ohitssunshine

That would be awesome! 

12 hours ago, geneparmesan said:

You're welcome! They did have the 80s party on our sailing on one of the evenings - I believe it was in the Atrium lounge, but I didn't attend. I could try to upload the Fun Times later if that helps!

Thanks for posting this! We leave on 3/26 - taking our grown children and their SOs. We booked the Private Oasis at HMC, so I am mostly excited for that, but I also am anxious about the ship since we haven't taken the kids on a cruise since they were little and it will be very different with them all going their own ways now! 

Did they have the 80s party on your sailing? 

So excited to come across this review! I follow you on Instagram and just love all of your photos as it is, but I really love your reviews. We are going on the Horizon in February and I just happened to pop back onto the boards to find this... Perfect! 

I was wondering the same thing, we'll be on the same sailing - celebrating my 40th birthday!

Enjoy it! We so loved the aft balcony, it was fantastic.

Loved reading all the reviews. We will be on Sunshine Dec 31 2017 we have a deck 5 ocean view aft.

 

Kim

what day of the week was the formal night on ???

On this sailing it was sea day one and Grand Turk night.

I've read that Sunshine is not a very stable ship in waves. Did you notice any more movement than any other ship you've been on?

Whew! Sea day one was a rough one, and I was worried that the whole cruise would be that way. But after that day, it was smooth sailing! Overall it was very comparable to other ships.

I've read that Sunshine is not a very stable ship in waves. Did you notice any more movement than any other ship you've been on?

Whew! Sea day one was a rough one, and I was worried that the whole cruise would be that way. But after that day, it was smooth sailing! Overall it was very comparable to other ships.

Hi and thanks for the nice review.

Question-while you were in the spa did you notice if there is a hot tub/jacuzzi? I know there isn't a T-therapy pool.

Cruising later this month and interested in spa passes, but only if there is a jacuzzi.

Thanks

 

Btw, have reservations for JiJi and steakhouse so far.

Hmm, I didn't notice - sorry! We went right to the waiting lounge and then to the massage room and out. I hope you enjoy your cruise!

Nice to hear good things about the Sunshine. Haven't sailed on her yet. How was the flow of the ship? Did you find certain areas got congested?

I really didn't think anything was congested outside of the the Lido being packed at all times. It seemed like a good traffic flow and our sailing was even sold out.

This was kind of scary because one day there was a woman, and she kept coming around to our area around the pool as she had 2 children with her. I would say maybe 8 and 10 and I assume she wanted a chair next to the pool so she could sit and watch her kids swim. Her DH was with her too. Well, it was a particularly nice day and she would wander around with their stuff, disappear for a few minutes (Pride has 2 pools so I am assuming she went to the other pool), come back, wander around. I am observing her and sure enough, she kept eyeing those chairs with the CHOG's things on them (4, just what she needed and right in front of the pool!) so this after I would say about 35 minutes, she went right over to the pool attendant and pointed out noone had been there. He must have told her to wait. He finally came over and asked a few people something sitting nearby, maybe if they were saving for family, whatever. Didn't ask us, or I would have given him an earful. So he proceded to remove the belongings. Of course, when the "owners of the chairs" came out, must have been about 3 HOURS LATER they went NUTS. Don't forget, these had been "their chairs" for almost 2 weeks. There was a terrible argument and I honestly thought punches would be thrown. They had to call security and finally the CHOG's left after about 1/2 hour of this. I felt very badly for the children who were swimming and just hanging around the pool to witness this atrocious behavior. They finally left and I made many comments and uttered many names as they passed under my breath. :evilsmile::evilsmile: I WAS going to tell the pool attendant when he came over with that woman about this happening every single day (he was the same guy the whole cruise-didn't he notice this too? :confused:) DH told me to stay out of it and let them handle it, and I am sad to say I am glad I did. When we were on Liberty for a B2B I remember pool attendants attaching sticky notes to the chairs with the time written on them. When their time was up, they collected belongings and brought them back to the towel shack. :cool:

That's crazy! When we are up on serenity, we saw two of the stickers stuck to the glass on railing. Seems like someone wasn't happy to receive the warning on their chairs!

can you give more details about getting off at Curacao: what time did you get off the ship / how long did you have wait in line to get off? We are going on same itinerary and have plans for the am before the day's heat

We docked around 2 as expected, but there was definitely a crowd of folks to get off. Everyone was ready after two days at sea. I want to say we were on the ground around 245?

