Pirate's Canadian Adventure on the SUNSHINE!

Hello, CC!

I am recently back from yet another wonderful cruise, and I am battling my post cruise blues. I have found that the best way to battle that depression is to re-live my vacation by writing a review, and I would like to think that some people find information I share in those reviews helpful. If not, oh well, at least writing the review saves my co-workers from a snippy, depressed cruise-a-holic. :')

Where shall we begin? How about I start with how this cruise came to be. I originally booked my hubby and I on the Sunshine's November 4, 2017 cruise out of Charleston as an anniversary celebration, and I even scored a Grand Scenic Oceanview room. I was ecstatic! Then last fall one of my friends who is a school teacher asked us if we wanted to cruise with her and her new husband, but she could only cruise during the summer months so we ended up switching to a different sailing in July 2017. However, her husband took a new job at Christmas last year and wouldn't have the time off to sail an 8 day cruise, so they had to cancel. Chris and I decided that NO WAY did we want to sail in the July heat with so many kids out of school. We looked at what to do, and then it hit us: why not try something new? Let's do a cruise to Canada!

I booked us in a Lido balcony room, 9146, arranged the excursions, and made the hotel reservations. We decided to do a few pre-cruise days in NYC as it was our first time visiting there. I am not going to cover all our pre-cruise adventures, but I will say that I loved the city! I went in expecting to hate it (I'm not a city girl at all) but I had a great time. It wasn't as insane as I expected, the food was amazing, and it just had this vibe to it that I enjoyed. I definatly want to cruise from there again!! (y)

Now...let's get to the good stuff. Sunshine, are you ready for me??

Day 1 (Embarkation)

As usual, I woke up bright and early on embarkation day. The thought of boarding the ship gets me to where I can't sleep, and I was up by 6. Can we take our Uber to the port yet? ;)

Luckily, the hotel we stayed at (Hampton Inn near the Newark airport) provided a free hot breakfast, so I was able to go eat some breakfast while I not-so-patiently waited. The eggs were good, and I surfed the free wifi while I waited. Finally around 9:45 I couldn't wait any longer, so Chris and I used the Uber app to get a ride to the port. I love Uber!! It was $42 to get from the hotel to the Manhattan terminal, and we got there in about 40 minutes. Our driver was nice, and his driving skills didn't leave me fearing for my life. The cruise was off to a great start!

Once at the port check in was a breeze. I think we waited maybe 5 minutes in line for Priority check in, then we went to the waiting area where we sat for maybe 30 minutes. We were onboard by 11:45. After dropping our carry ons off in the room, we set out to re-aquaint ourselves with the Sunshine and find some lunch.

Hmmmm, for some reason the button I click on to add photos isn't working for me. Anyone have any ideas??

Ah ha! It's working now, when all else fails just shut down and re-start your PC. That's what tech support always tells me at work anyway.

My first lunch onboard was a taco salad from Blue Iguana. Yum!

It was delicious, as they always are. After eating we headed around the ship. First stop was Serenity.

And this is where I become a bad review writer...after those pics I failed to take many ship pictures. I'm sorry. I guess since I have been on the ship 2 other times I just slacked off, but the good news is that I did reviews of both those sailings, and you can find pictures in them! I promise, I took lots of pictures of other important things, like FunTimes, menus, and food. :hearteyes:

So I promised the FunTimes, here they are for day 1!

Our itinerary for the week...

And the entertainment schedule for the week. Epic Rock! Studio VIP! And MANNY OLIVERA! Whoo hoo!

Alright, I will finish day 1 and also day 2 tomorrow now that I have the bugs ironed out. Sorry for starting and then stopping, but i have to get up early and the technology didn’t cooperate!!

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Looking forward to your review. We’re on the Sunshine in Dec for the 1st time

You're off to a GREAT start!!! Looking forward to the rest. :cool:

Nice start to your review, patiently waiting for more.

Excited to read more!

Nice start to your review, patiently waiting for more.

