Carnival Sunshine Review
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We did our 16th Carnival cruise last week on the Sunshine, leaving January 10th from Port Canaveral. We were sadly not very impressed with this ship and it will likely be our only time sailing on her.
We booked a Spa Suite on deck 12 and when we boarded we found that the entire ship only had one working elevator that would take guests to decks 11-14. There were only 2 elevators even capable of this and one was broken for the duration of the cruise and from reading other reviews it has been apparently broken for a while. We're not opposed to taking the stairs normally, but as my husband had a recent knee injury and our 3 year old is slow and unsteady on stairs, this made for a big annoyance for our entire sailing. All cruise long we either had to wait for the one elevator to arrive and have room for us to get on (which took forever as everyone seems to jump on the elevators and ride the wrong direction until they eventually get where they want to be), or we made our way up multiple flights of stairs and hurt his knee more.
Our suite was roomy and we liked the layout. Unfortunately the bathroom tub was disgusting. It had rust spots trailing down the walls from the fixtures and black mold all around the top of the tub in the grout areas. Our safe was broken when we arrived - the steward had it repaired for us. Another big maintenance issue with the room was that all the sliding doors in the room (there was a sliding room partition and multiple closets with sliding doors) all had the magnets missing that kept the doors shut. We had several nights of very very rocky seas so all night long the doors would bang as they slid open, the closets had motion activated lights that all turned on as the doors slid, then the doors would slide back shut with a crash. We were up and down all night long trying to wedge things in the doors and re wedge them things shifted about and we got little sleep. Next cruise I'm bringing duct tape. Two other main issues with the room were that the balcony sliding door didn't actually lock which was concerning with a child in the room, and the room was always too warm. We woke up most nights wet with sweat. We left the balcony door cracked often during the day to get a breeze because the room stayed so warm. We didn't even bother complaining about the air issue as we frequently find Carnival rooms to be too warm and have called for maintenance before. They send a tech who puts a thermometer on the bed and if the room's at least 78 degrees he says it's within range and leaves. That's unfortunately not our "happy" range.
Cabin Review
Spa Suite
We booked a Spa Suite on deck 12 and when we boarded we found that the entire ship only had one working elevator that would take guests to decks 11-14. There were only 2 elevators even capable of this and one was broken for the duration of the cruise and from reading other reviews it has been apparently broken for a while. We're not opposed to taking the stairs normally, but as my husband had a recent knee injury and our 3 year old is slow and unsteady on stairs, this made for a big annoyance for our entire sailing. All cruise long we either had to wait for the one elevator to arrive and have room for us to get on (which took forever as everyone seems to jump on the elevators and ride the wrong direction until they eventually get where they want to be), or we made our way up multiple flights of stairs and hurt his knee more. Our suite was roomy and we liked the layout. Unfortunately the bathroom tub was disgusting. It had rust spots trailing down the walls from the fixtures and black mold all around the top of the tub in the grout areas. Our safe was broken when we arrived - the steward had it repaired for us. Another big maintenance issue with the room was that all the sliding doors in the room (there was a sliding room partition and multiple closets with sliding doors) all had the magnets missing that kept the doors shut. We had several nights of very very rocky seas so all night long the doors would bang as they slid open, the closets had motion activated lights that all turned on as the doors slid, then the doors would slide back shut with a crash. We were up and down all night long trying to wedge things in the doors and re wedge them things shifted about and we got little sleep. Next cruise I'm bringing duct tape. Two other main issues with the room were that the balcony sliding door didn't actually lock which was concerning with a child in the room, and the room was always too warm. We woke up most nights wet with sweat. We left the balcony door cracked often during the day to get a breeze because the room stayed so warm. We didn't even bother complaining about the air issue as we frequently find Carnival rooms to be too warm and have called for maintenance before. They send a tech who puts a thermometer on the bed and if the room's at least 78 degrees he says it's within range and leaves. That's unfortunately not our "happy" range.