Glad the OP enjoyed their cruise. Sunshine is the first and only Carnival ship that we liked enough to book a second time (we sailed on her twice last year). We like that Sunshine is different from other Carnival ships. Jiji's alone is worth going. Wow, is that place amazing and the price is a steal! Love Havana Bar as well.

We loved the Havana Bar also! I am definitely going to Jijis next time too! This ship has definitely spoiled me, and I'll never book a future cruise without some serious comparison.

Has anyone ever brought this to the attention of a pool attendant and had him/her take the towels off the "reserved chairs?" We noticed this a # of times on the Pride last year. We always get up early and have our "favorite chairs" by the pool and would sit....and then get breakfast and bring our plate to the chair and SIT. Right near us was a 2 couple party and one man (we called him the "designated reserver!") who came out EVERY SINGLE MORNING, put towels and books on the chairs about the same time we got there and did not come back for HOURS. Others must have noticed this because later in the cruise a few mornings someone would go to pool attendant and point this out and he would remove their stuff. It caused quite an "incident" one day. :eek: We were lucky we had our chairs, but if I was hunting around for one and noticed this day after day I would be furious. BTW, this was a 2 week Journey cruise, so it went on and on....:mad:

We are doing Canada/NE the end of September, so wonder if we will have the CHOG problems being as it will be a cruise in a different climate. :confused:

I'm glad that they will enforce it when they see it happen. We didn't bring it to the attention of anyone as we left serenity before it was even officially open, and so there were no attendants. If I were out there more often, I certainly would point it out.

I am curious to hear about your chair hog experience on that cruise!

Thanks we thought the same try it at least once .Next cabin aft wrap around .We can always dream..........

We booked an aft wrap for my 40th birthday cruise! It's only a 3 day so it didn't put us into bankruptcy!

This was our first aft balcony as well and we were not disappointed. There are pros and cons, however. The view from the rear is fantastic. You seem to have a much wider view than from a side balcony (although that's probably just perspective, I don't know). I was a bit worried about "riding backwards", but that was never an issue. There is no breeze on an aft balcony and it can get HOT! Remember to throw down a towel on the metal chairs first or you might be in for an unpleasant surprise. :eek: Also the deck is wood and can get really really hot too, so shoes or flip flops are a must as well. But if you get too hot, it's a simple matter of going inside to cool off for a bit. Having the extra room for a lounger on your balcony is a real bonus (ask your room steward for one if there isn't one already there). We did not experience any ash, but occasionally would feel water droplets from the water slides up above. Views can be limited when pulling into port. We were already docked many times before we even realized it. But pulling away you get a marvelous "goodbye" view of the port you are leaving. No noise, but lots of vibration from the ship itself. Not enough to be annoying, or to keep you awake. It's like being rocked gently to sleep. You have to try an aft at least once and then decide if the upgrade is worth it to you. We loved it!

We loved ours too! What deck were you on? We didn't feel any of the vibration, so I'm curious for next time!

We were on this cruise too! My kids love Esther the Wonder Pig so they were so excited to see all the Esther supporters on the ship! One of the people in the Esther party even gave my daughter one of their "Peace. Love. Esther." bracelets :)

So awesome! We were booked with the group - I've been a fan for a couple of years and it was so exciting to meet them in person and see them in a different light. I love that your kids love her!

Thanks for taking time to answer questions. We are booked in a aft next March so are interested in your thoughts about your cabin. We have 7333. How was movement, noise and temperature on balcony. Our 1 st aft so really looking forward to this hope I am not disappointed in the balcony. (We love the ship) Am looking forward to avoiding crowds and using balcony.Thanks!

You're going to love it! There was zero noise... I'd read that deck 7 was the best as its sandwiched between cabins vs. public spaces. The movement was fine also - but sea day one was really rough. That was the only day that was bad and the rest seemed to be comparable to mid ship cabins really.

My favorite part of that cabin was that you could go two floors down and be at the Red Frog, and two floors up and be in the Havana. It was the best location!

