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Thanks so much for reading along!

Thanks so much for reading along!

(Disclaimer: This “story” begins BEFORE our cruise and gives some of the background leading up to the cruise. If you prefer to skip this part, that’s totally fine. I hope to have the beginning of the actual cruise posted in the next couple of days BUT, if you want to read the WHOLE story from beginning to end then you are MY people and here we go!) Dear Cruise Critic Friends, what follows is my “story” of our cruise on the Carnival Sunshine. This story will include the thoughts and experiences of multiple people because, for the first time, we’re doing a group cruise! There are rough seas, missed ports and getting to know a dolphin. There’s ropes course fun and friendships that became deeper because of the experience. The story is mine because it’s told by me. (I know because I recognize the voices in my head as I’m writing!) Thanks for reading along and, without further ado, I present to you the story of Carnival Sunshine – February 2023. Carnival Sunshine – Take two! Way, way back in very early 2020 before the world fell apart (remember that??), a group of friends from church decided that a group cruise out of Charleston was just the thing we needed. The number varied a bit over the years. In the beginning eight people agreed to set out on our first group adventure. Most of us booked more than a year out, never imagining what would happen in just a few short months. Of course, COVID happened. Our cruise was cancelled. In the backs of our minds, we sort of focused on “next time” and hoped things would improve. Fast forward a couple of years and here we are again. Cruising has successfully resumed, some of us had cruised since 2020 and the time was right to try the group cruise again. This time we are twelve strong! So….as we get started into this “story” let me introduce the characters (and some of them are REALLY characters): Ron and myself are both real estate appraisers and avid cruisers. This would be our 12th cruise. In the past we were only able to sail once a year but over the past couple of years, we’ve managed to work out two cruises a year. Woo hoo!! I’m super excited about that! Nothing I love more than a good cruise! You might remember that Ron took a job for a southeastern bank chain a couple of years ago. At the end of last year, he decided to go back into appraising full-time. (He missed me! I know I missed him! We’re weird like that…..working together every day and STILL staying married! The truth is, he’s my very best friend and there’s NO ONE I’d rather spend my time with than him, at work or at play!) Aaron and Liz are the ages of our children. I have no idea why they like hanging out with senior citizens such as ourselves, but I’m grateful that they do! They have both cruised multiple times, probably about the same number as us, and once with Ron and me. (That was on the Sunrise in 2021 if you want to look up that “story”.) We even convinced Aaron to try the ropes course on that cruise. It’s possible that we are bad influences! This time we would talk him into trying snorkeling AGAIN even though his beard caused him to “take on water” the last time. Liz is ready for pretty much anything (except sharks…and stingrays) and Aaron loves the casino. I really don’t understand table games and I barely figured out a slot machine so if I have casino related questions, he’s my “go to”. Derrick and Lucinda are first time cruisers. We’re so excited to have them along! They’ve been waiting and planning for this cruise for a long time and I was hoping it would be an awesome experience for them. Derrick was super excited to get into that clear, blue Caribbean water. He was down for a snorkel tour. Suits me just fine because I love to snorkel! He and I found a shore excursion in Bimini where you could go down in a shark cage. We were pretty excited about that possibility until we learned that it was going to cost us $800 each. Umm…..maybe not……. Liz was NOT having the shark idea at all, so she was thrilled to learn that it was so cost prohibitive. We booked the Sapona shipwreck excursion instead. Derrick kept our group chat hopping leading up to this cruise! The next to book were Daryl and Frances. This is also their first cruise. Frances is an animal lover and was truly looking forward to seeing some sea creatures. She immediately signed up to get up close and personal with a dolphin at Blue Lagoon. Daryl is an avid gardener and basically has the best produce ANYWHERE! They agreed to travel to Charleston, which is our embarkation port, with us. It was great to hear some of their stories. Emory and Cami booked. Cami had BOTH knees replaced just before Christmas. She’s an Amazon! For a little while she was planning on doing that surgery just a couple of weeks before we were supposed to leave. She was DETERMINED to go regardless. I’m so, so glad her surgery was moved to an earlier date and now she’s getting along quite well. Emory and Cami have sailed on both Royal Caribbean and Carnival. Derrick was especially happy to have Emory along. (Emory is another one of those “characters” that I mentioned earlier. Throw Ron, Aaron or Bobby into the mix and…..well, keep reading!) Cami is a beach bum and is very happy to spend some time in the sand and sun. Emory and Cami both wanted to visit with a dolphin, too. Cami is a PA and our resident “drug dealer”. She kept several of our group in motion sickness patches. We wouldn’t realize how valuable those patches would be until the first full day of our cruise. Finally, just a few weeks before the cruise, Bobby and Kim decided to join us. This is also their first cruise. We were super excited that they were able to make it! Both were