Sunshine Cruise Jan 16,2016

The embankment on Sunshine was a breeze. 

It took us less than 15 minutes from the time we dropped off our luggage until we entered our stateroom at 11:30 am.  Since we are platinum, we were able to go right to our room to drop off our carryon wine bottles, and soda.

We had to wait quite a while for an elevator to get from deck six where our room was, to deck 9 where the food was on first day.  Once we finally arrived at the marketplace, our smiles left us.  It was way over crowded and extremely warm there.  No where to sit, people scrambling for food, and a place to sit.  However, we were able to find a quiet cool place to eat in the Havana Bar where the Mongolian wok served up a delicious meal, or the pasta bar on the Italian side.  Apparently, since this was in back of ship, and actually not part of Marketplace, few people knew about it this the first day.  

The Havana Bar became our eating spot for breakfast and lunch the first 5 days.  By day 5 however, more people realized this little gem of a place  and it too became crowded.

The serenity deck to me was anything but serenity.  Too many people for such a small area.  The pool is not handicap friendly.  My husband can't climb so no way could he use a ladder to get out of the pool.  The upper deck over the pool did have comfortable chairs to sit when you could find one, but there were those inevitable chair hogs everyday.  We found the best place to sit quietly and relax was deck three.  However, very few chairs exist on that deck.  Carnival needs to realize, not everyone wants to Sun worship.  More up right chairs would be nice, on deck 3.  

The dive in movie is a nice feature to relax under the stars at night.  However, once again the lounge chairs are very uncomfortable to sit and watch a movie.  They need to have more straight back chairs with high backs to rest your head.  We foud serenity deck 12 to have the best chairs for watching the movie, but then we could hardly hear the.movie from there.  Good idea would be to place speakers on that deck to hear movie at night. In fact, we used serenity deck at night, because there were very few people there at night.  Made for true serenity.

The food was very good for most part.  Variety, and presentation was nice.  We had our time dining.  Did not like the idea of having to go to deck five ocean plaza, to put our name in. Then have to go to deck three to dining room.  It would have been nice to have a waiting area closer to dining room, especially when someone had walking issues, and has to wait for elevator each time we went to another deck.    We did enjoy listening to Bob, the guitar player in the Red Frog pub on deck 5.  This seemed to become our hang out place in evenings when we did not watch a movie.

The lounge is way to small to accommodate the amount of people on the ship.  I did not like having to stand in line at least 45 minutes to be able to get a seat for the shows.  My husband can not stand for long periods, so he had to miss out on most of the shows.  This ship as the pool is not handicapped friendly.  You definitely need a scooter to get around if you have walking issues.  But then be prepared for long elevator waits.  

The Line light where comedy shows were held was also too small.  Once again had to stand in line at least 45 min ahead to get in.  We only went once because of this.  The piano bar was fun, but chairs too uncomfortable to sit.  We only went there one as well.

Guys burgers was a nice alternative.  However, it was never opened when we wanted a burger.  Other ships had burgers available late at night.  Sunshine had hot dogs and trimmings available late, but not Guys burgers.

Overall, I think Carnival has tried to make a smaller ship appear bigger with all the venues.  However, because the ship is smaller, all the venues are smaller.  The only thing that isn't smaller are the number of CRUISERS.  Bottom line, this is not a ship I would cruise on again.