Anyone get word from the sunshine?

[RRLLAL]

Enjoy SS. Let us know how things are going. One thing we can be sure of is that you're a valid poster and an honest person.

 

Sent using my Commodore 64

[kybluecruiser]

Enjoy SS. Let us know how things are going. One thing we can be sure of is that you're a valid poster and an honest person.

 

Sent using my Commodore 64

 

Agreed!

[Karysa]

There's a few posts from cruisers of the first cruise over on their roll call board. They pretty much mention the same issues that we have been hearing about. One family had 4 kids with them so they are understandably not happy.

 

Someone else mentioned that hey ere happy with the $650 that they received and they sound like they made the best of it. I'm sure more info will be posted in the next few days.

 

Sounds like the crew gave it their all!:)

[sailincajunns]

There's a few posts from cruisers of the first cruise over on their roll call board. They pretty much mention the same issues that we have been hearing about. One family had 4 kids with them so they are understandably not happy.

 

Someone else mentioned that hey ere happy with the $650 that they received and they sound like they made the best of it. I'm sure more info will be posted in the next few days.

 

Sounds like the crew gave it their all!:)

 

Happiness can be shared with us by others.............but misery is most often self inflicted.

 

We are BIG fans of Jimmy Buffet, and to quote JB..... we try to 'take the weather with us'..... big fans of lemonade............. half full glasses of water.

 

MOST people never even have the opportunity to cruise.......so we relish each one. The WORST cruise we ever had was a GREAT vacation;)

[Sargent_Schultz]

JH posted some more Radu pictures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sargent_Schultz]

More JH posted Radu pics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Karysa]

Happiness can be shared with us by others.............but misery is most often self inflicted.

 

We are BIG fans of Jimmy Buffet, and to quote JB..... we try to 'take the weather with us'..... big fans of lemonade............. half full glasses of water.

 

MOST people never even have the opportunity to cruise.......so we relish each one. The WORST cruise we ever had was a GREAT vacation;)

 

Some people save their whole lives for one cruise. They cherish that one and only.

 

I guess it's where your coming from.

 

Seems reasonable that a family with 4 kids would be looking forward to making fun memories in the waterpark. Blaming them for being disappointed wouldn't really be very nice at all.

[CarnivalBreeze319]

What the heck is that thing on top of the yellow waterslide? Binoculars?

[sailincajunns]

Some people save their whole lives for one cruise. They cherish that one and only.

 

I guess it's where your coming from.

 

Seems reasonable that a family with 4 kids would be looking forward to making fun memories in the waterpark. Blaming them for being disappointed wouldn't really be very nice at all.

 

No doubt any folks on board with kiddos were more than likely rightfully disappointed........did not intend my post as a 'blame' against anyone, and I apologize if that is how I conveyed it. We were in Galveston waiting for Triumph on Feb 10............. course, she never made it into port the next day............. and I can assure you the two grandkids with us were quite disappointed.

 

Thanks for pointing out the possibility that my post could be seen that way.......and again, if anyone was offended or upset, my apologies.

 

Just trying to share a general philosophical statement, not a judgment.

 

Thanks again, Merci

[spencercoop]

What the heck is that thing on top of the yellow waterslide? Binoculars?

 

I've been wondering the same thing as well.

[Aim1]

Yaaawwwn!

 

Well that's Dave on his flight to Barcelona and me back into work. It's just coming up to 7am here and I've been up 4 hours already, today is going to be a LONG day!

[Sargent_Schultz]

Yaaawwwn!

 

Well that's Dave on his flight to Barcelona and me back into work. It's just coming up to 7am here and I've been up 4 hours already, today is going to be a LONG day!

 

Sounds like me, except I'm going on a cruise ship! Oh, wait...

[4FanTrashCan]

To follow up on my earlier post, the ship certainly was not finished and in my opinion it is likely our friends were bumped from their rooms to make room for the contractors. I have been told both overbooked and to make room for contractors by Carnival directly. You decide.

Carnival did take care of our friends and they are satisfied with the arrangements and compensation, but nothing for us.

 

We were on the new Deck 12 and the balcony is absolutely worth it especially to escape the sewage fumes. If you don't mind grinders, saws, hammers, and drills going all day long starting at 0800 every morning right outside your door, then this is a great floor to stay on. We certainly didn't care for it on the days we stayed on the ship, but obviously it was not an issue when we were off the ship. The water to the toilet, sink, and shower were all shut off one of the evenings, of course right at the time my wife was soaped up taking a shower. They certainly had and still have plenty to finish on this ship.

 

The ports are outstanding and made the vacation wonderful and given the fallout of our other traveling companions that had our excursion reservations, we decided to venture on our own and are certainly pleased with all that we were able to experience. Most stops had some kind of Carnival shuttle that took you to the end of the pier or even into town. Most times we grabbed a taxi to the train station. Most ports were pretty easy to navigate via train like Le Cinque Terre, Pisa, Florence and Rome. For some we grouped up with others and shared a taxi or rented one by ourselves for the day such as Pompeii and Amalfi Coast or Mt Etna or Drach Caves in Mallorca. I certainly recommend getting a SIM card with a 1GB data plan from TIM when you get to La Spezia if you want to use your phone to look up train schedules or navigation. I think it was $20EU.

