LydiaG

We have been on several cruises with Carnival and a couple of other cruise lines. What Carnival does well -- service. Particularly the dining room staff and the room stewards. The food in the dining room was excellent and we ate most of our breakfasts and dinners there. Guy's Burger Joint on the Lido deck makes the BEST burgers! However, the buffet on the Lido deck was lack luster and it was difficult to find a place to sit down. What Carnival does not do as well as other cruise lines -- public spaces and bar service. We found most of the bar staff seemed overwhelmed and less than friendly and it was nearly impossible to get a deck chair by the pool unless you wanted to get up super early to stake one out. And you can forget getting into either of the pools -- one was swarmed with kids and the other was packed shoulder to shoulder with adults. The Carnival Sunshine holds around 2600 passenger compared to our cruise last year on Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas which has a capacity of 5400 passengers -- yet, we never had trouble finding a deck chair on the Oasis nor did we have difficulty actually enjoying time in the water. For this reason and the disappointing Lido buffet, we will think twice before booking another cruise on Carnival.

Overall, we had a lovely and relaxing week. We will definitely cruise again but probably not on an Oasis class ship. Ship was nice and the food was good but the service was not as good as we have experienced with other cruise lines.