Carnival Sunshine

Carnival Sunshine Cruise Review to Caribbean - Southern

Cruises: 4-6 cruises
Reviews: 2
Helpful Votes: 71

Overall rating:

4 out of 5
Carnival Sunshine

8 Night Southern Caribbean (Port Canaveral Roundtrip)

Sail date: November 23, 2018

Ship: Carnival Sunshine

Cabin type: Oceanview

Cabin number: 5324

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 5 years ago

Review summary

We have been on several cruises with Carnival and a couple of other cruise lines. What Carnival does well -- service. Particularly the dining room staff and the room stewards. The food in the dining room was excellent and we ate most of our breakfasts and dinners there. Guy's Burger Joint on the Lido deck makes the BEST burgers! However, the buffet on the Lido deck was lack luster and it was difficult to find a place to sit down. What Carnival does not do as well as other cruise lines -- public spaces and bar service. We found most of the bar staff seemed overwhelmed and less than friendly and it was nearly impossible to get a deck chair by the pool unless you wanted to get up super early to stake one out. And you can forget getting into either of the pools -- one was swarmed with kids and the other was packed shoulder to shoulder with adults. The Carnival Sunshine holds around 2600 passenger compared to our cruise last year on Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas which has a capacity of 5400 passengers -- yet, we never had trouble finding a deck chair on the Oasis nor did we have difficulty actually enjoying time in the water. For this reason and the disappointing Lido buffet, we will think twice before booking another cruise on Carnival.

Embarkation

4 out of 5

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

4 out of 5
Dining Room and Guys Burger Joint were fantastic! Lido Buffet -- not so much.

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

Entertainment

3 out of 5
We really enjoyed the Piano Bar and visited a few times. The comedy show was only mediocre and not worth waiting in the long line.

Service and Staff

4 out of 5
Room Stewards and Dining Room staff were super! Bar staff -- not so much.

Ship Quality

4 out of 5
The ship is clean and well maintained, but the design is such that many areas feel very crowded. Royal Caribbean has Carnival beat in its ability to handle a huge capacity of passengers without ever really feeling like the crowd is unmanageable.

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

Ship tip

Pack your patience if you want to enjoy a drink near the pool.

Ports of call

Oranjestad, Aruba

3 out of 5

Willemstad, Curacao

5 out of 5
Curacao was BEAUTIFUL! It is now my all time favorite port.

Grand Turk Island

4 out of 5

Disembarkation

3 out of 5
The process felt disorganized and cumbersome.
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10 Comments

nlcdn    5 years ago

A truly honest review. Thanks for sharing.

cruisellama    5 years ago

cruisellama    5 years ago

jazziearms    5 years ago

How noisy is deck 5 is it crowded we booking a handicap accessible room and this is the only floor available

gwyatt    5 years ago

Great review! Thanks for the experience share.

sarahpatton    5 years ago

Thanks for the comparison

davidingeorgia    5 years ago

Reason why is they took a older ship and gutted it and added more cabins for same amount of hull space. They did same as airlines do by adding more seats to make it more crowded. All to squeeze more profit.

dixie1    5 years ago

Maybe the oasis wasn't fully booked like the fun ship's

Mydogluke    5 years ago

Love Carnival and the Sunshine

rmlowman    5 years ago

We do like Carnival as well but we just got off a RC cruise as our 16th cruise I agree 100% with your statements.😎

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