1st Review - Spring Break on the Sunshine

A big huge thanks to those that have done reviews and all those who have added their 2cents. Was very helpful in planning our Spring Break Cruise. To pay it forward, this is my review.

We are a family of 4 - Hubs 49, me 48 daughter 14 son 13. This is our 4th cruise. 1st time on Carnival. Sailed RCL and Princess prior.

We picked this cruise mostly for the itinerary and for the extra activities the Sunshine Ship has like the Rope Course and Slide.

Flew from Seattle but we are from the Vancouver Canada area. Spent some time in Disney World. 1st time for us. Daughter loves anything Disney and was thrilled. Us...not so much but still had fun. We loved Animal Kingdom.

Last day of DW we drove to Cocoa Beach and stayed at the Hilton for the night before the cruise. Lovely hotel right on the beach. Even lovelier that we got it for $120CAD.

We got there at noon but spent the next 3 hours at the beach till our room was ready. They said 4pm but we got in the room shortly after 3.

All along the beach were huge patches of seas shells. We’ve been to many beaches but have never seen this before. It was really cool to see. By 7pm they had all washed back into the sea.

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Can't wait to see more! We are going to be on the Sunshine in July. Thanks for taking the time to do a review.

we are from the Vancouver Canada area

Go Canucks! Well, next year maybe.

Looking forward to your review. Subscribed.

Ship Boarding Day!

I am an early bird and so not unusual for me to wake up at 5am and sneak out for a coffee. As I am leaving I hear Brad, get me one too. Hard to sleep when we know what fun is ahead.

Before returning the rental car, we grabbed some egg McMuffins.

We were lucky to catch the first shuttle to the ship.

We found the check in more efficient than RCL. Quick and easy boarding.

Brought wine in the carry on, no checks no questions. I had contemplated bringing Vodka and maybe would have gotten through with it. We had cheers pkg anyways! So wasn’t really logical.

We had gone back and forth many times on whether we should get cheers and ended up biting the bullet. Was it worth it? Not for us. We are big drinker wanna bees apparently. I found it convenient to try drinks and dump the ones I didn’t care for. But could only drink so much. The novelty wore off after a few days and stuck to a few drinks with several bottles of water and some pop each day. I had to work at getting my moneys worth so did get an Americano each morning and milkshakes during the day but found them too sweet but the kids enjoyed them. [emoji6]. I may have broke even or close to even. I was sure Brad (as was he) would have his 15 beers a day. Nope! His max beer one day was 8. A couple of days 3 or 4. He averaged about 6 a day. Brad who loves his beer did not break even or close and did not drink enough water. It seemed he was drinking the water I got. I tried to order a water with every drink. Mostly got it but a few times was told I had to wait 5 mins.

Once on board we quickly planted ourselves upstairs looking over the pool until our room was ready for 1:30. Kids were starving but the lineups for food everywhere were insane! They managed to find the soft serve station with no lineup. So filled up on ice cream.

We started on our first drinks of the trip - The Fun Ship. We each had 2 Funships before moving onto our own drinks of choice. Brad is only a beer and wine guy, rarely hard stuff so I was surprised he had the Funships. I am a “as long as it’s not beer” I will have one. [emoji3]

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Our Cabins and Sail Away

We had a balcony and the kids had their own cabin across the hall. Thought this was brilliant. We would have an extra bathroom and Brad and I would have private time together. Well...kids spent 95% of the time in our room (when not sleeping) used our bathroom, in fact we would use their bathroom because they were in ours! Back to all 4 of us in 1 cabin next time. In fact we might not even get a balcony next time. We were out there maybe 4 times.

Typical cabin size but the shower is much bigger and quite a bit more storage than RCL. I actually loved the shower.

Our room was fairly clean except for the balcony. We found a pop can with cigarette butts in it and ashes on the table. I have to admit it was kinda gross. A few moments later our room steward came by and we showed him. He was very apologetic. I later found out he had 34 rooms to take care of. Yikes! Our room was not always very clean but we weren’t going to let it bug us and we felt bad for the him and his helper. He was very nice but oh so busy!

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Great start, very nice photos!

Dinner was great. Service good too. We did MTD this time. Wyatt and I prefer the set time dining with the same company each night. We have met some great people.

Brad and Holly are not as social, so like the MTD.

We did the buffet a few of the nights too.

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Beautiful Sunset that night.

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Wonderful start! Looking forward to more :)

Used to live in Bellingham, WA so we spent a lot of time across the border...

Great review and really appreciate the photos.

Thank you so much for writing a review and posting those beautiful photos. We are on the Sunshine the end of June.

Great start, looking forward to this review as we are thinking of The Sunshine next year. Beautiful photos of your kids!

Great review and great pictures. Looks like you had a great time.

Thanks for the review.

Grand Turk

Love love love it here. So beautiful.

As soon as we were off the ship we hired a cab (which was a van type vehicle) to drive us around the island and tell us the history etc. and then drop us off at Governors Beach. It really was heaven! Only 5 other people at the beach. We were there for about 2.5 hours. We pretty much had the beach to ourselves. Holly and I sat in the waves collecting sea glass. There is a ton of it. Mostly small but found some nice larger pieces.

About a 10 minute walk back to the ship. Walked past Jacks Shack, was quite busy there. Stopped at the beach near the ship and swam again for awhile before heading back on sporting a new sunburn despite layers of sunscreen.

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Can't wait to see more! We are going to be on the Sunshine in July. Thanks for taking the time to do a review.

You are welcome! You will love it.

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Go Canucks! Well, next year maybe.

 

 

 

Looking forward to your review. Subscribed.

Oh yes, those Canucks. We saw them play the Sharks last December, best game we’ve seen yet. After that, well we won’t go there.

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Great start, very nice photos!

Thank you!

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What did the taxi charge you in Grand Turk? How long was your tour?

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Wonderful start! Looking forward to more :)

 

Used to live in Bellingham, WA so we spent a lot of time across the border...

Same with us too. Shopping so much better across the boarder, especially when our dollar was at par.

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What did the taxi charge you in Grand Turk? How long was your tour?

 

 

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For 2 hours he wanted $35 per person. Negotiated $20 and opted not to get a ride back to the ship but be dropped off at the beach. We didn’t stop and get out and look around at certain sites, like the lighthouse or zip line although he did offer and it was included in the tour. I thought the $20 was well worth it and a good history lesson for the kids.

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Great review and really appreciate the photos.

Thank you. The photos really helped me to get ideas and excited.

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More photos of Grand Turk and Its beach.

These buildings at Governors must have been nice before Irma. Now empty and dirty and in bad shape. Men’s Bathroom still works.

Taken from the ship!

Awesome review !

Sunshine is our new favorite Ship.

A few more photos and a reminder that they are still recovering and rebuilding from the storm last fall. A lot of the 2nd floors on homes sustained major damage.

We saw many donkey’s just randomly hanging around along the roadside or in vacant lots.

Zip line and Lighthouse.

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