy elsewhere getting dinner ready. All that was open was Guys, deli, and pizza so I do not think there were many servers on duty. During “normal” times, I have seen lots of servers almost hovering waiting to clear plates. Had a better time in the casino but the smoke finally ran me out. It was socially acceptable to smoke around others but I wonder how it would be if flatulence was socially acceptable for a while? I was tempted to create my own “all natural cloud of fog” but even I could not stoop that low. 😊. Still, I wish casinos would realize things change and public smoking is no longer as acceptable. Of course those who want to smoke will make far more noise about a policy change than non-smokers are about requesting a policy change. Still, I can dream. Tonight was the Latin Nights show and it was very good. Sunshine has the new active video backdrop for the stage (like Horizon has) and it adds a lot. The performers worked really hard! BTW here is a link to a great page from Saint Greg that lists all Carnival shows, what ship they are on and the songs performed. I found it really a great resource! https://www.saintgregtravel.com/playlist-productions/