Sunshine Review (Grand Scenic Ocean View)

[gospelle]

This review is a continuation of the thread "Boarding Sunshine Today" but posted here so it's easier for most people to find.

 

Let me preface my review by saying this was my 15th cruise. I've sailed about half of that on Carnival. (see my signature for exact breakdown of my cruising experience). I've always had the frame of mind that a vacation is what you make it and I'm not the sort of person to let a couple minor problems spoil my trip and this trip was no different. We had a great time overall. I know what to expect on a Carnival cruise and obviously have been happy enough by the line to book with them yet again, so you can know that I am not biased against Carnival, nor am I a Carnival "booster" (again, see my signature. half of my cruises and my next 2 are on other lines). I've been on Cruise Critic for about 13 years and have learned much from this board and like to "give back" on occasion. I will tell it like it is on this review so that you can make informed decisions about your cruising on this vessel.

 

There has been much said about this ship and its refitting in dry dock, the issues which caused the cancellation of some voyages and the ensuing work to correct and/or finish the job. I will attempt to provide you with an unbiased, honest review that addresses this in particular from my first hand experience and will provide some notes of this cruise experience in general. For those who may read this thread many months from when it was posted, my sailing took place out of Venice, Italy for 12 nights beginning on July 28, 2013 on Carnival Sunshine.

 

Okay, lets begin…

 

On the first day I went to my cabin, 9126 which was a Grand Scenic Ocean View. This was one of the several new cabins installed during dry dock a couple months earlier. The initial impression when I opened the door was, "wow, what a great view". The second impression was, "gee, those air conditioning fans sure are loud".

 

There are two enormous windows and a third, smaller one which provided almost 180 deg. views out the front of the ship. The space was very large. We had 3 in the cabin so the couch was done up into a king sized bed, plus the main king bed, plus a comfy lounger on top of that! Two closets, a vanity and standard bathroom. Easily the nicest room layout I've ever had. The room almost made up for the issues it had. almost.

 

After unpacking, we turned on the TV to see if there were any features like pay movies or menu ordering (there wasn't) and noticed that we had to turn up the volume a long way just to hear it over the fans. We didn't pay too much attention to it as we were in a hurry to head out for a bite and then go explore Venice. We came home that evening, had showers and then headed off to explore the ship. On the way out I turned down the air conditioning to a more neutral level as it had been very cold. Upon returning to the cabin that evening we discovered the "noisy" fans we had heard earlier in the day had in fact been the quiet mode. Now the fans were squealing so bad it was obvious we were going to have trouble sleeping. I contacted Guest Services to see if someone could come fix it.

 

A maintenance fellow came by eventually around 12:30am. He looked at it and said he could not fix it tonight, maybe tomorrow. He stuck a towel in one vent which stopped that one from making noise, but left the second one as otherwise we'd have no air conditioning at all and said he'd come back the next morning to fix it.

 

The noise from the one fan cycled from noisy to real noisy to a sort of squealing-jet-engine-insanity and then back to just noisy. It did this all night long. I woke several times, my wife couldn't sleep at all until she put ear plugs in.

 

We stayed on the ship the next day as we were departing Venice at 2pm anyway. By departure time, we went to the cabin to watch the sail away, which in that room was easily the most fantastic thing I'd ever seen from a cabin. The view was stunning. The fans were still the same as the night prior. The maintenance fellow had not come back to fix it. I took the opportunity to explore a bit. The ceiling access panels to the air conditioning exhaust and intakes just popped off so I had a look inside and in the exhaust vents there was just a duct that went out of sight so I couldn't see anything worthwhile there but in the intakes there were adjustable baffles which were obviously just stuffed in and not hooked up.

 

Another visit to Guest Services ended up with one of the staff following me up to the room to hear for themselves. When the girl heard the noise she understood right away the issue and within a few minutes the maintenance fellow was back. We chatted and I told him I knew about some of the problems with the workers during dry dock and he gave a little "you have no idea" sort of laugh and said, "it was bad". So after our chat, rather than attempt to fix anything, he confessed that the system was not yet finished and there was nothing he could do. Setting the thermostat on cold kept the vent mostly open so it went into "insane-squealing-mode" less often, but even then it was real bad and the room was uncomfortably cold. The prospect of another 11 nights like that made me worry that I might be forced to take Carnival up on their satisfaction guarantee and leave the ship.

