ufyellowfin

Have done some research but having a hard time deciphering some of the posts. The food usually tends to get a bad rap on this ship but is that just in the main dining room? Is the food in the pay restaurants better? Is there a place where I could see prices for the restaurants? I'm trying to find what's included and what's extra once ur on the ship.

Also how is the kids club? Some comments about the crew not speaking good English is ok with me but I'm not sure if my kids will do well without being able to communicate.

Just got off the phone with a Carnival Rep after dialing 1-888-672-2582 which is the # I have always dialed to speak with Michael or someone in the Casino Dept only to be told that they are no longer speaking with us verbally :(

 

I was told to either leave a voice mail (which she did transfer me to) or send an email to casino@carnival.com and its a 3 day turnaround...

 

 

Has anyone spoken to Michael or anyone else directly in the Casino Dept very very recently, and if so, what # did you dial ?

 

The reason I want to verbally speak to someone is that I did email them about 4 weeks ago, never got a response and we're leaving next Thursday...

 

Thanks

Well they may be a little leery letting FSU fans in the casino........... just kidding

Def a shark and a good sized one. Hard to tell what kind with the glare but shape of the head looks like its a good fairly big Tiger.

It wasn’t long before we had to reign in the kids to get ready for dinner. We had opted for Early Dining. We’ve always done early dining but want to try late or your time but decided for this cruise we would stick with early. We had been wait listed for early dining since we booked so late but thanks to John Heald, it was worked out to where we were able to do the early.

 

Our table for 6 was located on the upper level of the Sunrise dining room right behind the Maitre d stand.

 

When we were seated the first night we were told that we had the best wait staff in the dining room - unfortunately this didn’t hold true.

 

All of our wait staff was friendly, but not as personable as on previous cruises.

 

Now remember that I’m a glass half full gal but our dining room service sucked. There just isn’t a better word for it.

 

We were all on time and all ordered at the same time every night. Our appetizers would be brought out at different times, things that we asked for we might or might not get. Water glasses wouldn’t be refilled. Dinner was a long drawn out chore to say the least. Always in cruises past when the entertainment portion of dinner come around we would normally be finishing up with dessert. However, this trip we were lucky if we had even gotten our entrees at that point. We were in the dining room a minimum of 1 hour ad 30 minutes to up to 2 hours some nights.

 

Our food on the other hand was wonderful. I don’t think anyone ordered anything that they didn’t really care for except the fried chicken. Mary ordered it one night and said it just didn’t have any flavor to her.

 

Glen loves the flat iron steak and ordered it every night. Collin is just not a meat eater so he ordered off the kids menu the first night but ended up eating the majority of Glen’s flat iron steak. Collin ended up ordering the flat iron the rest of the week and ate all of it every night – we were shocked! Hope is the meat eater so I think she had it almost every night too. I like a variety of things so I had fish the first night if I remember correctly.

 

Collin loves the strawberry bisque soup that is served on the first or second night. We asked if he could have it every night following and they brought him some every night – some nights he had 2 bowls of it. I was very thankful to our wait staff for doing that for Collin. It is really good – kind of like a melted strawberry milkshake if you’ve never had it before.

 

After dinner we headed back to the cabin for a few minutes and still found our sink hadn’t been cleaned. Glen went in search of our cabin steward and asked again if he could get it cleaned for us. When we got back to the cabin later that night it had finally been taken care of.

 

We went to the Welcome Aboard show with the cruise director Calvyn. I believe this was his first week on the Sunshine. It was a cute show but right off the bat I knew he wasn’t going to be one of our favorite cd’s. I feel like I’m beginning to sound like a broken record and I sure don’t mean to. I think Glen pretty much hit the nail on the head when he said he seemed “fake”. Maybe it was just nerves, I don’t really know.

 

That pretty much wraps up our embarkation day.

Been waiting most of the day for the next post lol. Not happy to hear about the wait staff but i guess it happens. One question I have is about John Heald (sp?) I know he is the lead CD or something for CCL but lots of people talk about him like he's possibly in their "framily" plan on AT&T. How do i become friends with him???

Welcome to CC, Yellowfin! Did you discover the family cruising forum yet?

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=49

Maureen-

Thanks, yes I have. Lots and lots of info on there. My wife and kids have no idea of the trip at this point. It is going to be a surprise for my wife since she pretty much knows shes getting a new iPad. I have started off printing itineraries, ship photos, menus, kids club things and lots of cat in the hat stuff. I am going to wait till the last gifts are done then hand the kids a stuffed Cat in the Hat wrapped up and haven't decided what to give my wife. Then I am going to give the kids their own and my wife her own "guidebook," or scrapbook that I am putting together. Hopefully they are as excited as I am.

I posted a thread on the carnival portion of this site about trying to find two more to split a fishing charter in Cozumel with me and my dad, but it got deleted for some reason.

I forgot to say that Carnival also issues cell phones to parents of the really small children. They will call you if your little one needs a nap. Not sure how many they issue but I have been told this is done on all their ships.

Thanks so much for all the info, this forum is amazing.

What time does Guest Services open ? If we have purchased FTTF will it be open then so we can make reservations for the Cat In The Hat?

How is the Promenade OV rooms like 5316?

Thank you both again. Yeah both Myself and My parents bought FTTF the other day. I think I got the 12 left and they got the 11th so theres not many more. Once I found out that it just didnt get you on the boat faster but allowed you to go to the room and drop bags off, I was in.

This site is so incredible the amount of information is mind boggling and how many people are monitoring this site at any time during the day makes it very unique.

Does anyone have any experience with rooms on the Promenade in the rear. We have an OV back there just wondering if it will be ok?

Thank you both for the info. I just purchased the FTTF as I did not know it helped with the tenders. I did read that the Camp on Sunshine was smaller before we booked but not too terribly worried about it. Both of mine are easily entertained and entertainment themselves, but thanks for the heads up. Right now the plan is not to keep them there all day but i think we may do what you said drop them off in the morning and then pick them up for lunch and pool time then drop them back off if theyre having a good time.

One other question i cant find the answer to is naps. Do they call the parent if the child is tired or do they offer nap time like at daycare or preschool? Or should I just expect to go get him and give him a nap at some point in the afternoon?

Sorry, as you can see I'm new here. I have scoured most of the different forums and have gained so much knowledge in the last few days from this site. I do have some questions about this ship mostly dealing with the kids. We are sailing in May on a 7 night WC with Myself, Wife and 2 kids 5 and almost 3 and also my parents in a separate cabin.

The Camp Carnival i was able to see someone post a lot about it but how does the actual "orientation" work. We have 6pm dinner and the paper i saw showed that parents must attend this orientation thing from 5:30-8??? Is that correct? It looks like they don't provide lunch on at-sea days so do most people take the kids after lunch?

I noticed that some people are talking about splash pads and smaller pools on ships. Does the Sunshine have either of these?

We are taking a limo from Orlando to the terminal the morning of the sailing and I was wondering if the Fast to the Cabin thing is worth the 45 bucks?

I am sure I will think of some more or do some more snooping around for answers. I also have some about excursions but I reckon I'll post those in the proper Ports.