We sailed from February 10th to the 18th. I would say that the Sunshine is going to have to go down as the worse Carnival ship I have sailed on, 21 cruises. Granted, we had a good time, not a great time. We started by trying to save some money and park off site using GO Port Canaveral and dropped our car off by the Double Tree Hotel. From the time we arrived at the lot to arrival at the ship was an hour and a half. Didn’t even take that long to get there from Stuart. Never again! Coming back was also a disappointment. When we disembarked we went to the representative in the red polo shirt and gave her our name along with our traveling couple. They called out names and did not call our friends. Telling them we did not wish to be separated they made them ride back to the car standing up on the bus.

The ship is like traveling on a failing city. Some parts of the ship appeared new and some appeared to be worn down and looked like it hadn’t been touched since it was built. We booked a room on the 5th deck aft. Room 5320. To flush the toilet you had to press the button three times. After two days of taking a cold shower I called the front desk and they sent someone up to completely replace the faucet mechanism. The Sofa was worn out. The refrigerator did not work. The room was standard Carnival design and I like the size and design of the older bathrooms. The section of the ship is a great location to 5th deck fun and close to elevators to get to the food and water works area. The ship is not big enough for the number of travelers. During lunch people were standing to eat while the typical Carnival crowd were tying up tables playing cards. When it was dinner time reservations were up to a half hour at the least. There is no way to avoid the smoke filled casino. The mid section elevator comes up just past the casino, but when you get off it’s a dead end and you have to backtrack and go back through the casino. The fourth deck hallway dead ends into the comedy club. If it’s in use you have to go back to the middle dead end area and go through the casino. If the club is not in use then you can walk through and out to the aft elevators. Terrible design! We had to go to deck six to bypass the casino. Our friends had similar complaints. Room 5312 with no hot water, toilet that would not flush and a rattle in the ceiling that I went over and fixed.

Probably the worse part of the trip were the many medical pages into the rooms. Especially at night. Then they would page again just after you fell back to sleep and apologized for the interruption. Really! You could not get through to guest relations as the phones were all busy. Then the lies. Always fun to travel with other people to compare answers. They told us they always do this, not on my previous 21 cruises with them. Then they told us there was a “situation” and wanted us to be aware of the problem and their concern for our safety. Except they page in code so you don’t know what the problem is. Then they said it was Carnivals policy and then said it was the policy on the Sunshine. I am sure that Carnival has policy and procedures that are company wide. I would like to think that each ship does not just wing it and do whatever they want. Read more