ready to check out Bimini from a golf cart and also head to Blue Lagoon for the dolphin encounter. Bobby and I kept exchanging screen shots of the “days to cruise”. It couldn’t get here fast enough to suit us! In the last week leading up to the cruise Aaron took over the very important job of reminding us how many days we had to wait. With everyone booked, the players assembled, and work schedules arranged, we settled in to plan while we waited and watched our countdown. One of the first orders of business was to link all the bookings and dining together so we could all sit together at dinner. I was really hoping for a table by a window! I started working with a PVP a year or so ago. There were some hits and misses as we were getting started with her, but it had since evened out and she was a great help in getting everything arranged. Combining and arranging the schedules of a dozen people is no small task! Christmas came and went. In my mind there’s the Christmas season and then there’s CRUISE SEASON! I was excited before Christmas but AFTER Christmas it was getting REAL! We all booked the Isle of Palms – Hampton Inn in Charleston for the night before the cruise. They were really nice and helpful on the phone. They agreed to let us leave as many cars there as we wanted during the cruise for no extra charge. That was going to help us cut down on parking expenses. As always, Hampton always includes breakfast, so it seemed like a good solution even though it was about 15 – 20 minutes from the port. At $107, it was a hard deal to pass up….so we didn’t! We booked shore excursions. As I said, Ron and I love to snorkel. Liz and Aaron had also done some snorkeling and Derrick and Lucinda were more than ready to take the plunge with us. (Liz’s one requirement for snorkeling is that the sharks were not allowed to come around. Umm……sure?!? I’ll try????) The rest of our crew decided that they’d rather explore than swim, so they planned to rent golf carts in Bimini to see the sights. In Nassau Cami and Emory, Frances and Daryl and Kim and Bobby decided to go to Blue Lagoon to do the Dolphin Encounter excursion. Ron and I had been there with Liz and Aaron in 2021 so we opted to go with Derrick and Lucinda to the Junkanoo Beach in Nassau. This would be my 5th visit to Nassau and I still hadn’t made it to Junkanoo Beach. I’d passed it on land and on water so it seemed like I should actually visit the beach. I also wanted to go to West Hill St. to, hopefully, see the umbrella street and then join everyone else at the beach. I also was considering a quick stop at Ardastra Gardens to see the flamingos. Much of that was up in the air so we’d have to see what the day held. I usually have a very clear plan but, on this day, there would be a lot of “winging” it. We waited….and waited….and waited…(how many more sleeps??) and it was FINALLY time to check in. This was the liveliest check-in I can remember! We opted to ALL stay up to midnight to get the earliest times possible. Derrick kept a running commentary on our group chat of how much more time until check-in. Liz hung out at my house until midnight. It was a lot of fun. Derrick was right..it felt a lot like New Year’s Eve but BETTER! Five minutes before check in times opened and I felt like we need a drum roll. Maybe a starting bell like they used to have on “Let’s Go to the Races!” (Remember that? You used to get tickets at the grocery store for televised horse races that were shown on Saturday morning? They rang a bell when the chutes opened? Only me?? Ummm…..I’ll just be over here being embarrassed.) One week to go. Can work possibly go any slower?!? All reports were delivered, emails were answered, the office shut down and it was FINALLY time to go. FINALLY! Friday, February 3rd, 2023 – Travel to Charleston, SC We were up bright and early. It never takes me long to get ready when we’re leaving for a cruise. I like to leave as early as possible because, otherwise, I will sit around twiddling my thumbs and trying not to mess up anything in my house that I just cleaned. We were meeting part of our group at 8am at our church, which was close to I-77 and a good place to leave a car. After a quick biscuit at Tudor’s (you’ve seen them make an appearance in past stories!) we headed to the church to meet Daryl and Frances, Liz and Aaron and Derrick and Lucinda. Kim and Bobby were taking a slight detour so they could visit a family member and drop off Kim’s mom so she could visit with Kim’s sister for a week. In a cruel twist of fate, Cami’s job scheduled a REQUIRED training the morning that we were leaving. It was only supposed to be for a couple of hours but still….that feels like a mean trick! I know that I always have a serious case of “vacationitis” and I also KNOW that I’m not the only one. We gathered at the church, moved Daryl and Frances’s luggage to our car and took off following Aaron and Liz. Aaron and Liz have sailed from Charleston several times so they were our resident experts. Everyone was already laughing and joking. Let the journey begin! In the car with Daryl and Frances Aaron and Liz have sailed out of Charleston before so we opted to follow them. We took off with them in the lead and Derrick and Lucinda following us. The plan was to stop at Jimmy John’s (Aaron’s favorite) in Columbia for lunch. Being that we’re us, it was necessary to stop in the middle somewhere to drop off and take on liquids. LOL The plan was to travel down early, see a bit of Charleston, SC and meet everyone else at the hotel so we could go to dinner together. Following Aaron and Liz.... ...with Derrick and Lucinda following us! Our trip was uneventful and went as expected. We did stop at Jimmy John’s. At that point we were a little less than two hours out of Charleston. I