 

I went back to Guest Services to see what if anything could be done. I relayed the message (to the same girl who witnessed the noise first hand) that due to the air conditioning not being completed in dry dock the staff were not able to fix it at this time. I mentioned that in every other way I was in love with this cabin, and asked could anything be done. She disappeared in the back room for a while and came back to declare, "what you've been told is unfortunately true" and offered, thankfully, to move me to a new cabin.

 

We were shown a small verandah suite (7148) which we accepted. So, much of our 2nd night was spent packing, moving and unpacking again into our new space. There wasn't nearly as much open space and the view wasn't as good, but it had a balcony which was nice and most importantly it meant we could sleep at night. While we were moving between cabins, I had the opportunity to talk in the hall with a couple of the guests in cabins a couple doors down from our original one to see if they had the same issue. I let them hear our cabin and they indicated their fans were also loud, but not nearly as bad as ours was. I took a video which I'll post later so you can all hear exactly what I'm talking about.

 

I will add also that on some occasions I thought the air coming out of the fan had a subtle "exhaust" or "burning metal" smell to it. I also noticed this smell in the halls of deck 9 and 10 forward (the new sections). I'm not sure if this is a remnant of the welding process which will eventually fade away or if it's a symptom of the air conditioning problem or something else.

 

I can't say enough about the guest services staff member who helped me. She was understanding and helpful in an above-and-beyond sort of way. I hope my note to management at the end of the cruise sees her get a big bonus, she sure deserves it. With very few exceptions, our interaction with staff was a great experience.

 

The replacement cabin had a few minor issues but nothing worth mentioning, although I will say it has a poorly designed bathroom which requires you to sit on the toilet at a 45 degree angle but other than that is quite comfortable. It has a balcony with 3 chairs and small table. 2 of the chairs recline. It has tons of closet space, drawers and storage and the air conditioning is quiet.

 

As some previous reviews have mentioned bad smells I've been paying attention as I walk around and I can confirm that in some areas there is indeed a bit of a foul smell in some places but it is subtle and never seemed to be anywhere I needed to linger so it never really bothered me.

 

What I've noticed a lot more than smells, is leaks! The Sunshine has more leaks than I've ever seen before on a ship and there were buckets catching the drips everywhere it seems. They are outside the dining area, in the halls, outside the elevators, on various decks, fore and aft and they've got ceiling panels open near many of the buckets. During our galley tour section of the Chef's Table dinner, I noticed the galley had several leaks too (and without buckets, just pooling on the floor). I was not allowed to take photos in the galley or I would have snapped pictures of that, but I did get pictures of the leaks around the ship so I'll post some of those later. I seemed to spot a new leak every day, and while some were in the same spot day after day, some appeared randomly. A bucket appeared outside our cabin on day 3 catching a drip, then it was gone. I've never seen anything quite like it on a ship before. I can't say what the cause is, but it's weird for sure.

 

The only other oddity that may be related to the dry dock stuff was in our original cabin 9126, the toilet "flush" was a bit odd. If you've been on a ship before, or gone to the bathroom on an airplane, you're familiar with the 3 second "suck" noise that is the flush on those types of toilets. Well, in this cabin it's a 15 second "suck". It did the job, but I think it's not calibrated properly or something.

 

That is about it for possible dry dock related issues that continued as of our cruise. Everything else seemed to be on par with other Carnival ships I've been on. A few hiccups here and there, but nothing else out of the ordinary.

 

Food is typical Carnival fare. I like it. The one exception was the frozen yogurt machine which had an awful petroleum taste. Yuk! This was a real bummer because Carnival frozen yogurt is one of the things I always look forward to every night. The ice cream machines were fine so I ended up eating that. Room service was generally prompt. (about 10 minutes from ordering during off-peak times).

 

Havana bar is a hidden gem. I honestly think many passengers don't' know it exists because when the buffet area is packed and you can't find a seat, literally next door there are a hundred empty tables with a killer aft view. At breakfast, they have lineups in the buffet area, but the two egg stations in the havana bar are near empty, as is the breakfast station and seating area down at the taste bar on deck 5. Do yourself a big favour and immediately locate the havana bar with the aft windows when you board the ship. They also serve some cuban sandwiches and pies at the bar for lunch and have fresh squeezed orange juice and espresso.

