Revamped Carnival Sunshine facing problems in maiden voyage

[mickysimoncini]

Regretting booking this ship now for June after hearing that inside story :( Have never tried Carnival before.

 

Scot,

 

I am sailing in June but I am not regretting it. I believe the crew and the few contractors they have on board will fix these problems soon enough. I know I would be disappointed if I was there now with the closure of some areas but I am sure they will fix this by June. I feel for the people on there now but like Dave said, I am sure they will get compensated in some sort of way.

 

Thanks Dry Dock Dave for your insight once again, I have been following the post with you and your wife's photos of the refurb. I have worked in a similar environment where contractors have 'MADE' more work for themselves by sabotage of key elements in a project. I just hope now with the ship is in service, the problems be fixed asap for the people on board and are not inconvenienced too much.

 

I am all for second chances, its now up to Carnival to put right the wrongs for present and future travellers.

[poochieboy]

!Would you rather the ship not sail at all? Looking at the BIG picture, these problems seem minor. Put this behind you! Have a great cruise!

 

 

I agree, I cannot believe an important aspect of the ship is closed!! :eek: If I were on that ship, I'd be furious.

 

Why was the inaurgural delayed to begin with? Was it some other issue other than the pools and waterpark?

 

Sounds like Carnival decided again to cut corners and unfortunately DID NOT take the time and money to complete the pool and waterpark.

[swedish weave]

I think it would happen to any ship there regardless of which cruise line owned it. We were eating / staying on the Louis Olympia, and I'm 'skilled' enough to be one of few that gets to dine with the officers and above so hear more than most do about the goings on. The Olympia was entering drydock right after the Sunshine, when I asked if it was in Trieste I got laughed at and told no way... at the time I wasn't aware of what that meant, now it's a little clearer.

 

Sad truth is, some people can't resist the opportunity for gain regardless of the expense to others.

 

Dave -- Thanks for the insight and details !! I am aware of how destructive some in the contracting business can be, but didn't realize how bad this situation was.

[ShanteS]

Regretting booking this ship now for June after hearing that inside story :( Have never tried Carnival before.

 

:rolleyes: Really?? Well I'll gladly sail in your place! Let me know and I'll pack my bags tonight. I'm sure most of these hiccups will be fixed before you even step foot on the ship. Enjoy!

 

Also, thank you DDD for your insight to the whole refurb process. I hope Carnival took this as a lesson learned and choose to take their ships and business elsewhere if this is how that particular shipyard operates. It sounds really chaotic and frustrating to those who were serious and committed to their work.

[swedish weave]

While your point is worth considering it is factually wrong. There have been many times when cruise ships have literally been cut in half and had new sections added with the net result being to lengthen the ship and provide more space for cabins and public spaces. From an engineering perspective, that is a much larger and complicated task than the extensive face lift given to the Sunshine/Destiny. There was a good documentary several years ago showing this process on an NCL ship, but many other lines have done the same thing.

 

I have some comments to add to your post about the NCL ships.

 

Although very complicated, the process was simplified by pre-planning every facet of the conversion.

 

The 250 foot sections were built for both the Wind and Dream in advance and were completed before the ships arrived in drydock. The ships were each cut in two and the new section slid in, welded, and hooked up with plumbing and electricity plus other details.

 

They eliminated much of the time pressure and kept problems to a minimum.

 

In the overall picture, the process on the Carnival ship was much more complicated due to so many contractors being involved -- plus the sabotage described by Dave.

[Dry Dock Dave]

While your point is worth considering it is factually wrong. There have been many times when cruise ships have literally been cut in half and had new sections added with the net result being to lengthen the ship and provide more space for cabins and public spaces. From an engineering perspective, that is a much larger and complicated task than the extensive face lift given to the Sunshine/Destiny. There was a good documentary several years ago showing this process on an NCL ship, but many other lines have done the same thing.

 

I have some comments to add to your post about the NCL ships.

 

Although very complicated, the process was simplified by pre-planning every facet of the conversion.

 

The 250 foot sections were built for both the Wind and Dream in advance and were completed before the ships arrived in drydock. The ships were each cut in two and the new section slid in, welded, and hooked up with plumbing and electricity plus other details.

 

They eliminated much of the time pressure and kept problems to a minimum.

