Detailed Photo Review of Carnival Sunshine 12-Night Mediterranean Cruise 9/8/13

[deladane]

 

At 1:30pm, we walked back down from the wall and took some time to explore the side streets off the Stradum. I needed small bills changed from the 50 Euro bills I got at the ATM, but 2 banks and the currency exchange place all refused to help me. It was very frustrating because we needed small bills to exchange the money for our tours the following day, but there wasn't much I could do. By 2:30pm, I was starving since I didn't eat anything since breakfast earlier that morning. I read a few reviews on Cruise Critic saying that you could buy fried calamari in a to-go cup at many restaurants in town, but after searching unsuccessfully, I gave in to the hunger and just got a piece of pizza. This was one of the few times I neglected to take a photo of our food (mostly because I inhaled it within 30 seconds of sitting at our table!!), but it was very good and cheesy.

 

After eating, we continued along the side street to a jewelry store. I wanted to look at the silver ball charms I learned about on Cruise Critic. They are unique to Dubrovnik and are very pretty. Unfortunately, they cost more than I could afford to spend, so my only souvenir is this photo:

 

 

At 3:30pm, we left the city walls through the Ploce gate draw bridge where we originally entered. There was a taxi stand right there and we got right in a taxi with no wait. It cost 15 Euros for all 4 of us to get back to the cruise port. Along the way, the taxi driver drove passed the Pile gate and it was extremely crowded with thousands of people boarding busses and looking for taxis, so I was glad we used the less common exit.

 

When we got back to the port, our taxi driver would not drive through the port gate, even though we saw several other taxi drivers do it, so we had to walk back. Along the way, there was a large tent set up with several vendors along the pier. They all sold the same generic Dubrovnik souvenirs for about the same price plus/minus 1 Euro. Mom bought a few things, and I found a nice vendor who was willing to change my money for smaller bills. We got back to the ship around 5pm to get ready for dinner.

 

 

Here is the dinner menu and what I ate that night:

 

 

Chilled Langostino Cocktail

 

Pita crisps and beef kebab with greek farmers salad

[deladane]

Zuppa di pesce

 

Grilled NY sirloin steak

 

Dessert menu

 

Chocolate and hazelnut tart

 

Tonight's entertainment was a comedy hypnotist. He brought about 15 people up on stage and had them do all the standard hypnotist things. We really weren't sure if the show was that funny because the hypnotist was funny, or because the participants were great. There were 3 people up there who REALLY got in to it, and we were hysterically laughing at their antics for the entire show.

 

 

After that, we wanted to see the comedy show, but when we arrived at the lounge, there weren't any seats left. Instead, we went back to the cabin to kill some time before the deck party. We went up to Lido deck at 11pm and the party was over! There were only 10-15 people left dancing and other than that, it was deserted. Considering it was supposed to start at 10:30, that seemed a bit odd, but we found out later that there were never all that many people there like you see on Caribbean cruises. I was a bit surprised considering the following day was the first sea day, but I guess people just don't think about line dancing when they're on a Europe cruise?

 

Anyway, we were hungry and looked around for a snack, but the Lido buffet had very limited options. Aside from the pizza (which I was avoiding considering how many times I ate it in port and that we would be in Italy for the following week), they only had hot dogs, ham and cheese sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, and brownies. Had we arrived a few minutes earlier, we could have gotten something from the deli, but that closed at 11pm. Mom had some ice cream and I ate a brownie.

 

Tonight they asked us to set our clocks ahead 1 hour due to the time change heading into Greece and Turkey. It was nice that they scheduled our one hour less of sleep to be on the night going into a sea day when it didn't matter and we didn't have to wake up early anyway.

 

[deladane]

Oh, I just found where I had the cabin bathroom photos...

 

 

 

I also wanted to post a photo from the show lounge...

 

 

A few things to note in this photo:

 

1) It was taken at 8:05pm before the hypnotist show which started at 8:30pm. Notice how full it is already? And this was at the very beginning of the cruise- by the end of the cruise, the entire room was filled and every seat was taken by 8:05pm. Before the cruise, my assumption was that the shows wouldn't be too crowded because it was such a tiring port-intensive itinerary. Clearly I was wrong!!

 

2)Notice the curtains along the stairs on the left side of the photo? They were very annoying and partially blocked our view, but they were even more annoying for the people who did not get seats and were standing in the back of the room. The curtains make it so people without seats will only have a partial view of the show. I wish Carnival had thought this through a little better and maybe designed it so the curtains retracted all the way to the top of the stairs, out of view.

 

3)Notice the columns on the right side of the photo? They also blocked peoples line of sight during the shows. I understand that they are necessary as weight bearing support beams, but it unfortunate that they blocked peoples views and are something you should look out for when picking your seat for the show.