 

While I was already aware to ask for upfront pricing such as for taxi fair, I certainly did not imagine I would have to use this knowledge on the ship, but such was the case for the Cloud 9 Spa. I along with 5 other individuals that I spoke with received a price for a massage (massages or manicures/pedicures for others). Once the service was complete an outrageous bill was presented for payment. In our case we booked a couples massage for two for a quoted total of $279. Upon completion, we were both presented individual bills of $195 each for the 1-hour massage. Upon request for clarification they "forgot" to include a $-36 special discount. Hmmm still equals $318. Only explanation is that their system must be screwed up and also ensured to state that tips were not included. If you are still planning to get a massage, I would recommend that you request a room that is no where near the main entry door as it slams shut every 1-2 minutes with people traveling in and out. Not very relaxing. Perhaps the rooms will also get vent covers in the ceiling soon too so they don't have to use towels to cover the exposed holes and falling insulation directly over the massage tables.

 

We did have access to some of the Cloud 9 Spa amenities such as the steam rooms as part of our room package. This was certainly worth the upgrade even though not all of the functions like the Hot/Tropical/Fresh showers worked yet. It was interesting to watch the staff try to sell this unusable feature to potential, unsuspecting new customers. The heated stone chairs were great after a long day of hiking and we enjoyed this feature quite a bit.

 

MDR food was Ok, staff was outstanding, Guy's burgers was very good when it was open, the entertainment was very, very good both the headline shows and the comedians. The Market Place buffet food was definitely closed way more often than we had anticipated.

 

If you are on Deck 12 expect to hear all of the Deck 14 chairs getting moved every night around 12:30. Took us a while the first night to figure out what the heck was going on.

 

If you are planning to cruise on the Sunshine, expect to have the smell of sewer on most of the decks. We were greeted with it every time we returned to the ship on Deck Zero, always smelled it on Deck 3 and 4, and always smelled it on our Deck 12. I don't recall smelling it on Lido or in the MDR however.

 

The Fun Day at Sea wasn't much fun since the main pool was closed, the Serenity pool was closed, the Serenity hot tub was closed, and when we checked in the afternoon, the water slides were closed and the high ropes course was closed. The latter wasn't even scheduled to be open until 3PM???

 

The evening photos were nice and the photographers were fun even at $22 a piece plus the 20% Value Added Tax (recoverable in Barcelona). The Candy shop is almost $9 bucks a pound for just about everything. The Liquid Lounge is certainly suitable for their evening shows as well as DJ'ed night club. The DJ's were excellent. Also props to a Mr. Price that was buying hundreds of shots each night for everyone in the club. I think at least 1,500 or more over the course of the cruise.

 

We didn't fork out any additional for the Italian, Asian, or Steakhouse, but did hear excellent reviews of the Steakhouse and Ji Ji's. Poor reviews for the Italian place. I thought it odd that the potential steakhouse scenery out the huge windows provides only an outstanding view of the life boats.

 

Certainly Carnival had a business decision to make regarding staying in port to finish the ship or get it out to sea. The later was most likely a cheaper business decision, but certainly not a great impression for our first experience with Carnival. Obviously thousands of folks have had good and bad experiences on their cruises, but this was ours. It will likely be our only experience with Carnival.

[dclark]

We were on the new Deck 12 and the balcony is absolutely worth it especially to escape the sewage fumes.

 

What a compelling reason to cruise with CCL!

[sumguy1]

rented one by ourselves for the day such as Pompeii and Amalfi Coast or Mt Etna or Drach Caves in Mallorca.

 

Thanks for the review, I want to ask you how much were yo quoted for the Amalfi taxi? i need to know if renting off the ship is any better than booking online ahead of time. Was it a taxi or a limo ?

[4FanTrashCan]

Thanks for the review, I want to ask you how much were yo quoted for the Amalfi taxi? i need to know if renting off the ship is any better than booking online ahead of time. Was it a taxi or a limo ?

Our driver for this port, Nino, was the best of all the taxi drivers. He quoted $70EU a piece for the whole day. This was no where near the normal rate that all the rest of the drivers were requesting. He was at the back of the taxi line and took his chances just to get some business I think. He drove us to Pompei and got us there 5 minutes before the park opened at 8:30 a.m. and waited for us for 2 hours. There was absolutely no one there for almost the first half hour and was great. He then drove us to Amalfi Coast, as well as two other nearby towns, Conca dei Marini and Positano, where we walked around for about two hours. Given that our anniversary was on this day, he recommended the Grotto Dell Smeraldo (I think was the name), which was a very nice cave at the bottom of the coast accessed via an elevator ride with a short little boat ride for $5EU. He then drove us to Sorento for an hour or so for us to explore before heading back to Naples. He offered to drop us off directly at the ship or in the center of town to do some more shopping. So for just the two of us for the whole day we certainly felt $140 EU (or $180 US) was well worth it especially on such a special day. Obviously he went out of his way for us and received a very nice tip which he was not expecting but extreamly appreciative of. I think he had as much fun as we did.

I do not exactly recall the rate the other drivers were requesting but thought it was at least $200EU or more and only included Pompei and Sorento - no Amalfi Coast and not for the whole day.Ours was simply being at the right place at the right time. I don't think we could have pre-planned for it to work out this wonderful. All we were really going to do was grab the train into Pompei - so glad we ran into Nino instead. What a great memerable day!!!