Carnival Sunshine Review
Rating by category
Additional details
Ports of Call: Port Canaveral, St. Maarten, San Juan, Grand Turk
This was our first cruise as a couple. My wife had been on a Carnival ship with several family members, about 10 years ago.
Boarding:
Cabin Review
Spa Balcony
We paid for a cabin with a balcony, but we were not assigned a specific cabin upon check-in. We arrived over two hours earlier than the information we had been given, and we ended up being upgraded to a balcony cabin on the spa level. This meant our cabin was one minute from the lido deck where all the activities took place. Unfortunately, our luggage was delivered to a cabin on the sixth deck, which was our room prior to up grade. We did not discover our luggage until several hours later. Aside from a few moments of mild anxiety after being told by guest services to hunt for our baggage ourselves, we were not bothered by this.
Our cabin was beautiful. It had a flat screen TV, a very comfortable bed (with a noticeable dip where the two twin beds met to make up the king sized bed, but still comfortable), ample drawer and closet hanging space, and a nice balcony with two chairs and a table. It was quite windy for the majority of our cruise and were it not for the hook gadget on the handle the sliding door would have opened and slammed shut constantly. In fact, our neighbors could not figure out how to close their balcony door and we could hear it opening and closing in the room next door. I think our cabin was even cozier because of the wind and waves. We enjoyed the rocking of the boat while we cuddled up to watch TV. Our stateroom service team was wonderfully kind and attentive. He checked on us each time he saw us, calling us by name.
We were provided with bathrobes, which were really nice, beach towels, that we could take out on deck and regular bath towels in the shapes of different animals every day.
Port Reviews
Grand Turk
A Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville greeted us as soon as we disembarked, and it turns out this is the only hint of civilization on the island. After walking nearly 2 miles toward downtown on the main road (during which a personal car passed us only about once every 5 mins) we were met by a Canadian couple walking the opposite direction who told us there was nothing downtown. The only other vehicles on the road were occasional shuttles full of cruisers, presumably belonging to an excursion company carrying passengers to their excursions.
We proceeded down a 1/4-mile dirt road to a completely empty, beautiful beach. We were baffled at the serenity there. As we walked along the shore back toward the ship, we encountered a rusted-out ship that had been beached. A young man approached us and told us he had gotten onto the ship and there were still captain's logs and other items on the ship.
It appeared he only occupation of the islanders - indeed, the island - was to do business with cruise ship passengers. We wondered whether the island had been hit hard by a tropical storm as had occurred in St. Maarten, but after doing some research, we found no such evidence. All the buildings - with the exception of Margaritaville - were boarded-up and in disrepair.
In short, while we had a special time during our couple of hours on Grand Turk, we would not book another cruise that included Grand Turk as a port of call.
San Juan
"The City of Cats" is how I will ever remember San Juan. This was a unique city. We began the day walking the perimeter, which consists of a huge wall that once protected the city from invaders. All along the path outside the wall, feral cats prowled and slept. Many were tame and allowed us to pet them. It was neat.
Inside the wall, we walked to the castle, but we didn't feel compelled to pay admission to see the inside (I am doubtful whether the inside was any more interesting than what we saw.) There was a beautiful cemetery that was open to visitors, and we spent an hour or so walking through it.
We ate sandwiches and drank mango mojitos (with puréed mango) at Mavi, which had friendly servers and free WiFi. We finished the day drinking Puerto Rican coffee before embarking.