 

At peak times the sun decks and loungers are packed! It was difficult to find chairs anywhere. Serenity, main area, side areas, water park areas, everywhere. I'll add that this is not a phenomenon particular to the Sunshine or even Carnival. Finding deck chairs during prime times is a challenge on all cruises I've been on although I did think Sunshine was more crowed than most. This is in spite of the fact that (unlike any other ship I've been on) Carnival Sunshine actively enforces the no-chair-reserving rule. (hooray!) They will put a sticker on your towel with the time and if it's still there 40 min later they take your stuff to free up the chair.

 

Crowds are very noticeable sometimes, not at others. Save yourself headaches and show up early to any show or event you wish to attend to avoid disappointment. It was not uncommon for the main show lounge to completely fill up 25-30 minutes prior to showtime for some shows (some never filled up). Most shows were good quality entertainment in my opinion. Our daughter was hypnotized by the hypnotist during one show which was especially funny.

 

Carnival has on this redesign thankfully taken a page from Royal Caribbean's playbook and created food stations rather than their standard buffet line. So so so much better as you hardly ever have to wait more than a few seconds to get the food item you're after at the buffet.

 

Guy's BBQ sauce was a wonderful discovery. Best I've ever tasted. Try some on your burger.

 

Jiji's pay extra dinner was amazing. loved it. Steakhouse was as expected, Pasta place was ok. Chef's Table was expensive but very good.

 

The casino seemed unusually quiet. I suspect it was because the slots were not loose enough, but I don't know for sure.

 

There were some really great spaces on the ship. Red Frog Pub had some neat games and such. Library bar was a fun place to sample wine. despite the crowds in the main spaces, there were always some underused spots which could be found if you wanted to get away from folks. You just had to explore a bit. And I'll say it again, if you take away anything from my review it should be these two words… Havana Bar! Every time we grabbed food, we went there to eat it and had a wonderfully quiet aft window seat every single time.

 

I enjoyed the shake spot but wish they had more ice cream flavours. The candy store was easily the biggest I've seen on a ship, yum!

 

We had supper at each of the pay extra venues including the chef's table. Jiji is the stand out winner! At only 12 bucks it's a great deal too. don't miss it. the food is wicked yummy.

 

The sail & sign account management kiosks were nice. I don't' know if they're fleet wide, but I used them for the first time on this ship and think they are a great idea. As are the hand washing machines they have everywhere. They're fun to use and more effective than the hand sanitizers. I just wish they were lower so young kids could use them.

 

That about sums up my review. I'm still on vacation in Europe for another week and a half. I'll try and get the big photos fixed and new ones posted soon, but if there are issues, it'll be around Aug 20 when I'm back at my main computer at home.

 

If you have questions, please ask, I'll be happy to answer what I can.

 

Pictures of 9126 can be seen here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=39360570&postcount=15

[jbhcw]

Thanks for the review...looking forward to more pictures and videos:) We sailed the Destiny when she was new...and I think I want to sail the Sunshine:confused: But will read all the reviews and decide!!

[gospelle]

here's a video of the fan noise referenced in my review...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGqvrd9221Q

 

note, the new cabin's have a slot by the door that you stick your card in to keep the lights on. If you don't have a card in there it shuts off the lights after several seconds. (which it does at the end of the video). :)

[gospelle]

here is a video of the water slide. (from the inside)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDN38POr5as

 

This was way fun.

[billys mom]

Thank you so much for the review...hopefully they work the bugs out by next July.

 

Can't blame you for complaining about the noise, that was horrible.

[twospoiled]

Thank you for the review! Hoping they get that fan fixed as I booked that after seeing your first pictures.

 

I will definitely take your advice and try the Havanna Bar! Sounds great.

 

What kinds of things are on the menu for JiJi? I don't think I've found the menu posted anywhere.

 

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Forums mobile app

[jbhcw]

Great videos! Good thing they moved you that noise was awful:eek:

[Jimmy Geegitz]

Nice review! Thanks for posting.

