Carnival Sunshine Review

[chrislo]

My family and I just got back from a great 8 day cruise onthe Sunshine August 10th – 18th. On thistrip it was myself, DH and our 12yo son. I had read all of the recent reviews and they were so negative I was alittle concerned but we had a great time and didn’t need to worry.

 

 

We spent a few days in Coco Beach so we returned our rentalcar to Avis and used their shuttle to take us to the pier. Avis was pretty disorganized and it tookabout 20 min to get a shuttle. Wearrived at the pier about noon and since we had F2F we walked right on and wentto our cabin. This trip I brought 3bottles of wine in our carryon bags and no said anything. I was prepared to give one up and hadpurchased it to drink in our hotel room but never got around to it. We also had a 12 pack of Gatorade for my son.

 

 

Boarding was very smooth and we were on our cabin by12:15. We were in an aft facing balconycabin 8335. Our cabin steward Alintroduced himself and gave us the choice of morning service, evening serviceor both. Since we seem to go through alot of towels I asked for the twice a day service and it was alwaysprovided. Al did a great job keeping ourroom clean and always had a smile.

 

 

We carried our own bas onto the ship so I sent the boys offfor some lunch while I unpacked. There wereplenty of porters around to take your bags but I don’t feel relaxed until Iunpack so we always bring our bags on ourselves. The closets in this cabin were a littledifferent with one of the closets split in half so you could hang shirts orshorter items on top and pants or longer items underneath. I felt we had morespace with this closet configuration. Asusual we didn’t have enough hangers but I always bring extra so that wasn’t aproblem. Our 2 empty bags went under the bed. The bathroom was pretty typical of a carnival bathroom except the showerwas rectangular so it appeared bigger.

 

 

Our balcony was twice as large as the cabin next to us andhad 3 regular chairs, a lounge chair and a small table. When I was doing my research I didn’t findvery much information on these aft cabins and the little I read suggested thatthe noise from the Havana bar went on all night making it impossible tosleep. I was prepared with ear plugs butwe didn’t hear any noise. 2 nightsaround 10pm we could hear very faint noise but my husband’s snoring drownedthat out. 2 mornings around 6am I heardsome loud thumps from chairs being set up but that was over in about 15 min andboth my husband and son slept through it I don’t think I would have heard it but I was already up. My son slept on the couch and was comfortablebut I would say if you are taller than 5’5 it probably wouldn’t becomfortable. I brought along my portablefan as I am always hot in the cabin. This was the first cruise out of 7 that I didn’t need my fan. The room was comfortable cool the entiretrip. Overall I was glad we booked thiscabin and I would happily do so again.

 

 

The Sunshine is an older ship and you can see signs of weararound the ship if you looked closely. There are signs of carpet wear and tear,rust and paint scuffs. The staff wasalways cleaning but there is only so much they can do until the dry dock inOctober. None of the wear and tearimpacted our trip but if these types of things bother you I would recommendwaiting until after the dry dock to sail.

 

 

We had Your Time Dining but ate in the steakhouse the firstnight. This was the best meal of thetrip. The quality of the Filet and Lobster was significantly better in the steakhouse then in the main diningroom. We also had the lobster bisque tostart and the chocolate sampler for dessert. On the first night you can get a free bottle of their house wine or 50%of a bottle from the menu. We aren’tpicky so we took the free red wine which I enjoyed but I will say they pushedus hard to purchase bottles. We wereapproached at least 3 times during the meal letting us know we could buy thediscounted wine now and take it with us. The only other specialty restaurant we tried was the Italian. We have always enjoyed this on other shipsbut found this experience disappointing. The food was good but this wasn’t a separate restaurant just a separatesection of the Havana bar so some of the ambiance was lost. A large anniversary part of about 30 peoplewere seated right after us and took up all the staffs’ attention. Because of this our food was slow to come up,dessert orders were slow to be taken and drinks didn’t get refilled. The staff was working hard so I don’t blamethem but I wish we had booked a different night.

 

 

With the exception of pizza, which my son ate multiple timesa day we ate in the main dining room. Weenjoyed both the sea day brunch (huevoes rancheros) and the port day breakfast(avocado toast) were excellent. Servicewas always prompt. Since we had YourTime Dining we had to go to deck 5 and get our seating assignment beforeheading to the dining room on deck 3. Weate around 6:30 most nights and with the exception of 1 night we always wentright to the dining room. The one formalnight we had a short 10 min wait which was just enough time to get my favoritedrink from the alchemy bar the French Kiss. Dinner was hit or miss but we never went away hungry. The short ribs were excellent as were theport day specials. The flat iron steakwas good one day but not the next. Chocolatemelting cake was order by at least one of us every night and that wasconsistently good.

 

 

We had no trouble finding seats on sea days. I am an early riser and would have coffee ondeck by 7:30 and there were never many towels holding chairs. If you didn’t mins sitting more toward theside away from the pool activity you could easily find 3 or 4 chairs togetheras late as 11:00. For the number of peopleon board 1 pool was not enough and we only went in once for 5 min but it wasjust too crowded. Even my son didn’twant to go in the pool. The sky coursewas open every morning but by noon it was too windy and they would shutdown. Our last sea day it was open allday and the line always seemed short. The lines for the slides never seemed very long either.