must pause here to point out that it was cold. Really cold! Like 35 degrees cold! It’s supposed to be in the 60’s in South Carolina! Apparently not this time. This makes a couple of times that our cruise has turned unseasonably cold. Ron has decided that going forward we will be cruising in the late spring instead of winter. I wanted to visit the Charleston Historic Market and check out that part of town. We came into town, found a parking building and set off on foot for the Market. It was good to stand up and walk around for a minute! The Charleston Historic Market is a long narrow building that seems to cover several blocks. There are several local vendors selling lots of different items. Ron and I purchased a drawing of the famous Rainbow Row and got our obligatory magnet and Christmas ornament that we get everywhere we go. Entrance to Charleston Historic Market Inside Market U. S. Custom House immediately across the street from the Market After walking all the way through the interior of the market, we walked down the street immediately beside the market and looked in the little shops as we passed. One of those sold fudge. Sign me up! I got a piece of peanut butter fudge. Liz got an ice cream. I tried to get everyone to break off a piece of fudge to sample as we walked toward our next stop, the historic pineapple fountain. The pineapple fountain is in a park bordering the waterfront. Liz told us that the ship would be docking literally right where we were. We walked around the park and out on the dock. A young man was selling sweetgrass roses and gave one to Frances. You could see a small island with a white cross out in the water. According to the internet, this is Pinckney Island. The cross is there to give peace and reassurance to all those sailing from Charleston. I thought it was a nice touch! Also on that island is Castle Pinckney. Back to the internet for more info! Apparently this is a small fort that was constructed in the Charleston Harbor in 1810. It was used for a short time as a prisoner of war camp and for artillery during the Civil War. Very interesting! In the distance was an amazing looking bridge. It was a perfect day, except that it was very cold and windy. Park (I didn't catch the name) Pineapple Fountain Dock On dock looking toward cruise terminal Ron and Daryl walking along waterfront in the park Pinckney Island After our walk around the park, we agreed that it was time to go find our hotel. Cooper River Bridge In the distance from the Historic District in Charleston you could see that impressive bridge that I just mentioned. I don’t know why I was so interested in this bridge, but I really liked it. Back to the internet! Apparently, this is the Cooper River Bridge. It was very cool, and I was pretty excited to drive across and get an “up close and personal” view. I’m easily amused, I guess! We crossed the bridge, drove a few minutes and found our hotel. For whatever reason, Waze gave some really wonky directions to this hotel. It isn’t that complicated when you get there but Waze had all kinds of trouble with it. It’s within walking distance of several restaurants and shops. Immediately behind the hotel in a little strip mall was the Crazy Mason. I’ve been to the Crazy Mason in Gatlinburg, TN. They serve these amazing, HUGE milkshakes with loads of “things” on top like pies, cakes, cookies, etc. All the shakes are served in mason jars. They also have some fantastic sundaes, especially the waffle sundaes. It would turn out that I was too full from dinner to enjoy the Crazy Mason or any other ice cream. Maybe next time! We checked into our hotel. It was probably about 5pm at this point. Not long after we checked in, we heard from the rest of our group that they were pulling into the hotel, and everyone was ready to find dinner. It was probably around 6:30 when we left to walk over for dinner. Second Floor of hotel Looking down into breakfast area In looking at Yelp we had learned that there was a restaurant called “Toast All Day” very close to the hotel. The menu looked great but, alas, they closed at 3pm. (The logo had two champagne flutes and they served mimosas, so I assumed that was the “toast”. Based on their hours of operation, they might have been referring to breakfast toast. I may never know!) We opted instead for a place called King Street Grille. It was a couple of blocks from the hotel, right across the parking lot from the Toast place. We walked over with Liz and Aaron, Derrick and Lucinda. Daryl and Frances opted to ride with Cami and Emory. Kim and Bobby met us there. King Street Grille is part restaurant and part sports bar. The walls are lined with televisions playing different sports events. I’m not a particularly sporty person so I didn’t pay much attention to what was on the various televisions. I did notice the UK women’s gymnastics competition was happening. The restaurant served lots of burgers, steaks, chicken and pasta dishes. I had a chicken parm and Ron selected a pepper jack chicken pasta dish. We couldn’t decide which we wanted so we each ordered one and then sampled both. They were both excellent! Everyone ordered different things. Everyone agreed the food was excellent. Dinner mission accomplished! King Street Grille King Street Grille After dinner was finished, we headed back to the hotel. It was after 8 by that time. Aaron and Liz along with Kim and Bobby decided to go play Top Golf. (I’m told Liz won!) The rest of us stayed at the hotel for the evening to relax after a long drive. I personally did some ironing, and we watched a movie. Exciting stuff, I know. Long car trips always make me tired, and I was just glad to be out of the car. I was ready to turn in a little early that night because the next day was, at long last, CRUISE DAY!