 

In the overall picture, the process on the Carnival ship was much more complicated due to so many contractors being involved -- plus the sabotage described by Dave.

 

yup, that's the normal proceedure, do as much pre work as possible using the existing plans and layouts of the original build. Which is where the problems start when you're dealing with the destiny. It was the first ship in the series, I believe from memory for a short time it was also the biggest built to date? It was a huge learning curve of what was and wasn't possible on a cruise ship and many many changes were made from the original plans when the reality started to come to life.

 

these changes weren't all (if any were) documented, so people planning to do XYZ and arriving with the materials to do so, very often found ABC was needed instead.

[Dry Dock Dave]

oh, and add to that, once the problems were found.... new drawings issued, then revised and re issued.... there comes a point when information not being passed on from heads of contractors to the workforce and old drawings removed / destroyed, you get a LOT of people working with different sets of drawings that don't correspond with each other, all which comes to light when you get to the point of connecting things up

[bbbearden]

While your point is worth considering it is factually wrong. There have been many times when cruise ships have literally been cut in half and had new sections added with the net result being to lengthen the ship and provide more space for cabins and public spaces. From an engineering perspective, that is a much larger and complicated task than the extensive face lift given to the Sunshine/Destiny. There was a good documentary several years ago showing this process on an NCL ship, but many other lines have done the same thing.

 

I have some comments to add to your post about the NCL ships.

 

Although very complicated, the process was simplified by pre-planning every facet of the conversion.

 

The 250 foot sections were built for both the Wind and Dream in advance and were completed before the ships arrived in drydock. The ships were each cut in two and the new section slid in, welded, and hooked up with plumbing and electricity plus other details.

 

They eliminated much of the time pressure and kept problems to a minimum.

 

In the overall picture, the process on the Carnival ship was much more complicated due to so many contractors being involved -- plus the sabotage described by Dave.

 

The sabotage described by Dave is terrible, but at the end of the day, this was an extremely extensive facelift, IMHO the structural challenges were much less complicated with Sunshine than other projects, they should also have been able to preplan and prestage many pieces and parts of this conversion.

 

In looking at the list of ships Carnival has had built in this very ship yard, I see many ships built for Carnival, Costa, Princess, Holland America, and Cunard. It literally represents billions in business. If Carnival is not intimately familar with the strengths and weaknesses of this particular ship yard than shame on them. I understand what DDD is saying, but Carnival has many many years expereince at this location and should have the expereince and clout to demand excellence from them. At the end of the day, the responsibilty for this whole issue still falls on Carnival and the way they have made decisions.

 

I hope you can tell from my previous posts that I want to be balenced and believe they have an overall good product. However it does look like management is asleep at the wheel. If the shipyard was that bad, they already knew it and either picked them due to price knowing the quality would not be there, or else were out of touch and was not controling the process with effective project managers. DDD states that Carnival and its rep's did thier best, but they were not effective in holding thier vendor fully accountable. After the issues with the Splendor, Concordia, Triumph, and all the other minor issues that have been in the press, had I been a key decision maker in the company, the re-introduction of Sunshine/Destiny would have been letter perfect. I cannot understand why they did not do a better job of making sure that happened, it makes no sense.

[lovestocruise19]

I normally don't chime in on these topics, but I just have to mention that the Triumph and the Sunshine are NOT sister ships. The Victory and Triumph are sisters. Sunshine is in her own class (an only child-lol!). That part of the article really bugged me. Fact check much?

[ShanteS]

I normally don't chime in on these topics, but I just have to mention that the Triumph and the Sunshine are NOT sister ships. The Victory and Triumph are sisters. Sunshine is in her own class (an only child-lol!). That part of the article really bugged me. Fact check much?

 

Fact check?? We're talking about the media, they don't bother with fact checking anymore. They say and do whatever to get the ratings and to get the "news" out before the other guy. Our news media is such a joke!!

