Great cruise, not the best layout for the ship.
Carnival Sunshine Cruise Review to Caribbean - Eastern
5 Night Eastern Caribbean (Port Canaveral Roundtrip)
Sail date: October 28, 2018
Ship: Carnival Sunshine
Cabin type: Oceanview
Traveled as: Family (young children)
Reviewed: 6 years ago
Review summary
We had an excellent time cruising and Amber Cove was simply amazing, by far my favorite location. If you found a cruise that goes to Amber Cove and Half Moon Cay, that would be the perfect cruise, hands down. It rained most of the day at Grand Turk so we didn’t get the full experience but the beach was nice and very close to the ships and the shops were very nice. We did however on our cruise experience a somewhat serious incident in which the ship listed to the right one night and caused some very serious worry throughout the ship. Some people were injured by falls and other by glass. Immediately after the incident both the captain and the cruise director made announcements acknowledging the incident and assuring us they will keep us informed as they investigate. After about an hour or so and a few more updates throughout they discovered the issue and assured us it was mended. We had heard from our cruise director personally as we passed in a corridor that the captain did feel very bad about the incident and not being able to relay his thoughts so well as he was Italian and struggled very much with his English and he wanted to be the first to keep us up to date, but found it very hard. The next day we were all given a letter expalining the cause of the incident a bit more and informing us that all passengers would be receiving a $50 per person credit. Many passengers were still very upset and ended up leaving and flying home at Amber Cove and Grabd Turks. I can say most of those passengers were first time cruisers, and had that been my first experience, it probably would have scared me more, so I can’t say I blame them. The incident was very scary at the time but after the fact I thought they did a very good job of keeping us informed and handling the situation for the rest of the cruise. It is by no means a deal breaker for us and we will be back on carnival as soon as we can. I saw a few news reports of interviews with passengers and I felt that they were a bit dramatic and again, likely first time cruisers. Even with the incident I loved the cruise and will be going back, the only gripe I have with the cruise is with the designer of the Sunshine On deck 5 -which is a major through point in which you can walk forward to aft without moving to another level- they have the casino, but unlike other ships I’ve been on, the walkway is through the casino... which means in order to go from one end of the ship to the other on level 5, you have to walk through the casino which happens to be the only indoor smoking section. We had a Dr. Seuss parade on the sea day with all the kids, it started on deck 5 aft and went to the theatre on the forward section. So they walked us through the smoky casino with 50+ children. It even has places on the doorway saying “minors under the age of 18 are not permitted” So either you don’t enforce it and families walk through the casino, which is what they did, or the do enforce it and if you’re trying to walk from one end to the other , you now have to move decks just to go across. Why would you design the ship like that?Embarkation
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Onboard Activities
Entertainment
Service and Staff
Ship Quality
Cabin / Stateroom
Ship tip
Find your rout before heading to your intended section of the ship
Ports of call
Amber Cove (Puerto Plata), Dominican Republic