I enjoy playing along. Last time I won a bingo package and $30 casino credit. No luck on the bingo but I won $300 in the casino with it. It was fun playing along and I’ll do it again.

So excited to have found your review! I love a Jamman review!! I haven’t been on the boards for a couple of days and really needed a Jamman review to get me through until we get to head out on Sunshine on Saturday,

Unfortunately it isn’t available on Vista. I think it’s only available on Mardi Gras, Celebration and Panorama.

We did the pasta class on Mardi Gras and loved it. It was one of the highlights of our cruise. We’re sailing on Celebration in November and will definitely be doing another class.

I have has this problem on older ships in an aft balcony. I don’t know about Mardi Gras but it’s possible the LNG fuel would produce less soot, I guess.

Thank you so much!

I’m traveling in a group of 12. I’ve searched online but haven’t had any success locating a shuttle service that offers 15 passenger vans. Has anyone had any experience with anything like that?

Yes, it was so much fun! I think it was probably my favorite shore excursion ever. I would do it again but there are always so many things I want to do in Cozumel I wind up doing different things.

Probably? I think it would depend on the child and how much they are able to participate. If the kids would enjoy helping to figure out clues and running through town, I think they’d have a ball. I know mine would have loved it!

We LOVED the Amazing Cozumel Race! We did it years ago when it was available through Carnival. I think it’s still available though amazingcozumelrace.com or possibly Viator.

Yes, I was booked on the third cruise and got my notice this morning. 😥

Same here! Lol.

We’re headed to Bimini for the first time. Other than snorkeling, golf carts or Resorts World, are there any other excursions you’d recommend?

I personally like the lido interior

Hey there! We also have close friends cruising with you tomorrow. I hope you have a fantastic cruise! We did not reserve in advance. We used the app at about 10am, she picked us up about 10:15 and dropped us off about 10:30. Very easy. Thanks for reading along!

Thank you so much for reading along and for your kind words!

Thank you so much for reading along and for your kind words! it was such a fun day and I know you won’t regret it! They pack a lot into 7 hours!

Thank you! I couldn’t agree more! The moon was breathtakingly beautiful that night

Thank you! I am, too! I’m also looking forward to your next review. Where are you headed next?

And here are the Fun Times for the last day...... Funtimes 4-1.pdf Funtimes 4-2.pdf