[Lucyi]

oh, and add to that, once the problems were found.... new drawings issued, then revised and re issued.... there comes a point when information not being passed on from heads of contractors to the workforce and old drawings removed / destroyed, you get a LOT of people working with different sets of drawings that don't correspond with each other, all which comes to light when you get to the point of connecting things up

 

DDD - do you think these issues would have happened at any ship in Italy, or is it this particular one? Also I'm on the June 7th sailing in a spa interior on deck 10, which is one of the cabins that was just added, any ideas if all the new cabins have issues, or just some. Also any ideas how long you think it's going to take to get everything up and running? I'm so disappointed how so many of those worker conducted themselves, my father migrated to Australia in his 20's and has worked at a tiler for many years, and one of the things I respect most about him is his hard work ethic, pride in his work and his honesty. I have to say I'm embarrassed as to how they have represented themselves, and their country - it's just completely disgraceful.

[eroller]

 

Ultimately Carnival are to blame, they picked where the work was carried out, and I'm assuming with some idea of the potential problems at least, simply from the statement made about the extra TV's being ordered. Now I don't know why they picked that place, maybe it was cheapest, part of me thinks it was probably the only shipyard in the world desperate enough for work to agree to take on that sized project on that particular ship.

 

 

 

Absolutely. Carnival has a LONG history with Fincantieri and this is the same company (different yard) that built CARNIVAL DESTINY and the fast majority of ships in the Carnival fleet (and those of P&O, Costa, Cunard, Princess, and Holland America). Carnival knows exactly what they are getting into with this yard, but they build on the cheap and essentially Carnival and Fincantieri are in bed together. They essentially support each other's business. You don't see NCL or Royal Caribbean building at Fincantieri, and this is essentially because Carnival has a monopoly on the yard or perhaps because no one else really wants to. They are not exactly known for their quality work. Meyer-Werft in Germany is generally considered the yard that produces the best quality of work on passenger ships. Of course there have been other companies ships built at Fincantieri, but they are few and far between. Carnival Corp. makes up the lions share of passenger ship building at Fincantieri.

 

I should also mention that Carnival has plenty of it's own personnel stationed at the yard doing inspections and reporting on the progress of the work. It's a collaborative effort between the yard and Carnival Shipbuilding so I would say both are to blame, but ultimately the final responsibility falls on Carnival.

 

This video spoof of Fincantieri was done years ago and is pretty funny (see link below). It compares the assembly line platforms of Carnival Corp. ships built at Fincantieri to an auto mall. One platform, multiple brands, discount prices!

 

[EZ4]

Fincantieri also owns Marinette Marine in WI which is the shipyard building the US Navy's Freedom class LCS. The first in class USS Freedom has been plagued with a laundry list of QC issues and most recently suffered a break down while in Singapore. Makes you wonder what is going on with that company.

[H82seaUgo]

I normally don't chime in on these topics, but I just have to mention that the Triumph and the Sunshine are NOT sister ships. The Victory and Triumph are sisters. Sunshine is in her own class (an only child-lol!). That part of the article really bugged me. Fact check much?

 

sorry to disappoint, but when both triumph and victory came out, they were both destiny class. they were even in carnivals brochures as such, but the were not identical, and they started getting the subtext of destiny class, with all the fixes.

 

and somewhere along the line, maybe 2003, all of a sudden they were both made the triumph class.

 

yet, even the celebration and jubilee had diFferences to the holiday, yet they remained holiday class throughout their lives.

[Shipfaced13]

I spoke with my mother this morning, she is on the ship currently. Aside from minor things not being fully operational everything on this ship is fine. Don't worry folks!

[mairead224]

I think it would happen to any ship there regardless of which cruise line owned it. We were eating / staying on the Louis Olympia, and I'm 'skilled' enough to be one of few that gets to dine with the officers and above so hear more than most do about the goings on. The Olympia was entering drydock right after the Sunshine, when I asked if it was in Trieste I got laughed at and told no way... at the time I wasn't aware of what that meant, now it's a little clearer.

 

Sad truth is, some people can't resist the opportunity for gain regardless of the expense to others.

 

Dave thankyou for coming back on and giving us that detailed rundown of the going ons behind the scenes. Makes sense now why they didn't delay the dry dock by a further week.

[kybluecruiser]

I spoke with my mother this morning, she is on the ship currently. Aside from minor things not being fully operational everything on this ship is fine. Don't worry folks!

 

That's great to hear! However some on this site will refuse to look at any positive comments.

[big_duck]

Why does everyone keep calling the Destiny a "failed ship"?? I sailed on her and loved it!! Why does the Destiny get such a bad rep?