More is coming right now! Thanks for reading. :)

Excited to read more!

Thanks for following along!

You're off to a GREAT start!!! Looking forward to the rest. :cool:

Thanks Jeff! Love your reviews, they have taught me so much!

Looking forward to your review. We’re on the Sunshine in Dec for the 1st time

I hope you will enjoy your cruise on her as much as we did.

After we did our tour of the ship we headed back to the cabin and our luggage had arrived, it was now about 2 pm. I unpacked while Chris took a nap. What is it about cruise ships that makes that guy so sleepy?? LOL. I went out on the balcony to paint my nails, and I let him sleep until it was time for the dreaded muster drill. Unfortunately Sunshine holds their muster drills outside, where everyone has to line up on the outside deck….yuck! Lucky for us this drill really did not last that long, the worst part about it for me and the others in muster station D was the sight of the guy on the ship across from us on his balcony in a Speedo. I’m scared for life.

Sailaway was pushed back from 4:00 to 6:30 due to heavy traffic and some of our fellow cruisers not being able to make it to the ship on time, so instead of heading to the upper decks to take pictures Chris and I went to Emma’s sailaway party on Lido. She and the Fun Squad and members of the Playlist cast were out there doing the Conga and line dances. We did not join in, but watched for a bit and then decided to go to the Red Frog Pub. Chris wanted his first drink of the cruise, and he decided to go with a Dirty Banana. I tried it, and it wasn’t something I would order, but he drank it and said it was not his favorite drink but wasn’t bad.

We went up to watch sailaway from the deck where the funnel sits….I forget the deck number, sorry yall.

The views from there were FANTASTIC, and it wasn’t too crowded so we could move around easily from one side of the ship to the other. It was dark by our sailaway time, and seeing the city all lit up was beautiful. I didn’t take many pictures, sorry, I was living in the moment and enjoying the views. Here are a few though.

I also loved sailing under the bridge! I always thought a Miami sailaway was beautiful, but a nighttime NYC sailaway is even better.

By the time we sailed under the bridge it was time for dinner. Chris and I had an 8:30 reservation at the steakhouse, a favorite cruise tradition of ours. I enjoy the bottle of wine you get the first night, and Chris loves his steak.

House Red Wine:

Tonight the meal started off with a mini burger as the compliment from the chef. We have gotten this before on other ships, and as always, it is fantastic!!

For my starter I got the grilled Portobello mushroom, which I am so sad will not be on the new steakhouse menu!

I followed that with another of my favorites, the baby leaf spinach salad. Yum!

For the main dish I chose the lobster ravioli, which also will not be on the new menu. It was amazing. I have not gotten it the past few times we visited the steakhouse, and I am wondering why I didn’t. It was fantastic tonight!

To go along with my ravioli I got the creamed spinach, my favorite steakhouse side, and tonight I was disappointed in it. It was just…..meh. No flavor. I was really sad, as this is also not on the new menu, and I was hoping for one last amazing creamed spinach to send it off.

For dessert I got the chocolate sampler, another victim of the re-do to the steakhouse menu. OMG why are they doing away with this? It’s fantastic!!!

By the time our dinner ended it was 10:15…we had a late dinner!! I probably should have walked around to work some of that food off, but we headed back to the room to finish settling in for the week. I have no idea what time I fell asleep, but it was fairly late.

Next up, a fun day at sea!

Sea Day 1

I woke up at 7:15 to this weird sound coming from up above the room. It took me a second to place it, and then I realized that it was the sound of someone working out in the gym. It wasn’t a LOUD noise by any means, just a rhythmic running sound. Honestly the whistling coming from our a/c was more annoying than the sound from the gym. I took the gym sounds as my sign to get my butt out of bed and workout! I headed up and was a bit disappointed in Sunshine’s gym. It seemed like quite a bit of equipment was not working, and the view wasn’t like the gorgeous views on the Vista. Oh well, I powered thru 15 minutes of treadmill until my knee gave out (darn knee!) and then I switched to lifting weights. I despise upper body workouts. Ugh. I have no upper body strength. Heck I hate any workout really, but hey….I like eating, so I gotta do something!

