We drove up to cocoa beach the night before and stayed at International Palms that had a park and stay option, if you wanted to park your car off port. Embarkation went more smoothly than past cruises and were on the ship within 30 minutes after arriving to port and dropping bags off.

We chose the Carnival Sunshine because of the ports it traveled to interested us the most. Our favorite thing about the ship were the new food options we never had before on other Carnival ships; BlueIguana, Cucina, Fahreneheit 555 steakhouse, and Guys Burgers. We only dined 2 times in the main dining room. We did the steakhouse the first night because they do a complimentary bottle of wine with dinner, plus it was our anniversary cruise so they surprised us with a glass of champagne and a dessert that was not on their menu. We dined the following two nights in the dining room and didn't have that great of an experience as opposed to other carnival cruises where we dined every night there. We chose your time dining for the first time. The first day, elegant night, we waited almost 30 minutes for dinner. I just remember service was a little all over the place and my food came out cold. The following night was better, but we went a third night and ended up leaving after our appetizer because it took so long for it to arrive; we were missing other events on the ship. We ended up eating at the lido buffet or other restaurants on the ship the rest of the time.

The cabin was nice, we chose front of the ship to be away from elevators and were close to the front decks of the ship. My only complaint was the bridge hung over our balcony and obstructed some of the pictures I would take on my canon. Read more