We were on the same cruise and had YTD. Never had a wait at all. Check in deck 5 at Ocean Plaza/Taste Bar area, then down the elevators (right there) to deck 3, and there you are. No wait at all. My only complaint was the tables seemed to be packed together so tightly it was nearly impossible to move around, even for wait staff. I felt uncomfortable asking someone to rise from their seat while dining just so I could exit my table. Service seemed a little slower than usual, but again, that could be due to tables too close together. I never saw all the tables full at any given time, and with so many other dining options onboard, they could easily take out a few tables to make it a better experience for everyone.

 

As for the chair hogs? Out in full force, as usual. Never saw an open chair on the Serenity deck. Never. Folks were apparently putting down towels to hold them, then going off to do other things for hours at a time. I hope they start enforcing the 45-minute limit on all the ships, but they have not done so on the Sunshine yet.

 

Otherwise, it was a GREAT cruise! All the staff were extremely friendly and attentive. The Sunshine is now my favorite Carnival ship. :)

The Sunshine is now our favorite too! The staff were amazing! Danni and Valisha in the Red Frog, were so attentive and personable. Jay from LA was great, and Mason as the CD was also great. I also really enjoy watching Jackson the magician. I loved the workshops he did to teach tricks and thought he was super personable too. Oh, and the ladies at the coffee counter... Rocked. They knew our order every morning!

Any issues getting lounge chairs by the pool or on the Serenity decks? We're sailing in 2 weeks and getting worried from reading some of the recent reviews. Thanks

Agree with the previous post 100%! I'm not a huge Lido person - mostly because it's always just too packed, and this cruise was no different. We will typically pick one day where we will wake up super early and grab a clamshell on the serenity. This time, we were up on the serenity deck at 7:30am, and no joke... We took the last clamshell... The deck was already packed! The clamshell next to us has towels clipped onto the seats and we watched as no one came by to it for over an hour and a half (when we left). We also watched an older daughter save 3 loungers in front of us, and her mom and dad came by once - stayed about 5 min and left again within that same hour and a half. It's just insane. I would be willing to pay to reserve a lounger for the day, just so I could enjoy it more easily!

The good thing was that we had our aft balcony with a lounger so we just enjoyed that too!

We were on this cruise too! Totally agree on Jay from LA - we were all talking about watching him to see how quickly he moves up the ranks...he was fantastic!

Would like to know this also, tho I realize it depends on the week. We are doing Canada/NE in September. Not totally interested in it (:eek:) but Destiny was our very lst CCL cruise and we cruised her a few times, and our homeport is Manhattan (takes 20 minutes to get there!) and found out CCL is pulling out of here :evilsmile::mad: so we booked Destiny/Sunshine/Manhattan for old time's sake. Any tips or hints would be appreciated!

I'd be curious to hear from someone who used it, but from my observation... It seemed like a non issue on this cruise. I wish we had it, as I like the flexibility - but we had assigned, due to the group booking.

This was also our first cruise where we visited the spa. We booked a couples massage for the second sea day. It was $249 plus gratuity, for 50 minutes. The massage was good, along with the overall experience from booking the appt (called on embarkation day and was able to get an 8am on sea day 2), to the massage and check out. They didn't attempt to sell me any products or constant upgrades outside of one initial offer to upgrade to the hot stone massage. The price is high compared to off ship massages, but for a special occasion or treat, I'd do it again.

Is anytime dining still a mess? Some nights we waited over an hour and it seemed like chaos.

We had assigned dining because of the group booking - however, we only ever saw 5-10 people in line waiting at the check in. I'm not positive what their experience was after check in. We did overhear one gentleman raising his voice at the employee because he had walked too far away and something happened that his pager didn't go off. We spent a lot of time in that general area, and that was the only complaint that I personally overheard.

We went on the Sunshine last month...

 

 

The ropes course is a lot of fun. It is best to try it when you first get on board or during port days. They usually had it closed during sea days.

 

 

We ate at Jiji's and LOVED it. Worth the money.

I was ready to try it on day one too, but the wind was insane and if it wasn't closed, I wasn't about to try it anyway! Jiji's is the one place I wish we had tried!