After cleaning up from my workout Chris and I headed to the sea day brunch. We love sea day brunch, it’s a great way to start the day. Today we noticed that the service was terribly slow, I am not sure what was up with that, but the food was excellent. I got the eggs benedict, and it was absolutely perfectly done, and the grilled tomato I got on the side was delicious.

Sorry this pic is sideways. LOL.

After brunch we headed to the Guest Services desk to load the gift card I had gotten with Verizon points to our account. Holy moly, the lines were INSANE this morning! What was up with that?? I tried to use one of the Sail and Sign kiosks to load the gift card but the rep at the desk told me they don’t work for laoding gift cards to your account. I feel like I had done this before on a ship, but maybe I am just crazy. Haha.

I decided to head back to my balcony to read some of my book, and I took my extra blanket out there with me to get cozy. It was a nice afternoon but a tad nippy, I think I stayed out there until about 2.

View from my balcony.

At that time Chris was hungry, so we went ahead and went to Lido to grab some grub. I opted for another taco salad from Blue Iguana, and it was delicious. We decided to stick around Lido to watch the Last (Wo)Man standing contest and Hairy Chest Competition, and somehow I ended up taking part in the Last (Wo)Man standing! Let me just tell you all, I am NOT the kind of person to get up and do things in front of others, and there WAS NOT any alcohol in my system. I ended up being the 3rd one eliminated, but I was proud I made it that far, and I got my medal to show for it. That medal will hang proudly on my Christmas tree now. On a side note, the Lido deck was not crowded at all. I was amazed, given how CRAZY it usually is, but with the cooler air people were not out sunning themselves.

After the games on Lido we went back to the room to get ready for dinner. We had the early seating at 6, and tonight was elegant night. We met our server, Jorge, who was really nice and got to know us throughout the week. I started off with the baby spinach salad, which was ok, not as awesome as the steakhouse. The spaghetti carbonara for my main though was AWESOME, and the melting cake was ok…a little overdone tonight, but still good.

As we were finishing dinner the waiter with shots came around, and we ended up getting a “cinnamon toast crunch.” OMG…..it was FANTASTIC. Can I have both bottles please???

I wanted to stay up later tonight but I ended up turning in pretty early after dinner. I went back to the room and got our things together for tomorrow, which would be our first port stop, Boston. I read some more of my book and called it a night.

Boston

I was up at 7:30 this morning, and Chris and I went to the MDR for breakfast. We figured we had plenty of time for a sit down breakfast as our excursion didn’t meet until 9 and we were in the MDR at 7:45. However, the service this morning was again painfully slow, and we didn’t leave the MDR until 9! The food was fantastic though, I got the roasted broccoli and cheddar scramble and a side of sausage. The only bad thing on the plate was the biscuits, which were dry.

Our “Boston Highlights by Duck” excursion met outside the cruise terminal at 9:30, and we got there right on time. The tour took you around the city and onto the river, and it lasted about 1.5 hours. It was OK, I do not think I would do it again though. We opted to get dropped off at the marketplace, and we wandered around the shops until 1. At that time we were both kind of hungry for lunch, so we decided to grab a sandwich somewhere. We found ourselves at Sissy K’s, and we both got the Cape Cod Rachel. It was just ok, neither one of us was impressed.

Photos from around Boston

After lunch we wandered around some more, but the weather at this point was really not the best, it was raining a little more and we decided to head back to the ship. We were back onboard at about 2:30, and we hot the gym. It was empty, and I loved it!! I snagged an elliptical and did my 30 minutes, then headed back to the room to shower and nap. Rainy days will do that to you. I slept until about 5:30, and then it was time to get ready for dinner. I started off with the roasted pumpkin soup, which was AWESOME! I have been trying to try more soups, and oh my this one was great. I also chose the Caesar salad, which was good. For the main course, Chris and I both got the chicken Milanese, which was great, and I finished dinner with cheesecake, which was yummy.

