Carnival Sunshine Cruise Reviews - Reviews

We had a great time and really enjoyed our location on the 12 floor.  It was easy access to the serenity decks and that was good since the seats were taken up early in the mornings.  One thing that I find disturbing was people saving spots for longer than 40 minutes. Carnival had set up that amount of time and they were suppose to come around and remove towels if no one had returned to there saved spot.  I blame Carnival for not monitoring this situation more closely.  The food was good and this was our first time to use anytime dinning.  that worked out real well for us.  we enjoyed the port of calls but really enjoyed the power snorkeling that we did in Grand Turks.  overall we had a great cruise.   

Carnival really put our health and safety first.  Nice too, to see so many cooperative passengers.  Food was delish and shows tried to be meaningful to the  many generations on board.  Islands were great and crowed control getting off the ship was very good.  Thanks to the caption and crew for all the updates that put our minds at ease.  Thanks Carnival for caring about your passengers.

I love carnival, but you have to start having cruise directors and persons speaking over the ships sound system be in AMERICAN ENGLISH.  I couldn't understand one word of the ships cruise directors voice.  It was an English accent and the other person that spoke most was an Asian accent.  It was very discomforting every time something important was spoken over the ships sound system.

The entertainment was just awesome and the house keeping was also awesome.  The food was great..  We had a great cruise. The ship was kept spotless!  Great shows!

The cruise was wonderful 8 different islands so much to do on the cruise Matt the cruise director was awesome. There was no fridge in the room (unbelievable) old ship they said was new. 

I have gone on several Carnival cruises and this one was the worst. The Sunshine needs repairs and a good cleanng. We paid for an ocean view but the windows were so dirty we couldn't enjoy the view. The windows all over the ship were dirty and needed cleaning. The curtains in our room were full of holes and so we couldn't sleep after sunrise. The carpets in the hallway were dirty and tattered. There was a lightswitch leaking water in the hallway outside our room and it took two days to get it fixed. My daughter had given me a birthday dinner in Farenheit 555 and it was a 70.00 disappointing meal. The escargots were in some kind of pastry, my lobster tail was tough with no taste, my husband's steak was not cooked medium and his cheesecake was very dry - very disappointing.

The meals in the dining room were fair. On a good note the meals we paid for at JiJi's were excellent - taste and presentation superb. The ship was dirty and no place to sit and relax. The Limelight Lounge was very small for 3,000 people. I am going to take a break from Carnival.

was a very good cruise although I did get sick and missed the last three ports of call, I was confined to my cabin. I finally got better on the last  port day but it was to late to go ashore. will definitely cruise carnival again

The 1st half of the cruise was great, but unfortunately after getting back on the ship, after our stop in Grenada, we didn't get off again until the day we disembarked, because of illness.  So, I don't feel I can give a full review because we basically spent the last 5 days in our stateroom.  Room service was okay, but nothing outstanding! 

The cruise line was very good with the sickness we were a part of. They made sure that everyone used the hand washer at the buffet and sprayed each hand in the dinning room. They also served food at buffet instead of self serve.

The quality of music was not good, too loud on most ocastions . When on a cruise I expect to relax, with music so loud it was impossible to even visit with friends on the lido deck. Tina turner concerts was just to loud and annoying to most of us and it was on too many times, just too loud and unnessary noise. Why can't there be soft music so you can visit and feel relaxed. We are on a Caribbean cruise and it would have been nice to hear a littl steel drum and Caribbean musit to fit the mood.

the air conditioning was way too cold, going from outside to inside. This may have caused the sinus infection I now have.

We have cruised 20 times since my wife and I got together. She has been on even more than that. This was our 7th Carnival cruise, but I guarantee you it will be our last.

We were so excited about this boat. It was recently refurbished and seemed to have some things we had never seen before on a cruise ship. But wow, what a huge disappointment all around.

Let's start with check-in. Carnival has a policy where there has to be an adult over 25 registered before anyone under that age, including 18. So they broke their own policy by checking in our daughter first, before us (the obvious adults/parent). This caused the system to not allow us to properly check-in. We had to wait forever for manager to finally "fix" it. He told us it would be fine. It wasn't. EVERY SINGLE TIME our daughter either left the boat or came back on the boat at every port, her card failed and flagged her as not a passenger. She couldn't charge anything on the boat either, even though we stood in line half a dozen times at the Guest Services desk and was told each time that everything was corrected.

Then we get to our room. It wasn't cleaned even though we were one of the last on board. The room was OK, but the bathroom was clearly disgusting, there was what looked like menstrual blood on the toilet, dirty toilet paper in the trash can, and several items left from the previous passengers including tampons and used deodorant. When I complained to our room steward, he said this was only his 2nd cruise and he wasn't' sure what to do. It didn't get cleaned until day 3 and we had to use our friend's bathroom connected to ours. There is also only 1 outlet in each room. Fun time sharing.

