Carnival Sunshine Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Unfortunately prior to the cruise I injured my back and was forced to experience the cruise in a wheel chair. Rather than lose the money we spent I chose to go which probably was not a good idea  - our room, specifically the bathroom was not wheelchair accessible, making use of the bathroom with back spasms miserable- we did inquire at CS and they could not help us. 

However, our room steward, and dining staff were very accommodating and made an uncomfortable situation bearable. 

We started our vacation by staying at the Dolphin Resort on Disney property at Lake Buena Vista. My wife and I were very impressed by the decor, the room, the expansive pool areas and the food. We thought the Dolphin was an amazing value. We loved lunch at the Cabana Restaurant by the pool.  We had dinner at Shula's Steakhouse. It was an outstanding meal at one of the nation's top steak houses.

Although built in 1996, with a $ 155,000,000 extreme renovation in 2013: the Carnival Sunshine looks like a gorgeous new ship. My wife and I loved the muted Caribbean decor better than gaudier older Carnival ships.

We upgraded to a suite at the last minute. By doing that we enjoyed 'expedited embarkation" and skipped ahead of a long line at the pier. We went from the dock to our cabin in less than 15 minutes. 5 minutes later we were enjoying delicious burgers at the Guy Fieri burger joint.  It doesn't get better than that.

The food in general was outstanding on the Sunshine. Three new specialty restaurants were added when the Destiny morphed into the Sunshine: an awesome Steakhouse "Fareneheit 355", a wonderful Asian restaurant "Jijis" and a first class Italian eatery the 'Cucina del Capitano." The food, service and atmosphere at these three compare favorably to land based restaurants and were  worth the extra fees.

The food and service in the main dining room was good as well. We had "your time dining' and could come anytime between 5:30 pm and 9:30 pm. Previous reviews complained about long wait times. We had no waits whatsoever!  So if you like the flexibility of a four hour dining window, this is the way to go.

The new Playlist Productions shows had great singers and dancers. The lighting effects and background set projections are state of the art. They eliminated the live band and have pre-recorded instrumental tracks instead. But the sound system is so good,  you don't miss the band. On the other hand, now that their dancers are also the singers: they have eight solid voices. So they no longer use background vocal tracks. All the singing is live. My wife thought that "Epic Rock," the show that featured top rock songs from the eighties, was  the best show that she's seen at sea.

They had a very good Latin band playing in the tropical themed Havana Bar. They had a versatile Top 40 and Oldies band playing nightly in the Ocean Plaza. The singer and pianist in the piano bar was interactive and entertaining.

My wife and I have been on 35 cruises. Donkey, the cruise director on the Sunshine, is one of the five best we've ever seen. His energy and sense of humor made old cruise ship staples such as the "Love and Marriage" game come alive. He's a great adlibber.  He also had about 750 people dancing, singing and laughing at the eighties party in the Atrium.

The Serenity pool area for those who want to get away from the silliness at the main pool is now three levels on the Sunshine. It includes a pool, waterfall and many hot tubs.  The main pool area has deejays and fun events on sea days. There's a neat sports deck with several slides.

Our suite was spacious. The bed was very comfortable. It had two big closets and many drawers and cubby holes for storage. There was a nice sized dressing area in addition to the bath room.  The balcony was large. Our cabin steward, Gede, did a great job of keeping it clean.

We enjoyed the three ports. Half Moon Cay, the private island that Carnival shares with it's sister line Holland America, is one of the most beautiful of the private islands.  The weather was perfect. The water was delightful. The barbeque on the island was great.

We've been to Nassau about 15 times before. This time we decided to get a "Resorts for a Day" pass to Breezes, a hotel we stayed at 20 years ago for a land vacation. It's still beautiful and well maintained. You'll find a big pool with a swim up bar, and an awesome beach.  This all inclusive property had great food at the outdoor barbeque and also the big indoor buffet. This day brought back great memories of family trips.

