Our first cruise.

Item: Carnival Sunshine
Rating: 3.5
Author: loriandrews829

Carnival Sunshine Cruise Review to Caribbean - Southern

loriandrews829

Contributor Level: Deck Hand

Cruises: 1 cruise (first)

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 52

Overall rating:

3.5 out of 5

Verified Review

8 Night Southern Caribbean (Port Canaveral Roundtrip)

Sail date: November 23, 2018

Ship: Carnival Sunshine

Cabin type: Inside

Cabin number: 1440

Traveled as: Family (older children)

Reviewed: 5 years ago

Review summary

Overall, a good cruise. It was a learning experience of things that I would do differently in the future. I can't stress enough how stressful our check in process was.

Embarkation

1 out of 5

A few months ago, I had to change rooms as we were booked for a two-person room and needed a three-person room. My travel agent got me in touch with a Carnival representative where she changed our room reservations. When we tried to check into room, our stateroom was for two people only with no bunks. The representative at Guest Services was a little sarcastic and told us there was nothing he could do as no rooms were available. After about 45 minutes of back and forth, a manager was able to locate a room with a bunk for three people to sleep. This was an extremely stressful incident to have to endure on a first cruise experiment. We thought we were going to have to travel 600+ miles back home for nothing.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

4 out of 5

Most food was great! Sometimes the formal dining room servers will mix up entrees or forget to bring an appetizer, etc. That is to be expected in a group of 9 so we understood.

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

Entertainment

3 out of 5

I think more kid/family friendly shows should be offered.

Service and Staff

4 out of 5

Our room steward, I Putu was awesome! Kept our room so clean and we never needed for anything. We especially enjoyed having Jorge as a dining room server. He was the best! Only bad experience (as mentioned before) was Guest Services and checking in. Thankful the manager was able to straighten things out in the end.

Ship Quality

3 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

3 out of 5

Very small but we managed.

Ship tip

If you would like a ship that is not huge, this is the ship for you.

Thumbs up

Ports of call

Port Canaveral, Florida

3 out of 5

Oranjestad, Aruba

4 out of 5

Willemstad, Curacao

4 out of 5

Grand Turk Island

4 out of 5

Beautiful island however the locals seemed to peddle us more here than other places. Not to mention they were smoking marijuana all around us.

Thumbs Up 2

Disembarkation

3 out of 5

Went smoothly overall, customs people were a little mean. Wouldnt even give me time to put my license away.

6 Comments

cruisellama 5 years ago

Thanks

Thumbs Up 0

Flag

Mydogluke 5 years ago

Love Carnival and the Sunshine

Thumbs Up 0

Flag

BabyCrab 5 years ago

I agree with CruisinDoug! Cruising is a learning experience and it takes a few to learn all the tricks that make the difference between a good cruise and a GREAT ONE!

Thumbs Up 1

Flag

Aim123 5 years ago

Oops. Sorry-could only read your first paragraph at first ! Now I see the full review! ☺️

Thumbs Up 1

Flag

Aim123 5 years ago

I would love to hear more about things you learned! We are cruise newbies this coming May.

Thumbs Up 1

Flag

CruisinDoug 5 years ago

The more cruises you take, the easier everything gets. You learn little tricks each time that make the next time better. These forums are great sources of info too.

Thumbs Up 3

Flag

Other reviews of this sailing

One of my favorite ships

Wonderful. Cruise director Mickey was great

We are doing it again!!!