On every cruise I order a few fun things that are usually in the room waiting for us when we first get there. This time they weren't there. I called and was told the platters of food and champagne were "not on board yet" and would be delivered when available. They delivered them in the middle of the night that first night. It was sushi, pastries, and strawberries, left un-refrigerated sitting on the floor. The champagne was not only not chilled, but came with no ice and no bottle opener. The first sea day was Valentine's Day, and my wife was supposed to get 2 dozen roses and a cake. The flowers were wrong and the cake was gross. It also came with now forks or plates. On our niece's birthday, her birthday cakes were clearly ordered to be delivered to the restaurant. They were left sitting in our stateroom. Ridiculous.

Speaking of the room next door, the 3rd bed was broken. So even though they booked and paid for a room for 4 people, they only had two beds instead of 3. We had to bitch so much just to get an apology and then I had to get nasty to get them a measly partial refund. The room manager didn't even realize they admitted they knew the pull down ceiling bed was broken well before we set sail. What a gigantic inconvenience it was for their two girls to sleep together on a single sofa bed. Oh, and did I mention that both of our bathroom doors were broken? Ours would shut but only slamming it a few times, and there's not only would never stay shut, but never locked either. Also, the toilets clogged many times and we had to call and yell for a manager to get them fixed.

Now on to the crew. Most of them were OK. Although I have to say over 20 years there has been a clear decline in cruise employee attitude and performance across all cruise lines. But this one had something we had never seen before. The 3 main people you deal with on this boat were the worst set of metro sexual weirdos you have ever seen. Donkey (dumb name) the Cruise Director, Shawn (his sidekick?), and the worst of the bunch Trent (the Comedy Club Manager/Host/general waste of space). Most cruises have personable, fun, and interactive folks in these high visibility positions. These 3 looked like college fraternity rejects all with frosted hair and effeminate clothes/gestures with "I'm cooler than everyone else" attitudes and matching dumb looks on their faces. My wife loves everybody, and she couldn't stand these 3 at any of the few events on the boat.

The boat was clearly redesigned so that Carnival could try packing in another 100 rooms full of passengers while sacrificing shared space and fun things to do. The dining room was so small that our group of 4 rooms, all booked together, was assigned to 3 different dinner times. When we complained and asked for the same time, we were told by the maître d' that we could all do the Anytime Dining option and the longest wait would be 15 minutes tops. No matter what time we showed up we had to wait AN HOUR AND A HALF each night for dinner. And it wasn't just us. Most people we talked to during the time we were all crammed around the area where the seating host was said the same thing. They would have half the ship waiting around for dinner with very little to do except hit the casino or buy drinks.

The show lounge was the smallest we have ever seen, even on much smaller boats. It seat less 500 people and there were 3600 passengers on board. There were usually 2 shows (sometimes 4) and we had to leave dinner or whatever we were doing to go stand in line for at least 30 minutes before each show or comedy act if we even wanted a seats.

The pool was also the smallest one we have ever seen. They redid the entire desk to add some cool bars and food, but the pool was the size of a regular pool in someone's back yard. With 3600 passengers, it was nearly impossible during the day to find room for the kids in the pool, and totally impossible to get a deck chair, much less a few together. We have never been so annoyed walking through a pool area because of so much congestion. Speaking of small, the casino was fairly small too. It was hard to get on most tables after dinner in the evening.

We paid $5 each to have a special "Cat in the Hat" breakfast the last full day. They clearly showed all of these pictures and videos of it. It showed numerous Dr. Seuss characters and fun. There was only Thing 1 and 2, and at the end Sam I Am (who actually wasn't Sam I Am, but the other guy from Green Eggs and Ham. They didn't even know the difference. LOL pathetic.) THERE WAS NO CAT IN THE HAT AT THE CAT IN THE HAT BREAKFAST. I asked multiple times and was told different stories about why. Our niece (who turned 7 on this cruise) was so upset about that.

There was also no photo package available, even though the Carnival website said there was and we bought it on every other Carnival cruise over the last few years. They said "not on this boat" and charged $22 for every picture you wanted. The ship was even designed like a prison or department store, with theft detectors with alarms placed all over that deck around the pictures. Employees stared at us like criminal thieves the whole time we were going through our stack to figure out which ones were worth $22 a pop.

There is an app now called the Carnival Hub. It is brand new. Which means it is in Beta testing. Which means it should be free. Not only did it not work half the time, but they charged each passenger $5 to beta test their own product. Disgusting. Unlike every other boat, you couldn’t check your account on the TV or even get a bill at the room the last night. So you were stuck with an app that didn’t work or standing in line at Guest Services to even know what you were being charged for. And we were charged for water and towels we didn't use. When getting off the boat, my wife was told she had a $180 balance even though my same credit card was connected to her as well as mine and it was paid.

