Sunshine Review with a few pics!

Western Caribbean January 26- February 2, 2014

A little background: Traveling on this trip was myself, Breann, 35, and my mom, Kathy, she'd kill me if I said her age, for our annual mother-daughter vacation. I have been on 7 cruises and my mom has been on 3.

Pre-Cruise: We flew into New Orleans Saturday evening and had a wonderful stay at La Pavillion. We were celebrating my birthday on this vacation and my mom told them we were celebrating. We were upgraded to a suite! We went to dinner at the hotel and when we returned to our room, there were balloons, champagne, cake and a card from the manager of the hotel! Such a nice touch!

Sunday morning, we got around early and walked down to Canal Street and the French Quarter. We did a little shopping and stopped at Starbucks for a quick snack. We went back to the hotel and checked out at noon to head to the cruise port.

This is us!

Our hotel:

NOLA:

Sailaway:

We had an ocean suite. Cabin 7183. It was nice and there was plenty of room for us. And then the problems started. The toilet wouldn’t flush. Pushed the button and nothing happened. Called maintenance and they arrived quickly and fixed the toilet. No big deal, right? WRONG!

First day at sea:

Slept great and woke up late. Hit the fitness center, which was packed! Went to get ready for brunch and guess what? Toilet wont flush. I called maintenance again. They arrived in a few minutes and again, quickly fixed the problem. We go to brunch, which was mighty good, if I say myself. We went to a few trivia games and went to lay out by the pool. Couldn’t find anywhere near the serenity area, so we hung out right next to the so-called pool. I say so-called, because it’s really the size of a large hot tub and full of screaming children. We went back to our room to relax before dinner.

A few random ship pics:

That night we went to the steakhouse for dinner. It was awesome as usual. So much better than the MDR. We went to the show that night and spent a few minutes in the casino and went to go to bed. And guess what! The toilet won’t flush…AGAIN! Same as before, called guest services, complained, toilet supposedly “fixed for good”.

Steakhouse food porn:

Second day at sea: Repeat of first day at sea, minus the steakhouse. Toilet only works for about 8-12 hours at a time.

and of course, a nap was involved:

And Guys Burgers:

Roatan, Honduras: No excursion booked, just got off ship, walked around and went to Mahagony Beach. Way to packed for our like, so we went back to the ship… lido deck completely empty! Swam in the EMPTY pool for a couple hours, made a new friend, and took a nap! Great day! Until…

Wait for it…

TOILET DOESN’T FLUSH!!!!!

Meanwhile, on the sunshine:

Belize: We had booked “Barrier Reef Snorkeling and Beach Day” excursion. After waiting for what seemed like forever, the shore excursion guy came into the dining room to tell everyone that all snorkeling was cancelled. We took the offer for a “Beach Day without Snorkel” and got a full refund for the original excursion (YEAH!). They took us to Water Caye and the weather was wonderful! We ate some nachos and just chilled out on the beach. Unfortunately, everyone got completely drunk on the beach, which made the long boat ride back miserable… Everyone was yelling and obnoxious and I just wanted everyone to shut up.

We finally made it back to the Sunshine, and, guess what?

TOILET WONT FLUSH! And to add insult to injury the bathroom light fixture thought it belonged in a disco and was a nice strobe light feature to our non-functioning toilet.

So, we waited for maintenance again.

Then we went to the Cucina Del Capitano for dinner. Best dinner of the week! I had the spaghetti carbonara and my mom had the braised short ribs. The short ribs are not to be missed! They were amazing!

Food porn from the italian restaurant:

Cozumel: My birthday!

We booked the Casa De La Playa- A private Retreat for the day! Totally worth the $120 per person! Juan Carlos and his team made the day perfect! The chef made us some delicious lunch and the drinks were great, especially the Mango Daiquiri! We also got to snorkel here so that made up for missing our other excursion. We had the beast beach day ever! We had just enough time to shop a little before heading back to the ship.

food porn from Cozumel:

And the chef at work:

And a few other random Cozumel pics:

There was a CODE BRIGHTSTAR around 5pm, right when we were supposed to leave Cozumel. The person was taken off the ship by ambulance and I hope that he/she is doing well.

Well, we went to dinner and of course everyone knew it was my birthday because my loving mother told everyone she could find that would listen. So, i got sang to in the MDR and got a lovely piece of birthday cake heaven!

We thought maybe the bathroom would be fixed. But, guess what AGAIN!

THE DAMN TOILET WONT FLUSH! However, the strobe light has been replaced with a new strobe light… not as annoying as the previous light, but still cant use the light in the bathroom or you get a headache.

Nothing like some mood lighting for the toilet that doesn't work!

Last Day at Sea:

I was happy for the SeaDay Brunch again. We arrived at 8:45am, and had an appointment in the spa for pedicures at 10:00am. Well, it took 30 minutes for someone to take our order. When they finally brought it out, it was wrong, but we didn’t have time to wait for another plate so we ate what we got. It wasn’t bad, just not what I wanted!

Barely made it on time to our pedicure appointment. A few minutes into our appointment, the girls tell us they thought we were a couple! I said “NO! That’s my mom!” and they laughed and the one girl said they thought my mom was gay because she has short hair and the other girl said she thought my mom was quite the cougar! We got a good laugh out of it!

We went back to the cabin and had a letter to call guest services. My mom called this time. They wanted to apologize for all the troubles with our suite and give us 20% of our cruise fare back to each of us. Thy credited our S&S accounts with $125.02. They also offered us 15% off another cruise if we booked within the week. Needless to say, we wont be booking another Carnival cruise. I already have one booked for September with some friends, so I will go on that cruise, but that’s probably the last of cruising with Carnival.

Did I have a good time celebrating my birthday with my mom: YES!

Will I recommend this ship to anyone: NO!

PS: there were buckets on the 7th floor and the 3rd and 4th floors forward stink like sewage

Enjoying your review. Great pictures. Going on the Sunshine in August.

Did you eat at Ji Ji's. I've heard it is good

Did you eat at Ji Ji's. I've heard it is good

I did not eat there because I don't really like Asian food. However, everyone I met that ate there said it was fantastic!

Thanks for a great review and pics. Same problems over and over for the Sunshine are plumbing problems and smells, crowds, not much but still buckets. The spa comment to you and your mom I would have taken that as insulting and made a visit to guest service desk and not be happy.

Thanks for a great review and pics. Same problems over and over for the Sunshine are plumbing problems and smells, crowds, not much but still buckets. The spa comment to you and your mom I would have taken that as insulting and made a visit to guest service desk and not be happy.

Really? You would have taken that comment to guest service? Sad. Hopefully you were just joking. Happy to see op got a laugh out of it. Sorry y'all had the toilet issues. We were on floor 7 also. No buckets or smells. Maybe lucky. Can't wait to sail on the Sunshine again.