 

Failure is probably a little strong, but there were a lot of things designed for the Destiny that in practice turned out to be bad idea. These things were not repeated on the Triumph and Victory.

 

For instance, did you know that when it went into service the Destiny had a swim up bar?

[mairead224]

I spoke with my mother this morning, she is on the ship currently. Aside from minor things not being fully operational everything on this ship is fine. Don't worry folks!

 

Thanks for updating us!! Hopefully the minor issues will get worked out soon.

[Jimmy Geegitz]

Love Dry Dock Dave posts.

[ShanteS]

Failure is probably a little strong, but there were a lot of things designed for the Destiny that in practice turned out to be bad idea. These things were not repeated on the Triumph and Victory.

 

For instance, did you know that when it went into service the Destiny had a swim up bar?

 

Swim up bar? Interesting but just because it didn't work I don't think that makes the Destiny a "failure" or "cursed" or a "deathtrap" blah blah blah. The layout left much to be desired but after a day or two (about the normal amount of time it takes for me to learn any ship) I knew my way around for the most part. So again I still don't understand why there's so much negativity about her. The cruise in 2007 was one of the best cruises I've had actually. None of us in my group had any complaints that entire week.

 

It seems like the Sunshine is a beautiful ship and I hope to sail on her sometime in the future. Probably in a year or two after all of the hooplah has calmed down and she's "broken in".

[Shipfaced13]

I was worried for her as this is her very first cruise. She didn't sound too upset by any short comings by the Sunshine's maiden voyage. She said the internet was very slow and hardly worked but I think that's all ships in general.

[ShanteS]

Love Dry Dock Dave posts.

 

Me too!! Very informative from someone who actually KNOWS what he's talking about instead of self proclaimed experts who get their information from Wikipedia. LOL :p

 

I was worried for her as this is her very first cruise. She didn't sound too upset by any short comings by the Sunshine's maiden voyage. She said the internet was very slow and hardly worked but I think that's all ships in general.

 

Thanks for the update and I'm glad your mom is having a great cruise. :) The slow internet is enough to deter me from checking in with the real world while I'm on the cruise aside from me having no desire to be bothered with reality once I'm on vacation in the first place. Once I'm on vacation, the real world doesn't exist for a week. :) I'm really looking forward to seeing/reading all of the reviews from this sailing.

[flynnsport]

Someone sent me a private message and asked me to check out this thread, I can see why now and as much as I'd rather try and forget about that ship, I'll take the time to say this.......it's real easy to speculate and voice opinions over the internet it seems, and everyone is entitled to an opinion, but facts are usually more useful.

 

So, fact number 1.... Ultimately, Carnival are 100% responsible for the conditions and the experience for their passengers, regardless of if it's the first cruise after a dry dock, or the last one before a dry dock, or any cruise inbetween

 

 

Fact number 2... Carnival DID do everything they could and more to try and get that ship 100% ready, but no, I don't think that excuses them for it not being done.

 

Now I'm going to be as vague as possible because I'm not one to sterotype entire nationalitys on the actions of a few, but I know some of what happened, and saw things with my own eyes.

 

A couple of people here were smart enough to look a little further than the ships owner as to why the ship is in the firing line right now. Think about it for a little while.... The Sunshine was the only ship in a large ship yard in an area that is dependant on work and income from that ship yard, and the revenue brought in from the contractors on board using the local facilities too. The hassle and headaches that non Italian contractors have to jump through to work in that shipyard are ridiculous, so I'll leave it to your imaginations to work out what nationality the majority there were. Another thing to consider is each individual contractor has different payment terms, some are price work (so you get paid for each cabin carpetted / tiled for example) which can lead to high income for skilled workers prepared to work hard, or high profits for not so skilled workers prepared to cut corners and hope that a lesser quality job wont get noticed too often, and the ones that do get noticed and have to be redone at cost aren't too many. Others are on day rate so they get the same money regardless of hours worked or work produced. Most there were on hourly rate, so provided you're on board you're getting paid, you could be working hard, or asleep somewhere, you're still getting paid. There are pro's and cons to all methods, but the difference is highlighted most when there isn't much work left to do, and there's a lot of people left to do it. Those on day rate will simply get the days work done and leave the yard, those on hourly rate will be bored out of their brains because they HAVE to stay on the ship as the card system logs time you enter and leave the ship and the yard.

