Super crowded ship but we had fun

Item: Carnival Sunshine
Rating: 4
Author: BarrySax6

Carnival Sunshine Cruise Review to Caribbean - Eastern

BarrySax6

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 4-6 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 77

Overall rating:

4 out of 5

8 Night Eastern Caribbean (New York Roundtrip)

Sail date: June 20, 2017

Ship: Carnival Sunshine

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 7237

Traveled as: Large Group

Reviewed: 7 years ago

Review summary

It was great to sail out of NYC and see Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty from the ship. Cabin was nice and the food was excellent. All of our wait staff and our cabin steward were amazing. This was a smallish ship compared to the last one we were on (Freedom of the Seas) and the recent refit added more cabin space without adding more common areas. This made for a very crowded and often frustrating trip. The pool area was completely inadequate - ten people felt like it was about done. On the other hand, we really enjoyed the ropes course and our 8 year old loved the water slides. My wife enjoyed spending time in the casino as well. We were late getting into San Juan so we lost almost two hours there. We were late leaving St. Thomas and that made us late getting to Grand Turk so we lost another couple hours there. All of the ports were great though. All in all we had a really good time but there were some frustrations because of how crowded it was including their inability to manage the "Faster to the Fun" package...we ended up getting off way behind hundreds of people in Grand Turk as a result.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Food was great the whole trip

Onboard Activities

5 out of 5

Loved ropes course, mini golf, and walking/running track but the latter was often nearly fully blocked because teenagers from the basketball court would hang out there. This could have been better managed

Entertainment

5 out of 5

Generally very good but the shows were so packed it was impossible to get in without queuing up for 30 minutes plus.

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

All of the staff we interacted with was helpful, courteous, and on top of their game.

Ship Quality

3 out of 5

Clean and well-appointed but way too crowded.

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

Gusti (our steward) was amazing. Cabin was smaller than on our last cruise (on RC) as was the balcony but was comfortable and and nice

Ship tip

Copying from previous but the Havana Bar is a great place to find a table when using the buffet. The specialty restaurants back there are also very good.

Thumbs up