[deladane]

Thank you for taking the time to post your review while you are still on vacation! Do you plan to write a review of what you did at each of the ports? I am doing this same itinerary in September so I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me...

 

1) What time did they start embarkation in Venice? Do you know when is the earliest they will let people board? And what time did they let you go to your cabins to drop off carry on bags? (we want to get on and off ASAP so we can head off to St Marks Square to explore!!)

2) How strict were they with checking for people boarding with alcohol in Venice?

3) When we originally booked the cruise, carnival told us that the ship will pull away from the dock during the overnight at Venice and we will have to take a tender to get back on the ship that night- did you experience that on your cruise?

4) Did you do anytime dining and if so, what did you think about it? Did you notice any long lines at certain times?

5) Which nights are formal nights?

6) were there any ports when ship time and local time in the port were different? Did you have to change your clocks at all?

7) Did you save the Fun Times? Any chance you could scan and post them???

 

Thanks again! I appreciate you sharing all this information with us :)

[heatherbelle]

Hi

 

We were on your sailing too. What a lovely room you had, such a shame about the noise. We had a cabin in deck 8117. There were issues with water escaping in the bathroom when the shower was on. I don't know whether this is normal with Carnival ships. I too thought the air con was noisy, but nothing like yours, i put this down to it being an old ship. The glass on the balcony and windows could have done with a good clean too.

 

Overall we loved our cruise. To be honest I was dreading it having only previously cruised DCL. But it was great. Lots of entertainment, food was okay. DCL is better. I had to send mine back once as it was cold and after that we never had a problem, i asked to see the Maitre'd. We arrived for my time at 6.00 nearly every night. There were massive queues around 6.45 most nights apart from Rome and Livorno. We saw 2 big wigs with stripes discussing the problem and our waitress told us they were going to start opening all of the dining room. Previously the back had been shut.

 

I agree about heading into the Havana bar to eat, fortunately we discovered this the first day.

 

Our meet too was attended by loads of people.

[heatherbelle]

Thank you for taking the time to post your review while you are still on vacation! Do you plan to write a review of what you did at each of the ports? I am doing this same itinerary in September so I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me...

 

1) What time did they start embarkation in Venice? Do you know when is the earliest they will let people board? And what time did they let you go to your cabins to drop off carry on bags? (we want to get on and off ASAP so we can head off to St Marks Square to explore!!)

 

I don't know the answer to this as we arrived at 2.00 pm.

 

2) How strict were they with checking for people boarding with alcohol in Venice?

 

I never saw any alcohol being removed and I took 2 bottles on at different times during our cruise.

 

 

3) When we originally booked the cruise, carnival told us that the ship will pull away from the dock during the overnight at Venice and we will have to take a tender to get back on the ship that night- did you experience that on your cruise?

 

 

The ship docked at port, so no tendering and we departed at 2pm the following day.

 

 

4) Did you do anytime dining and if so, what did you think about it? Did you notice any long lines at certain times?

 

See above.

 

 

5) Which nights are formal nights?

 

Sea days.

 

 

6) were there any ports when ship time and local time in the port were different? Did you have to change your clocks at all?

 

We were told to put our clocks forward 1 hour on the first sea night ready for Athens and we put it back again on the following sea day.

 

 

7) Did you save the Fun Times? Any chance you could scan and post them???

 

I have all of mine, but they will take too long to scan. Have a look at the report by Zeyocruiser I think that's how it's spelt most of them are the same or similar to what happened.

 

Thanks again! I appreciate you sharing all this information with us :)

 

Hope that helps.

[gospelle]

Thank you for the review! Hoping they get that fan fixed as I booked that after seeing your first pictures.

 

I will definitely take your advice and try the Havanna Bar! Sounds great.

 

What kinds of things are on the menu for JiJi? I don't think I've found the menu posted anywhere.

 

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Forums mobile app

 

I particularly liked the Kung Pow Chicken, but there were many great dishes. It's a family style, so everyone shares each dish ordered. We ordered 2 appetizers and 3 mains and we were stuffed.

 

When you get on board, connect to the Carnival wifi and you'll see their "Fun Hub" which is a free site you can visit with the itineraries, forecast, etc.. and they have a copy of the menu for Jiji.