This boat advertised a lot of things that got us to book it. 3 huge water slides on the back that were rarely open. In fact it seemed they were only open while we were in port and not during sea days. A hot dog stand was up at the top near them and IT WAS NEVER OPEN ONCE. Social Internet claimed Snapchat would work, but staff member said it will not work, so it was sold stating functionality the staff already knew didn't work. Arcade stole a lot of money. Machines were all "new" and yet just kept money for no game. No staff to complain to.

Paid extra for the "high-speed" internet package, but was just as slow and bad as the cheaper package. No dance club, even though advertised complete with a DJ! Lunch shut down early. No real hot tub (only two lukewarm small pools without jets). Bars didn't open till super late. Lido didn't have space for dancing or sail away parties. Dripping water coming down from ceiling in photo gallery. Wasn't clear there was a different time between boat time and local time. No weather, temperature or time on TV. Had to cancel shore excursion for sick child and was interrogated. Chateaubriand was supposed to be medium well or medium rare but it came out bloody red rare, nearly raw. When we sent them back, they came back overcooked and ruined. Steakhouse, Italian and Asian restaurants were $15-35 per person extra, but were just OK and tough to book. Room service took an hour and half EVERY TIME. Mixes for drinks like Long Island ice tea were awful. Were told by the casino staff that they would accept chips from the Holland America ship (same parent company) but after waiting in line for a half hour...told the opposite and refused. Rude employees asking if we tipped. Smelled like damp and sewage. They threw away our mouthwash and claimed it "might have been alcohol". Singers and dancers were so boring. Comedy acts were OK at best. Water wasn't good. In fact it was disgusting. Smelled awful and tasted worse.

There were so many problems that each and every one of us, all long-time cruisers and Gold/Platinum VIFP members of Carnival, walked off the ship saying none of us will ever cruise on Carnival again. In fact all of us have at least one thing we have to go and dispute with our banks. If you are reading this review I assure you it is 100% accurate, as we have numerous witnesses, pictures, and videos. I beg you not to cruise on this ship or with Carnival, for your own sake.

Good experience but with a full boat:

to many long lines

billing/customer service long lines and billing wrong.

room didnt smell to good-smelled liked septic

Our cruise was very disapponting . This was our first Carnival Cruise however our 10th overall cruise . We will never cruise carnival again. In comparison to Celebrity, Norwegian and Royal Caribbean, Carnival is the bottom of the barrel. No live music at the pool, very little nightly entertainment, same singers and dancers every night in the showroom, Average food, small buffets, but excellent service from the wait staff and cabin attendants. The ship was old and worn, not spotlessly clean, very hard to get around no flow to decks had to go up or down to get across on many levels, very small common areas, such as pool, lobby, theatre. We think the ship should be dry docked, It is not worthy to continue to sail. Many people told us don't judge Carnival by this ship , if that's the case why is it still sailing ??? And oh by the way the cruise was not inexpensive no cheaper that any other cruise line for similar itinerary.Sorry but we will never cruise Carnival again.

Rough Rough Ride, sooo many Children on this Cruise. The children running past you and not very polite Children. I just wasn't expecting this many Girl's & Boy's on this Cruise. The Cruise it self was Awesome, the staff so nice & Friendly. We had a Brother, Sisters & in- Laws Cruise. Food was Awesome, everything Wonderful!!!  Too many Girls & Boys on this Cruise my only Complaint. The Staff was at the Ice Cream Machine ( Both Sides) Cleaning All The Time!!! The Kiddos made some nasty messes with the ice cream machine and wasted a lot of the ice cream. 😒😒😒

We really enjoyed our latest Carnival cruise! We had never done an 8 day cruise before, so this was a welcome change! However, it wasn't all roses! We sailed with friends and this was their first cruise. We booked over 9 months out, on the Early Saver program. I was able to get our preferred Early Dining, but our friends were wait listed. To dine together, our agent switched us all to 8:15 dining, which was too late for my diabetic mother-in-law. We then got waitlisted to Early Dining again, but were instead switched without our knowledge or consent to On Your Own dining, which meant we waited over an hour to be seated. Shame on Carnival for not having enough seating at Early Dining! There also weren't enough lounge chairs. We spent 2 days indoors because we couldn't find chairs outside. One passenger told me she went on deck at 5:30 am to get her preferred chair! Howver, that said, the staff on the Sunshine was wonderful. Our cabin steward knew our names from the beginning and my MIL had alot of fun playing games with the entertainment team! We look forward to our next cruise!

had to spend 6 of the 8 days at guest services 1/2-1 hr each time to try and straighten out my billing account and picture on sign & sail account to no avail ! promise were made by guest services personnel each day that account was corrected (never happened) credit of 1 day cheers packaged was to be given on my account last day due to inconvenience of dealing with guest services every day never happened! credit of $150 never showed up on my account but rather my sons?

this was my 4 th cruise 2 on royal caribbean and 2 on carnival and i can assure you this will be my last on carnival!

