Wonderful Caribbean Vacation

We had a great time on our recent Carnival cruise.  The best part for us were the islands and the excursions we chose for enjoying them.  We booked all of our excursions through private companies, however, not through Carnival.  We did a Segway trip in St Kitt's and an island tour and beach day at The Boatyard in Barbados.  St Lucia was our favorite stop, as we did an island tour that included a beach between the pitons, mud baths, volcano and waterfall.  The tour also included breakfast and lunch and all the drinks (rum punch, beer, soda, water) you wanted.  In St Maarten we also did an excursion that took us to Orient Beach, Maho Beach and a market area on the French side of the island.  We had great photo opportunities at each of the islands and so much fun.

The Carnival Sunshine is a very old ship and definitely showing it's age.  The ship is extremely difficult to navigate, causing you to have to go up or down a flight and across the deck and back up/down to get to where you need to be.  This got frustrating on several occasions. We also discovered that the ship was headed to drydock after our trip, meaning many of the crew members were headed home for 2 weeks.  The service was far below our expectations and I think this probably had something to do with that; everyone just wanting to get this cruise over so they could go home.  We did enjoy many of the activities and tend to make our own fun when we vacation.  We did enjoy the Serenity area, however it was impossible to get any of the more comfortable seating options during the day.  We did not like the new menu options in the main dining room, it seems the selections are more limited, especially for those of us that do not eat seafood.  The cruise director staff was one of the best we have had on a cruise ship; Donkey and his crew were very energetic and entertaining, as well as welcoming.

I would not recommend this ship, but only because of the age and problems with navigating the ship.