[cjknox]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Wow that A/C noise is horrible hopefully they get that fixed soon.

[gospelle]

Thank you for taking the time to post your review while you are still on vacation! Do you plan to write a review of what you did at each of the ports? I am doing this same itinerary in September so I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me...

 

1) What time did they start embarkation in Venice? Do you know when is the earliest they will let people board? And what time did they let you go to your cabins to drop off carry on bags? (we want to get on and off ASAP so we can head off to St Marks Square to explore!!)

2) How strict were they with checking for people boarding with alcohol in Venice?

3) When we originally booked the cruise, carnival told us that the ship will pull away from the dock during the overnight at Venice and we will have to take a tender to get back on the ship that night- did you experience that on your cruise?

4) Did you do anytime dining and if so, what did you think about it? Did you notice any long lines at certain times?

5) Which nights are formal nights?

6) were there any ports when ship time and local time in the port were different? Did you have to change your clocks at all?

7) Did you save the Fun Times? Any chance you could scan and post them???

 

Thanks again! I appreciate you sharing all this information with us :)

 

1. We arrived in Venice by train around 1 so I don't know when the first folks were allowed onboard. When we arrived there were still tons of people queued to get onboard, but we were lucky and asked for a number as we walked in and by dumb luck they had already called that number so we got in ahead of about 200 people who were ahead of us. (I only felt guilty for a few seconds) :o

 

2. Don't know, I don't smuggle anymore. We bought a bottle of vodka and kaluha from the fun shops online and it was waiting in our cabin for us when we got there. Along with caffeine free coke (with sugar) which was awesome because they don't sell that onboard.

 

3. We were docked the whole time.

 

4. We always do anytime dining, but we also eat in the buffet and specialty restaurant a fair bit. I think we were only in the dining room 3 times. 1 time we had about a 5 min wait, the other time was 10 min prior to close which had no lines of course, and the other was in the first half hour of opening and again it was just a couple minute wait.

 

5. formal nights are on sea days.

 

6. yes we changed our clocks, but it was always to the local time of the next port so ship and local time was always the same.

 

7. Sorry, I didn't save them.

[heatherbelle]

I forgot to add, we also received a credit of $118.?? EACH for excess port fees and charges. There were three of us, so that went nicely towards the tips.;)

[CrusieToy]

here's a video of the fan noise referenced in my review...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGqvrd9221Q

 

note, the new cabin's have a slot by the door that you stick your card in to keep the lights on. If you don't have a card in there it shuts off the lights after several seconds. (which it does at the end of the video). :)

 

Thanks for the great info. Real nice room hopefully they will get that fan fixed

Thinking about this ship for 6/2014 ..

[deladane]

Thanks gospelle and heatherbelle for answering all of my questions! I hope you both have safe travels home :)

[SenatorsFan]

That air conditioner noise was horrible. I swear I could hear it before you even opened your cabin door! It looks like such a nice cabin, too. Looking forward to more of your review.

Heather

[n6uqqq]

here's a video of the fan noise referenced in my review...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGqvrd9221Q

 

note, the new cabin's have a slot by the door that you stick your card in to keep the lights on. If you don't have a card in there it shuts off the lights after several seconds. (which it does at the end of the video). :)

 

 

Wow that sound was awful. You weren't just whistling dixie :D

[Goldwolf]

Thanks gospelle, great review and very objective. Sometimes I think people just enjoy complaining but that fan was unbelievable, like sitting underneath an aeroplane engine. I wonder who else used the room before you, I can't believe that anyone could put up with that!

 

We leave home for Barcelona on Thursday and board the Sunshine next Sunday for a 12 day cruise. It will be my first Carnival cruise and my first cruise with a balcony, an aft suite balcony at that, so really looking forward to it. Will be interesting to compare to RCL and Costa, the bucket thing sounds a bit weird, I can't remember seeing many buckets on previous cruises.

 

The tip about the Havana bar is really useful, it's strange how some areas get missed by so many people. We're on deck 5 very close to the taste bar so I'd already read from Schultz that the taste bar does breakfast and that is literally a 1 minute walk away. The menus I've seen for the MDR look pretty good, and the fact that there is always steak, chicken, fried chicken and burgers is great for the kids as they have struggled sometimes on previous cruises finding things they like, as they don't like their food over-fussy! I will try and get them to experiment a bit anyway.