Evening came and it was time for dinner. As I said earlier, this was our 11th cruise. On every single night of every single cruise we have mostly eaten in the main dining room except for once at a specialty restaurant. On this night we decided to do something totally different. We went to the Lido buffet for dinner. I had heard that the menu was pretty much the same as what was in the main dining room. This was largely true. I love a good salad, and I always enjoy the salad bar. Jerk pork was on the main dining menu and sure enough, it was on the buffet, too. Everything that we ate was good. There were some additional things that were not available in the main dining room, such as carved turkey but there were also some things that you couldn’t get, such as chocolate melting cake or baked Alaska, which makes sense because of the ice cream. The desserts that were offered on the buffet that night were pretty “meh”. I don’t remember what we had but it certainly didn’t make an impression. I only ate a couple of bites of the dessert, promising myself I’d get some ice cream later. After dinner we went to Pixels to get our ropes course picture and then to the main theatre to see “America Rocks”. They did a fine job. It was pretty similar to all of the other Playlist productions but had mostly 70’s rock. We enjoyed the show. Waiting for the show to start Ryan introducing the show Check out his shoes! This guy has some truly unusual shoes! Brad, the pianist, would be playing in the piano bar at 9pm so we went that direction to find a seat. This was my first time on a Dream class ship. The piano bar is very open to a main traffic area. This doesn’t seem like a great layout to me. At one point, there was a long line of people waiting to get in to Punchliner. At other times, people would wander in to speak to someone they knew. There was so much talking and laughing that you couldn’t hear Brad at all. He was doing a good job but even though we were pretty close to the piano, it was just too loud to enjoy the performance. We finally gave up after about an hour. I very much prefer the piano bar to be in a dedicated room where you can actually hear what is happening. Waiting for the show to start The piano bar Brad was giving it his all We went up to get a piece of pizza and a small cup of ice cream. The next day was debarkation. It didn’t seem possible. We had decided to do self-debarkation. We hadn’t packed a single thing and we DIDN’T pack anything until the next morning. It was pretty late so we went back to our cabin for the rest of the evening. Here are some pictures from our last walk around the decks. It was a perfect evening although it was getting chilly again as we got closer to Norfolk. I love this picture! October 10th – Debarkation How is it possible that four days have already come and gone?!? We like the seven-day cruises more than the shorter cruises, but we love them all and will certainly take what we can get that works with our schedules. I was grateful we had been able to steal away for this cruise. We got up, as usual, showered and headed out for breakfast. It was around 7:00 am. We knew we had to be out of cabins by 8:30. They had already started calling for self-debarkation and were calling groups by muster stations. Since our muster station was A4, we were in an early group. I didn’t even attempt the croissant this morning. I was beaten. Defeated. No croissant this trip. (little tear) "Croissantgate" comes to an end. I'll be back on the Sunshine in February so they will HOPEFULLY have it worked out by then! We went back to our room, threw all our belongings in suitcases, spoke to Gusti to tell him goodbye, give him a thank you card with an extra tip, and headed down to deck three. The debarkation process seemed to be moving along smoothly. Ryan was directing the process wearing a cow suit complete with udders. We only waited in line about fifteen minutes, and we were walking off the ship. Very easy! We sailed through security, had nothing to declare (not even souvenirs since we didn't get to shop for any in Bermuda!) and were outside in no time at all. Ron grabbed his phone and ordered an Uber. After a few minutes, we were notified that Obed was on his way. People were coming off the ship and starting to congregate. Buses were arriving. Pedestrians were everywhere and many paid no attention whatsoever to those who were trying to direct traffic. Norfolk is having growing pains for sure, but I think they will eventually figure out a better system if they have more ships coming and going. Obed arrived. He was unaware that a ship was docking that day. We explained the embarkation and debarkation process to him. He told us that as soon as he dropped us off, he was heading back to the port area to spend a good part of the day trying to pick up some cruise passenger business. I’m glad we were able to help him and I hope he had a good day. He was really nice! We were at our car in about ten minutes. It wasn’t until after we got home that I realized he HADN’T taken our traditional “our cruise is over and now we’re pouting” picture. Oh no! I thought about cheating all of you, making Ron go out to the car right now and take it but I wouldn’t do that to you. I’ll get it the next time! So…..that’s pretty much it! We had a wonderful cruise, as always! Bermuda was gorgeous and I’m SO glad we were able to go a second time when it wasn’t raining. The Magic is a beautiful ship and although some of the food wasn’t the greatest, some of it was really good and it was all good enough that I managed to gain a few pounds. LOL I’m already looking forward to our next adventure in February on the Sunshine. This will be the first time we'll get to sail with a large group. We're sailing with four other couples who are some of our closest friends. We all go to church together. It's going to be a great cruise! Hope to see you then!

I'm not sure Tides is only for adults. Someone just posted earlier today that they had observed children in it. There weren't any children using it during our cruise but that could have just been a fluke because there weren't many children on our sailing. I seem to remember the Tides pool being off limit to kids on some of the other ships but I honestly don't know for sure. The Serenity Deck IS definitely adults only. There are several hot tubs on Serenity but no dedicated swimming pools. To be honest, in 11 cruises I've never actually been in a cruise ship swimming pool and I think I've only been in a hot tub once! LOL I usually do the water slides at least once and we do a lot of swimming in port. Hope you have a great cruise!