Carnival Sunshine Review

4.0 / 5.0
1,418 reviews

Honestly better than I expected

Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Sunshine
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skittles4s
2-5 Cruises • Age 40s

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Sail Date: Nov 2014
Cabin: Ocean View

There was a lot that had me dreading my first cruise on Carnival. First off, the cruise was a retirement present to my mother and I couldn't wait to show her some of the amazing ports of call we were visiting, unfortunately my grandmother took ill and actually died immediately preceding the trip. Our cruise ship left on a Saturday but my grandmothers funeral was the Friday before in Chicago. Carnival was extraordinarily unflexible in regards to my situation and the trip insurance I had purchased through a 3rd party kept claiming my grandma's death was "preexisting" (well we are all going to die one day). When contacting carnival though, I requested if we could move to a same itinerary on a different date and pay the additional difference as well as a change fee and they refused. They stated my only option was to take the 100% loss and cancel the trip. I ended up finding a friend who could travel with me last minute. This cruise was over Veteran's day and my traveling companion just retired out of the Navy. Once again when I contacted Carnival to see if I could just switch passengers, I got several different answers. First I was told it would cost an additional $70 (even though the price of the cruise had dropped dramatically at this point) so I tried contacting another customer service representative and was told with the "military discount" it would cost an additional $510!!! After some conversation they were able to change it to just a $50 change fee, but they took away my cabin on the 8th deck and I ended up with a new cabin on the 1st deck. It was also a lot of stress on me having to jump through so many hoops after my grandmother had just died and put a really nasty taste in my mouth in regards to Carnival's customer service.

This was my third cruise. I've done one cruise with Royal Caribbean and one other cruise on Disney. I won't even try to compare all three cruise lines because I feel like all three cruise lines cater to a specific and different clientele and all are successful in their own ways.

Things I loved about my first Carnival cruise were all the options - so many bars, places to eat, daily entertainment, and its difficult to beat the price. Getting on the ship was very simple, but it didn't seem worthwhile at all to buy the "faster to the fun" pass since we were on the ship about ten minutes after those individuals. The staff were all amazingly friendly. I don't think I have one complaint about anyone that worked on that ship. Our room Steward remembered us and greeted us by name every single day, Jamie Dee was an awesome cruise director (I have no idea how she manages to exude that much energy all day long), all our wait staff was friendly. Absolutely no complaints in regards to the staff at all. For the most part, the other passengers were also very friendly. I think sometimes there was a little too much alcohol consumed and some individuals had a difficult time keeping their mouth closed during shows or comedy acts, but it didn't ruin the trip.

Cabin Review

Ocean View

Cabin 6B

I mentioned earlier that Carnival took away my deck 8 interior state room when I had to switch passengers for the trip. Luckily, they switched me to an ocean view room so the 9-10 floor hike up the stairs daily wasn't as painful. The room was actually much larger than I expected. We had two twin beds along with a sofa. This room would easily of slept 3-4 comfortably. Having now stayed in an interior cabin, an ocean view cabin, and a balcony cabin on my three cruises - I think ocean view definitely is the perfect compromise if you're on a budget. I loved the sun waking me up naturally daily.

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