In Freeport, we took a Carnival shore excursion to a beach maintained by Adventures Unlimited. The package included, drinks, a nice buffet and the beach. Everything was fine.

Debarkation went smoothly. We went from the ship to a shuttle to our rental car in 20 minutes.

After the cruise, we stayed at the Royal Pacific resort in Orlando on the Universal property. This is a lush Hawaiian themed resort. Our newly renovated room was beautiful. The food at their main restaurant was excellent. We had fun at the new Harry Potter section at Universal.

All in all an awesome ship and a great trip!

Great Staff, clean....but shows at night could have been better...we love to see dancers, magic and better shows....sorry to say most ships are going away from this..

Can't give 4 stars cuz all the machines kept breaking down and the AC in my room kept turning off! The ice machine kept breaking down the ice cream machine kept breaking down !

Overall ship was in great condition! From reading reviews we were very worried, but it turned out to be a great ship!! With great service and great people. 

This cruise was very reasonably priced and one of the destinations was Grand Turk. This was our primary reason for selecting it. The only Carnival cruise we had taken before this was on the Fantasy out of Charleston which was not a positive experience. Our expectations were not that high for the Sunshine, and we were very pleasantly surprised. We have never had better food on a cruise, and we have cruised Holland America, Royal Caribbean, Princess, Celebrity, and Norwegian. The service was great all through the ship. We had a problem with dining service on the first night, and we discussed it with the Maitre'd the next morning. He recognized our issue and for the remainder of the cruise we had a different waiter, table for two, at a window. All of the personnel were very friendly. The only negative about this cruise was there are very few places to quietly sit and read or talk on the Sunshine.

Overall the ship and crew were great! Although a remodeled ship it was great! Food was excellent. One thing I would like to see done differently is the your time dining. On previous ships we had an assigned table and server. This time you had to wait in a line and have a pager which the first night took forever and seemed very unorganized. Our server the first night was wonderful and we never saw him again. That was a bit disappointing.

The room, staff, ship and entertainment was great!

This was our 4th cruise and by far the worst one.  We love to cruise but this boat was too crowded and their main focus was on the sale of alcohol and not the safety of the guest.  The pool was crowded and had several racist drunks jumping in splashing people and yelling USA,USA.  Security wouldn't do anything about it at first. Finally something happened on the last day and they had to drain the pool.  Also we signed up for early dining and was given late dining.  We never eat this late and asked to be changed.  We were told they would notify us the next morning about our change.  By 2:00 the next afternoon we hadn't heard anything so we went back to guest services and was told nothing had been changed.  Later we had a note under our door telling us they couldn't change it.  Because of this we skipped the dining room several nights. This was our 4th cruise and we were not happy this time.  Probably going to try another cruise line for our next cruise. 

The ship was nice although the passageways are narrow. Can be confusing at the beginning but overall a great ship. The onboard entertainment was wonderful as well as the guests who were so bombed provided extra entertainment. Donkey was a great cruise director. The ports were beautiful and would love to return to Curacao one day. The staff were always pleasant, helpful, and hard working. The boarding was better than ever and would definitely recommend faster to fun, well worth the money. Our children were not too impressed or interested in the camps this cruise.  The spa cabins with balcony on the 10th floor  were wonderful and relaxing. I would definitely stay on this floor again on this ship. Overall we enjoyed this cruise, our 6th but not our last on Carnival Sunshine.  

The Carnival Sunshine is a great ship. The 8 day southern Caribean itinerary is the best we have been on yet. Aruba, Curaçao, and Grand Turk are all great ports. Lots to see and do. Very pretty islands. Can't think of a bad moment during the cruise. Highly recommended.

