REVIEW: Weekend Bahamas Cruise on the Sun, 5/10-13, 2019

[B4May]

Hi everyone,

I'm just back from the weekend itinerary to the Bahamas (Great Stirrup Cay & Nassau) on the Sun. I didn't see any recent reviews for this one so I thought I'd share my experience.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll try my best to answer. 

 

Quick background - I was traveling with my mom for a mother/daughter getaway, this was my 5th cruise ever and my second on Norwegian.  First one of this short of an itinerary.

 

Embarkation - 

We have never been to Port Canaveral before so I'm not sure if it's the port staff or this particular cruise, but this was the smoothest embarkation process I've ever experienced.  We flew into Frontier Airlines into Orlando MCO, and used Cortrans shuttle service from the airport to the port.  It was $20 per person each way and we had great service.  They give clear instructions on how to get to the shuttle pick up location which was really helpful.  There is a set schedule so we did have to wait a bit but that was just because our flight landed right in between scheduled rides.  We arrived at the port around 12:30pm and sailed right through security, check-in, etc. and were on the ship in ~30 minutes.  There was clear signage everywhere in the port and plenty of employees directing us where to go.  Port Canaveral is run really well compared to New Orleans.

 

Onboard - 

I was surprised to find our rooms weren't ready by 1 pm when we got on the ship, but apparently Norwegian's standard is 2 pm for this ship.  They were ready a little earlier than that.  I'm not sure if it's because of various dry dock upgrades over the years or just a bad design, but this ship has a very confusing layout.  There are lots of turns in the hallways, corners to go around, and decks that don't go all the way through.  One couple told us they were on some half deck on Deck 6 and they couldn't even find their room at first without help. LOL

 

A couple tricks we learned - the aft dining room (Seven Seas) is mostly empty because it's on a deck that doesn't go all the way through.  Our room was aft, so it was an easy elevator ride straight down.  Also, when exiting the ship at the ports, take the elevator all the way down to deck 4 and then walk to the front of the ship and down the stairs to deck 3.  If you try to walk down from the Atrium on deck 5, you might get held up to wait there.  This happened to us when boarding the tender to Great Stirrup Cay and we stood around for 20 minutes before they let us go down, while I'm sure others who came in from a different way were lining up downstairs. Getting to port took us almost an hour!

 

The specialty restaurants are also more hidden. I also missed having the big open promenade with shopping, dining, casino, etc.  You have to walk through the casino to get from one end of deck 7 to the other, so I'm not sure how they handle that with kids.  But smaller ship means there are some compromises, and the small size was a plus in a lot of ways.

 

 

Will continue with the rest later tonight!

 

 

 

 

[B4May]

Cabin - 

We booked a sailaway balcony about two weeks out (great deal!) and were assigned 0063, second to last balcony on the 10th deck.  We loved the aft location, just one flight up to the buffet and sports bar and a quick elevator ride straight down to the Seven Seas dining room.  It was quiet also, just very occasional scraping sounds from the chairs one deck up.  The balconies on the Sun are really nice, larger than I've had on Carnival ships.  One tip - the room directly next to ours (0064) had a much bigger angled balcony and I believe it's in the same room category.  We loved that the balcony door could be left open (even though you're not supposed to 😬), so nice to listen to the ocean waves from inside the room. 

 

The only real downside of the room was the teeny tiny shower. It's a weird round design and the smallest shower I've ever been in. Still had great water pressure though and a handheld showerhead.

 

Also there is a weird wall mounted hair dryer above the toilet that barely blows out air.  BUT I discovered on our last day that there was a regular hair dryer in the cabinet behind the TV. Hooray!

 

Edited May 17, 2019 by B4May

[calcaterrasjk]

Thanks for your review!  We are on the Sun next weekend and it's our first NCL cruise.

[Jaime0528]

We’re going in August!! Thanks so much for a recent review! Can I ask what time you lined up for the tender to GSC? We’ve gone before but on the breakaway, so we got tender tickets and waited in the theater, is it different for the sun?

[aricardo]

Thank for your review.  We are sailing on The Sun in July.  Which night was the white hot party on this ship?  Were there any other theme nights?