Having never cruised with Carnival before, we chose the newly refurbished Sunshine, formerly the Carnival Destiny, because of the itinerary. After spending three wonderful days in Barcelona, we set out to board the ship and looked forward to going to Marseilles, Florence, Rome, Naples, Dubrovnik, Venice overnight, and Messina before returning to Barcelona.

Embarkation was surprisingly problematic. We arrived at the cruise terminal in Barcelona early and were handed a card with a zone number for check in. There was a computer glitch which resulted in going into manual check in mode. After calling zones one and two, the zone check in approach was abandoned which resulted in people standing in line for several (three to four) hours waiting to check in.

After boarding, we found that the ship had some positives: it was clean although the overall ambience and décor was suited more for the Caribbean than Europe, the en suite showers were large, the food was superb and the dining room and stateroom steward service was impeccable. Other than that, nothing memorable. Read more