The Carnival Sunshine is a wonderful ship.  The cabin Stewards were exceptional as well as our table waiter team.  If fact our table Waiter and Team were the best in the last 20 cruises.   They were awesome.  Our only complaint was to stand in line on Deck 5 for an hour to get a table in the Any time dining room.  A new system is needed.

The ship and service were OK. but the dining experience not.

I feel like the food in the MDR has gone downhill. I traveled with six others and their assessment was as mine. Just FYI - I am not picky and I'm not a "Platinum"!! (for you John Heald) The specialty rest. were incredible but they come with an up charge fee as we all know. Just an example - Steak dinners? full of grizzle and extremely well done instead of medium. The hot lava cake that I love? Cold. Ice cream melted. Sure they can bring another but it was disappointing. Coffee after dinner? Warm. That's the way it was...that's why we tried specialty rest. a couple of times. I could go on but......

The small food areas like Guy's and the taco place were very good.

The ship is getting to the point that the three year upgrade done in 2013 is wearing off. The ship was built in 1996 and really needs a complete remodel.

If you don't book a year out - forget about getting 615 dining or even my time dining - we were stuck at 830 dining even after being promised 615 or my time dining.

Finally - no one monitors the 40 minute rule of reserving chairs - so we never were able to take advantage of the pool area when we wanted because they chairs were full of towels and books!! Seems like most people go out at 8a and reserve their chairs for the day.

That is all.......

Went with fiends. Second time on Sunshine. Do not like to wait to get off ship at end of cruise so started taking suitcase off myself. Went down to 4th deck with bags at 7:00 AM and was off ship by 7:45 AM.

I should start by saying that I've never been a fan of Carnival, but the timing, price and departure port for this cruise as a "girls' getaway" worked, so we decided to give it a try.  Other than the food, I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised.  We embarked in Port Canaveral, FL, and check in was quite smooth and quick.  Once on board we purchased our drink package and ventured up to the Lido deck for a quick bite while waiting for our cabin to be ready. Cabins were ready by 1:30, as noted, and it really didn't take too long for our luggage to arrive. 

The ship's staff could not have been more friendly.  Everyone always had a smile on their faces and most greeted us by name.  Our cabin steward was terrific - very friendly and efficient.  (The girls in the other cabin a deck down from us didn't have such a good experience with their cabin steward.)  The cruise director was also awesome!

While we didn't go to any sort of production show, we did spend lots of time at the Ocean Plaza lounge where they had a great band every night.  They were very good, friendly and put on a great show.  

While the ship did show her age in some spots, it was generally clean, well maintained and nicely decorated.  The windows to the Red Frog Cafe were really dirty at the beginning.  I know it's got to be hard to keep the outsides clean with all the salt water, and I believe these did get cleaned during our cruise.  

The gym was great; very nicely appointed with lots of equipment.

We did not like the fact that they allow smoking inside the casino.  I am not a big gambler at all, but I did "donate" a few dollars one evening.  It's hard to stay in there for too long because of all the smoke.  We also had to walk through the casino a number of times to get to various other places, and it was just not pleasant.  

My big complaint was with the food.  I didn't go in with huge expectations, but I thought some of the dining room menus were just bad, and some of the food was just okay.  We did go to the steakhouse, which was excellent.  We had only planned on doing the steakhouse and the Italian place during the cruise, but added in the Asian restaurant on the third night as the menu in the MDR was not at all appealing.  The Asian place was very good; the Italian just okay.  We did do one more night in the MDR as the menu looked okay, and my lamb shanks were very good.  I guess it was just hit or miss.  The service in all the dining venues was very good.  We did enjoy the outdoor venues - the taco place and Guy's burger joint.  The pizza was pretty good too.  It was just the MDR that was severely lacking!

The ports on this sailing were okay - just two ports in the Bahamas as it was a short trip, but we weren't necessarily sailing for the ports.  

All in all it was a fun trip, and I was pleasantly surprised by Carnival.  I wouldn't book a much longer or a Med Cruise on Carnival, but for our girls' getaway it was just fine. 

We had a great time on our first cruse with Carnival!  We definitely will be going back with Carnival again.  The entertainment was really good, the food was AMAZING and the islands were beautiful!

The Carnival Sunshine is one of the hidden treasures of the cruise line. Customer Service, food, entertainment and hospitality were great. This was one of the best experiences that we have had on Carnival ship. I would have rated it excellent, but we had a small problem with our dinning time.