 

 

Our first port was Aruba and this was the port we planned asimple beach day. We took a taxi fromthe port to Eagle beach. It was $40 for2 lounge chairs and an umbrella. Thewater was beautiful and we enjoyed about 4 hours here. We were hungry so we ordered chicken nuggetsand wings from the bar and that was a waste of money. The food was expensive and mediocre at bestand took a very long time to come out. While they claimed they had WiFi we couldn’t connect to it even withtheir help. We took a taxi back to portand had a quite dinner on board since most people were still out enjoying ourlate departure time.

Our second port was Curacao. We were here last year and enjoyed an amazing private tour with AroundCuracao Tours. Our guide took us to someamazing beaches off the tourist path so this trip we rented a car from AdvanceCarrental and explored on our own. We wereoff the ship by 8:15 and walked just outside the port and picked up ourcar. We had a midsize car for the dayfor $75. We were given a cell phone incase we needed to reach the rental agency and a gps with all the popular sitespre-loaded. Our first stop was to seethe Hato caves since we didn’t get there during our last trip. This was an enjoyable stop but very hot andhumid and while I enjoyed it my 12 year old was very impressed. From there we drove to Playa Jeremi. This is not a tourist beach but it wasbeautiful. There are no food stands orbathrooms just beautiful beach and crystal clear water. We stayed here all day before returning tothe port. The entire time we were therewe saw only 4 other people. If you don’tneed all the amenities I would highly recommend a stop at this beautifulsite. Returning the car was easy and itcost us only $5 for 4 liters of gas so that we could return the car full.

 

 

Our last port was Grand Turk. We have been here many times before so wedecided try something different this year. We booked a Carnival Excursion and did the Power snorkel Beach and Lunchtour. I generally don’t book shipexcursions but my son really wanted to try this. The excursion was fun and we power snorkelswere very easy to use. We spent about anhour with the power snorkels and then had use of the beach and chairs. Shuttles returned to the port every 20 minwith the last shuttle 1 hour before back on board time. I would try this again in the future but Iwill try to find a private excursion. Wemust have had about 20 people on our tour and I felt like someone was alwaysrunning into me with their power snorkel. I knew this was a risk when I booked a ship excursion so this is not acomplaint, just an observation.

 

 

Sadly our trip had to come to an end. We put our bags out the night before and wereoff the ship and through customs by 8:30. We took an Uber to MCO and had to wait until 2:30 for our flight. Next time I will definitely book a returnflight around 11:00. We are always offin plenty of time to make the earlier flight.

 

 

 

 

I'm happy to answer any questions.

[ProgRockCruiser]

Sounds like you had a great time!

 

I'm cruising on Sunshine in Dec. Did you take any photos of the interior/decks of the Sunshine? I always like to see what the ship looks like, and although there are threads on here from other past cruisers on Sunshine, more pix is always better!

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[GeorgiaMomof4]

I am so excited to find this review!

 

We are going on this same itinerary in February and I have so many questions!

 

We have sailed on the Sunshine twice already but we have our first aft view extended balcony cabin on deck 5 this

cruise. I'm wondering how hot your balcony was? I know you cruised in August and we won't be cruising until

February but I'm really hoping there will be some type of shade at some points so we can enjoy our balcony.

I love the sun but feel like it will get really hot since we probably won't get very much of a breeze in the back of the ship.

 

Do you by any chance have any of your fun times from your cruise? We currently have YTD as well but I'm seriously

thinking about changing to late dining or early dining. I understand that the YTD is in the mid ship dining room and we

really prefer to be in the aft dining room. I'd like to know the timing of shows, movies, etc. so we can decide for

sure which we want to do.

 

We have never done the southern itinerary so Aruba and Curacao are new ports for us. My husband has mobility

issues so lots of walking won't be on our agenda but with that being said, we would love to see some of both places and

then spend several hours on a beautiful beach somewhere with restroom facilities and chairs and umbrellas. Do you

have any suggestions on what we should do? I'm not opposed to renting a car like you did and doing our own

thing. Would you mind sharing the rental company you used?

 

I'm sure I have lots of other questions, but they are escaping me at the moment.

 

Thanks again for the review!

[kbmr]

:cool::cool:

Sounds like you had a great time!

 

I'm cruising on Sunshine in Dec. Did you take any photos of the interior/decks of the Sunshine? I always like to see what the ship looks like, and although there are threads on here from other past cruisers on Sunshine, more pix is always better!

 

Check out YouTube where you’ll find deck by deck tours of the Sunshine.

[ProgRockCruiser]

:cool::cool:

 

Check out YouTube where you’ll find deck by deck tours of the Sunshine.

Oh, we have, we have!

 

But more pix almost always somehow shows something someone else didn't capture!

[crazycruzer68]

Do you have the Fun Times? Would love to see them if you do

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[tandemcruzr]

I'm not opposed to renting a car like you did and doing our own

thing. Would you mind sharing the rental company you used?

 

This is from the review -- "we rented a car from AdvanceCarrental