We booked a balcony and found out the day we left that Carnival banned smoking on private balconies. We were very disappointed that we were not told this before we boarded and we feel to make all the private balconies non smoking is a real inconvenience for people. We recommend half the ship's private balconies be smoking and the other part non smoking. Our room was nice, but it didn't have a fridge. This was disappointing because it would be nice to have cold drinks in our room.

We chose any time dining and found we had to go to level 5 to check in and then level 3 to dine. The first few nights we had to wait for a table. There were many people waiting which makes no sense. Sometimes we were told it would be an hour for a private table and ended up sitting with a strange couple. For some people they like to meet people on their cruise and sitting with strangers is not a big deal, however for my husband and I we don't like having to make small chat with people we don't know or care about. We traveled with Carnival Legend and were able to walk right into the dining area any time we wanted and always got a private table. On Sunshine even when we got a private table, our tables were so close to others it was like we were actually sitting at the same table. The service in the dining room sucked. It took forever for a server to come, forever for the food, which was cold most of the times when it arrived and the servers didn't care how we liked our meals and never really asked. On our anniversary we brought a bottle of champagne and even after telling our server it was our anniversary, nothing happened. We saw the servers singing to people the whole cruise wishing them a happy birthday, anniversary or honeymoon. Our server didn't even care it was our anniversary, didn't ask about the Champagne and what the occasion was and didn't care in general. She only cared that we were charged the $15 for corking fee, which is also very stupid. The dining rooms were not large enough and are too cramped. The servers were indifferent and they lacked a sense of urgency and real service. They always looked angry, frazzled or tired and they just didn't seem to care about us. If we have to wait for an hour, or any amount of time for a table, it no longer becomes any time dining. Our room steward was nice and our cabin was always neat and clean. We like towel animals. The comedians, magic and juggler were good. The cruise director was cool, but he made about 4 announcements a day, this is really annoying. We know what's going on from hour to hour from our fun times brochure, I don't need him announcing it every hour. Our room was on the 8th floor and right by the elevator. It was very noisy and we could always hear people. We don't know if it was the location of our room or the ship, but we could hear people constantly walking around and being 1 floor below the pool deck we heard constant scrapping and dragging of chairs. It was not always a quiet relaxing time in our room. Overall Carnival Legend was WAYYYY better than Sunshine.