 

I take it you didn't find any secret hidden quiet sunbathing spots then? :)

[gospelle]

Thanks gospelle, great review and very objective. Sometimes I think people just enjoy complaining but that fan was unbelievable, like sitting underneath an aeroplane engine. I wonder who else used the room before you, I can't believe that anyone could put up with that!

 

We leave home for Barcelona on Thursday and board the Sunshine next Sunday for a 12 day cruise. It will be my first Carnival cruise and my first cruise with a balcony, an aft suite balcony at that, so really looking forward to it. Will be interesting to compare to RCL and Costa, the bucket thing sounds a bit weird, I can't remember seeing many buckets on previous cruises.

 

The tip about the Havana bar is really useful, it's strange how some areas get missed by so many people. We're on deck 5 very close to the taste bar so I'd already read from Schultz that the taste bar does breakfast and that is literally a 1 minute walk away. The menus I've seen for the MDR look pretty good, and the fact that there is always steak, chicken, fried chicken and burgers is great for the kids as they have struggled sometimes on previous cruises finding things they like, as they don't like their food over-fussy! I will try and get them to experiment a bit anyway.

 

I take it you didn't find any secret hidden quiet sunbathing spots then? :)

 

We ate breakfast at the Taste Bar on days when we were running late to catch an excursion. It was always empty and offered the basics. It had the added benefit of being right next to the cappuccino place.

 

Hidden sunbathing spots, no. they were all packed at peak times. We sat out on the balcony of our replacement suite which was nice. We got lucky in serenity once and snagged a bed when another couple got up to leave.

[Goldwolf]

Did you disembark at every port? Being European and having been to Rome and Venice before, we're planning on staying on the ship in Civitavecchia and for one of the Venice days. We're hoping when the North Americans depart for their dose of culture that things will be quieter and beds will be available even if we don't get up at the crack of dawn. :D

[nbsjcruiser]

What I've noticed a lot more than smells, is leaks! The Sunshine has more leaks than I've ever seen before on a ship and there were buckets catching the drips everywhere it seems. They are outside the dining area, in the halls, outside the elevators, on various decks, fore and aft and they've got ceiling panels open near many of the buckets. During our galley tour section of the Chef's Table dinner, I noticed the galley had several leaks too (and without buckets, just pooling on the floor). I was not allowed to take photos in the galley or I would have snapped pictures of that, but I did get pictures of the leaks around the ship so I'll post some of those later. I seemed to spot a new leak every day, and while some were in the same spot day after day, some appeared randomly. A bucket appeared outside our cabin on day 3 catching a drip, then it was gone. I've never seen anything quite like it on a ship before. I can't say what the cause is, but it's weird for sure.

 

 

Man, does this ever symbolize how Carnival is being run these days. Buckets catching leaks. Yup, just what I'd want to see on a cruise after spending thousands on it. That ship should never have left drydock in the obvious shape it was in.

[heatherbelle]

Did you disembark at every port? Being European and having been to Rome and Venice before, we're planning on staying on the ship in Civitavecchia and for one of the Venice days. We're hoping when the North Americans depart for their dose of culture that things will be quieter and beds will be available even if we don't get up at the crack of dawn. :D

 

I stayed onboard both days and yes the ship was pretty empty. More people were onboard at Venice as oppose to Civitavecchia. We did get off late morning in Civitavecchia and had a walk around, not much to see, but it did have a few nice shops. There is also a HOHO bus there too that takes you to Tariqunia. The port buses in Civitavecchia were free. Into sure if your cruise goes to Athens or not personally I wouldn't bother getting off their unless you are into ruins and culture. If ever I go again, I will stay on the boat.

[gospelle]

Did you disembark at every port? Being European and having been to Rome and Venice before, we're planning on staying on the ship in Civitavecchia and for one of the Venice days. We're hoping when the North Americans depart for their dose of culture that things will be quieter and beds will be available even if we don't get up at the crack of dawn. :D

 

What you're planning is exactly what we did. We stayed on in Civitavecchia and the second day in venice. Pools/chairs were easily accessible those days.