Following dinner we went to the atrium, and Emma ended up pulling me up to start the Conga line. Like I said, I am not one to get up in front of people, but I couldn’t say no. There were other dances after that, and Emma danced on the bar.

There was a mini Lip Sync Battle showdown. It was hilarious!After the atrium started to clear out Emma came up and thanked me for starting the Conga line with her, which I thought was nice. She’s a sweetie.

I headed to the Red Frog Pub and ordered a Red’s Painkiller. I think this is my new favorite drink from the Pub! It was amazing. Chris tried it and his eyes lit up, he said he could easily drink these.

We sat in there for a bit then headed to the Limelight Lounge for Al Katz’s comedy show. He is a really good comedian.

We headed back to the room to call it a day about 10:30. Tomorrow we had an early morning arrival in Portland.

Portland

Today we had a 7 a.m. port arrival, and thanks to that our excursion met at the unearthly hour of 6:45. Yuck! I hate early mornings! I got up at 5:05 and placed a room service order for “breakfast”: a BLT for me, grilled cheese for Chris. We got the order at about 5:45, and it was all yummy. Once we had ate and gotten ready we headed to the Liquid Lounge to wait.

Our tour today was “Best of Portland and Kennebunkport.” It was a 5 hour tour that took us to Portland Head Light, which is the oldest mainland lighthouse, around some of Portland, past the Bush estate, and then to Kennebunkport. We had about 20 minutes to take pictures and walk around at the lighthouse, then we had about an hour and a half to enjoy Kennebunkport. We walked around the shops there and I got a lobster roll and iced coffee from H.B. Provisions. OMG. The lobster roll was fantastic, probably the best thing I ate all cruise long. It was on this flakey, soft roll, not too much mayo, and the meat was so tender…..ahhhh, my mouth is watering just thinking about it!

Pictures of the Portland Head Light

Lobster roll from Kennebunkport

Our tour ended about 12:30, and since we had time we walked around Portland some. Chris and I both loved the area, it just has this charm about it. We stayed off the ship until we had to go to get back on, about 2:15. Holy moly, the line to get back onboard was CRAZY!!! I haven’t seen a line to get back on from a port stop like this one ever. It took us about 50 minutes to get back on from the time we got in line to the time we stepped back onboard.

See that line of people waiting to get back onboard??

Sunshine docked in Portland

Once we made it back on the ship we decided to take it easy and see what movies were playing on the TV in our room. I was excited to see Megan Leavy was getting ready to start, and I settled in to watch it. Having just lost my dog a few weeks ago I bawled like a baby. It was a great movie though, even Chris got into watching it.

Tonight we had reservations for dinner at Cucina for 5:30, so when the movie ended we got ready to head there. Chris ordered Nonna’s meatballs for his starter, I ordered the Caprese. Our waitress also gave us Aranaci, which neither of us had tried before. They were good, but my Caprese was wayyyyy better.

For the main dish Chris and I both got the chicken parm. OMG it’s delicious, but HUGE! I only ate half of mine, and the rosemary potatoes were great but they were wasted on us as we hardly touched them.

For dessert I ordered the tiramisu, which unfortunately will no longer be offered at Cucina when they switch the menu. It was fantastic. Chris got the cannoli, which is also no longer going to be offered, and he loved it.

Dinner was done in time for us to catch the 7:15 magic show in the Liquid Lounge. Jackson Rayne was the magician, and the show was great! When the show was over we went to the Aussie birthday party in the atrium to celebrate Carnival sailing from Australia for 5 years. There was a Conga line, a huge cake, and lots of fun.

We went to change before catching the Love & Marriage show with Emma at 10:45. It was funny.

We finally called it a day at a little after midnight. Whew! I had been up for nearly 24 hours by now! Good thing tomorrow’s excursion didn’t meet until 11:30.