royandlin525

Boarding the Carnival Sunshine was pure joy as a platinum member.  We were on board in minutes.  Since we were bumped up to the spa deck, we were very excited.  Our party consisted of two rooms.  We had four sisters on the cruise, two to a room.  My cabin was fine...the second cabin had problems with cleanliness.  I will not go into that since my two sisters will send their own review. The spa jacuzzi's were always full and the various hammocks and chairs on the spa level were full of people sleeping or leaving their towels to hold a spot!  There was no bubble pool that we saw online...it turned out that the Sunshine didn't have that feature after all. We chose to buy the trolley package for Key West and we made the mistake with the time of the departure matching our two other sisters departure time, so I went down to the shore excursions desk and had it fixed.  What they had to do was take the amount off of our bill that we bought online through Carnival and re-bought for the right time.  Interesting that we were charged MORE on the online trolley tour from Carnival because when we were charged on the ship, it was less!  I pointed that out to the steward helping us and she said that it was always cheaper online with them. (not this time!)  I dragged my sister down from the cabin next to us and she swapped tickets, also,(bought through Carnival before the cruise) to get the cheaper price.  We would have not known that if we didn't need to change the time for the tour.  The first night at dinner did not have exciting menu choices, but we picked the fried shrimp.  I can't explain what they looked like, except maybe a "comma" shape with a pointy end. (?)  Not shaped like shrimp.  It looked like the shrimp was chopped up and formed somehow. The next night was Formal Night.  We were excited to go for the lobster...NO LOBSTER!  We questioned that and found that 5 night cruises did not receive lobster.  Bummer!  This changed about a month ago.  The dining room had a low ceiling so the room tended to get noisy with all the talking.  I know that nothing can be done with that, except for us to not use the dining room, so we ate on the 9th floor the rest of the cruise.  The crab cakes were mostly filler...very little crab, if any.  Turkey was tasty, but who goes on a cruise and says that they went on the cruise for the turkey???  We noticed that the menu items weighed heavily on leftovers from the previous night.  I know that in doing so, it saved on the amount of food wastage, but again, one of the main reasons that we go on cruises is for the exceptional dining experience, but it did not happen on this cruise. We never saw the captain, not even at the Captain's Party!  The "levels" of red, blue, gold, platinum, and diamond have changed...only platinum and diamond can go to the party.  This surprised two of my sisters!  Gold was excluded! Red did not receive a free drink as in the past. The ship is beautiful, friendly staff, great entertainment, but the big question is "what happened to the food"????????