 

As soon as the departure date was extended / first cruises cancelled, the work rate dropped immensely.... loads of time now was the attitude of most. I saw people playing football, sweeping areas clean and then kicking the pile around the floor for the fun of being able to sweep the area again, a large number of TV's in cabins were damaged, and not accidentally, simply punched so the screen is ruined. While we're on the subject of TV's, this is the first and only time I ever heard the words 'we've run out of TV's' on a dry dock.... they know how many they need, and there's container fulls that are deployed for days, worse still, Carnival knowingly ordered MORE than they needed because of where the dry dock was done and yet still run out. The list of incidents and problems I could relay that are all down to one factor are immense. Every new cabin (built as a 'module' that 'should' just get fitted and then wired, plumbed in and have the AC connected) has issues causing major difficulties for the contractors aboard to carry out their part... everything took 10 times longer due to this and required parts that were not expected to be needed so not on board. Coincidentally, the company who made the cabins were of the same nationality as the yard.

 

If there was an excuse to prolong things or delay progress, it was found by some... new cables being run long distances through the ship were being cut while they were being run so when finished would not work so would have to be redone. These are just the deliberate type attempts, the more astounding being finished areas being raided for bits forgotted on other areas yet finished.... better still when the finished area was completed by a different contractor! Speakers removed and refitted elsewhere to save having to pay for their own out of their budget when they either threw out the originals when the area was stripped, or they overlooked the need for extras as the floor space was now bigger. Finished areas were soon locked for security reasons which is something I've never ever experienced before, I think the final straw was an 80" plasma TV in the kids area getting slashed across the screen with a blade.

 

500 meter drums of cable were going missing, boxes and boxes of electrical sockets and switches were going missing... when the whole ship is an open building site, secure storage is non existant. I've worked in many countries in many shipyards on a large number of different ships, and I have never ever seen such blatant dishonesty and disregard for other peoples property and workmanship. Truthfully? I'm embarassed that I was even present and associated with that job, because for years to come, the stories told over that one dry dock amongst the circle of contractors that do this work around the world will be hideous.

 

Ultimately Carnival are to blame, they picked where the work was carried out, and I'm assuming with some idea of the potential problems at least, simply from the statement made about the extra TV's being ordered. Now I don't know why they picked that place, maybe it was cheapest, part of me thinks it was probably the only shipyard in the world desperate enough for work to agree to take on that sized project on that particular ship. Don't take that the wrong way, the ship is as safe as any other, but technically speaking to work on it? It's your worst nightmare multiplied by infinity... documentation of the original build may as well be fictional, it was probably planned that way once upon a time... but how it ended up being when it left the yard original bears little resemblance to what the paperwork would suggest. I'll leave it to you guys to look up where it was built, having worked there for myself it's no real surprise to me.

 

So to summarise.... do I think it's right / fair that paying passengers going on their dream holiday are subjected to problems and areas closed for works? No, not even remotely acceptable, and I'm confident Carnival will do what they can to compensate for it. Is that enough to make up for it? I guess that's up to each indivual wishing to be compensated, none of which as yet are here discssing this so to me is irrelevant. All I can say in Carnivals defence on this, is that they DID all they could to have a ship finished for those joining it... you will never ever see a more dedicated and committed team than there was on board that ship from the CCL side of things, pushed to the limits physically and mentally to achieve the unachieveable, because the truth is, if that ship stayed in that yard until it was 100% finished, it would become a museum for Trieste tourists... it got to the point it was being broken faster than those trying to finish it could keep up. Carnival made the right choice to finish the rest in service with contractors they could trust and keep an eye on the progress of

 

Absolutely shameful on the contractors part. I agree completely that unfinished work should not be ACCEPTABLE to those onboard. When you look at what folks paid in airfare alone to get over there, plus the cruise price, they should expect the highest quality cruise. For us a european cruise vacation would be a once in a lifetime event and would feel extremely let down.

[Rottweiler Puppy]

.... if Carnival had canceled this cruise and stranded thousands of passengers at the last minute, it would've been on every major news network, with live feed from a helicopter hovering above the "doomed" ship. :o

 

Actually they have cancelled a few cruised prior to this sailing and what you mentioned didn't happen. Not even close. But they didn't wait until last minute.