I'm so glad that I didn't really pay attention to the negative reviews that I read about the Carnival Sunshine.  We found the Sunshine to be very clean and easy to navigate.  Our cabin was on Deck 6 - Aft, Cabin 6348.  It was very quiet and a great location to access the restaurants, Ocean Plaza and the main lobby.  The food options on this ship are wonderful - especially the Steakhouse!  DEFINITELY worth the $35 - wonderful evening in there.  There were plenty of different places and types of food to eat.  We were pleasantly surprised at the quality, variety and atmosphere in the Lido Marketplace.  We opted to eat there a number of times, which we tend to not want to do on another Carnival ship we frequent.   We enjoyed peace and quiet on the outside decks of Deck 3.  Great place to read, enjoy the breeze and take a nap.  Dive-In movies where great.  What fun to lay out in the open air and watch some good movies in the evenings.

The room is the only nice thing I have to say about the cruise.  I found the service to be awful.  Very slow,  We have On Time Dining and I felt the buffet was very very limited an  unappetizing although the food in the Dining was acceptable.

Show were not up to other cruise lines we have been on.  We will not be traveling on Carnival anymore.

 I sailed on Carnival Destiny in 2000 and it was my least favourite Carnival ship of the subsequent 23 cruises with them because of small amount of open deck space. The refurbishment and renaming to the Sunshine increased the number of cabins, removed the back pool and further reduced open deck space available to all passengers with the introduction of a large area only for 21 and over.

The new eating facilities in terms of quality, layout and extended choice were excellent as was the the new waterworks and sportsworld. The entertainment in the lounges and theatre was also an improvement and very good.

If you are wanting to be busy all the time I recommend this cruise if you are looking to relax quietly on deck then this ship is not for you

All the staff were excellent in terms of carrying out their duties diligently and in a courteous friendly manner.

Started with very long emergancy drill boat left an hour late.  Purchased drink package and on more then one occasion ordered drink card was charged never got drink.  Children were allowed into an 18 plus show so had to change the shows wording around.  Food was awesome staff was great!! Boat was crowded and rooms very small!!! had rust i mean big rust spots on ceiling in bathroom when i called carnival i got the oh well attitude very unprofessional!!! first person hung up on me! Was my 6th carnival cruise! oh yeah and if your gold member you get a drink coupon for one free drink the last night of cruise after 5pm thats definately worth the 20 grand ive paid for cruises so far!! Shame on you Carnival!! Last thing if you buy liquor you need to pick it up last day between 6am and 8am! didnt get off boat till 930 and i was carrying my luggage off!

we are First time cruiser and we have great time.....Everything abt this cruise is awesome......we decide we are not going any vacation then cruise line.....Carnival we see next year

This was our first cruise with Carnival, and it was a nice suprise. We cruised many other lines before, had read many comments about Carnival, and decided to give it a try this time, and were very positively suprised with the quality, warmth, professionalism and kids friendliness of Carnival Sunshine.

All and all it was a very pleasant trip. The cabins were comfortable and clean.  Workers were very friendly and helpful.  The ports of call where not the best except for half moon cay.  The drink package is worth it if you plan on drinking at least 6-7 drinks a day it pays for itself, but it's not valid on half moon cay which makes no sense since its carnivals private island.  The cruise director was not the greatest. The food was great and we had a really nice time. 

I have cruised Carnival many times and always enjoy myself.  The only complaint I have is that on the last day, we had to go get our booze.  I realize some people get drunk the last sea day, but I don't think everyone does.  I would like some compromise on this policy.  Thank you.  Beth Parker

We have been cruising since the late l990's and never had a bad experience. The service was good. We happen to have had a good housekeeper by the name of "Rudy" a Pilipino. Whatever we wanted, he gave us. The cabin was very clean. Not to mention the food. The food was very tasty. Their pastries were so, so good. Be prepared to gain some pounds. The ship was clean. They cleanup quickly.

overall the cruise was good! The room stewards and waiters were excellent! 

I wish there weren't some many additional charges for wanting to eat at the steak house and other restaurants on board. I felt that the food in the sunshine restaurant was ok, I was expecting better. Last cruise was with Disney and everything was included which was nice!

I didn't appreciate all of the photographers being so pushy to take pics!

I would recommend it!