 

4)The seating on the ground level of the theater is no longer benches- it is now individual chairs. These chairs are a bit wide, so that limits how many can fit in each row. I think there is less seating available now as a result of these chairs, but I don't know for sure. The chairs do move, and the staff arranged them differently depending on what the show was (they left a large dance floor in the middle during the disco show, and had two raised platforms for the dancers in the Epic Rock show), and they made announcements before the shows starting asking people to not move the chairs from where they were placed. I did see a few people try to carry chairs to near the outer round couches to sit with their friends, but the staff asked them to put the chairs back so I guess they were unsuccessful.

 

5)On a positive note, I liked how the upper seating area was a really steep incline so you could easily see over the people in front of you. We only sat in this seat for the first show... after that, each night we sat in the first or second row up on the left side of the theater and we always had a great view of the shows (but that's because we arrived early enough to claim our seats!)

 

Ok, I think that's all I have to say about the theater :)

 

Up next: Our first sea day!

[deladane]

Wednesday, September 11 - Sea Day

 

It was nice to finally have a chance to sleep in and not set an alarm... unfortunately, my body missed the memo and I woke up at 8am (which was really like 7am since we changed the clocks last night). My effort to sleep in was an epic fail, but I wasn't going to let that ruin my day! Mom and I had talked about going to brunch at noon, so I decided to head down to deck 5 to check out what the Taste Bar had to offer for breakfast. I was hoping they would have an omelet station so I could go there on future port days to avoid the crowds on Lido... no such luck! They only had pastries, french toast, eggs, bacon, hot and cold cereals, and coffee/juice.

 

 

After breakfast, I went up to the Serenity deck and was able to get a lounge chair right near the pool at 8:45am. It was getting crowded but since I was by myself, it was easy to find one lounger alone.

 

 

I will take this opportunity to talk about Chogs... I stayed up there for about 2 hours, and as time went on, all the chairs were taken and there were several people walking around looking for places to sit. Unfortunately for them, the Chogs were out to play today. There was a whole line of chairs next to where I was sitting and they had books and towels on them for nearly the entire time I was sitting there, but it wasn't until the very end that anyone actually showed up to sit down (way longer than the advertised 40 minute limit to reserve chairs). I never saw any staff members walk by to monitor this.

 

 

At least there were also a good number of people legitimately using their chairs and enjoying their time out on deck.

 

 

I never bothered to look for a lounger in the main Lido section, but I snapped this photo on my way back to the cabin at 10:30 and there were tons of open seats. It probably helped that it was a bit cool and breezy this morning so maybe people just didn't feel like laying out or going in the pool?

 

[deladane]

I went back to the cabin to get showered and ready for brunch, and we headed down to the aft MDR at around noon. My last Carnival cruise was on the Victory so we did not have the comedy brunch then and I was excited to try the new menu.

 

 

 

I ordered the fruit plate, french toast with frosted flakes crust, hash browns, and turkey bacon.

 

 

 

 

I was totally stuffed and I only ate half of what they served me! After reading so many reviews before the cruise, I was so curious about the cereal-encrusted french toast and I'm so glad I tried it because I really liked it! It was very sweet and filling though, just a warning haha I wasn't really hungry for dessert, but I wanted to try the churros so I ordered them anyway. I thought they were way too sweet, and I don't think I've ever felt that way about anything before haha They were small and crispy- not really what I expected.

 

 

Towards the end of brunch, the comedian came on to do his shtick. I had read a lot of negative reviews about this, so my expectations were very low. Surprisingly, the comedian was actually very funny! He talked for about 10 minutes and made several funny jokes. If it's not your thing, you can easily avoid the comedians because they only come on at the top of each hour, so if you go to brunch at a quarter after the hour, you'll miss them and probably be done eating before they come back at the next hour haha

 

We also got some bad news while we were eating brunch... The captain came on the overhead to announce that one of the passengers needed immediate medical attention, and we would be diverting our path to head towards shore where they would tender the passenger to an ambulance which would take him to a hospital. The rumor around the ship was that he had a heart attack, but due to HIPAA, we will never know for sure. Hopefully he is doing okay and got the medical attention he needed. When the captain made the original announcement, he said he would come back later to let us know if and how the detour would affect our arrival in Athens. About 3 hours later, he came back to announce that we had made good timing so far, and we did not have very far to go to reach Athens, so he did not anticipate any delays. Luckily, he was correct and we arrived in Athens as scheduled at 7am the next day! This was our only medical emergency during the 12-day cruise (or at least it was the only one we knew about!)

[deladane]

We had a very active roll call on Cruise Critic before leaving on our vacation, so we set up a few activities for this sea day. We planned a 2-hour open bar (including liquors and beers, with dry snacks also provided) for $20 per person. After that, we also had a regular meet and greet for a third hour in case people wanted to skip the drinking portion. During that hour, we did a gift exchange and we also exchanged money for any privately booked group excursions. I think there were about a third of the group who did the open bar, and then another third of the group came for the last hour when the open bar ended. The last third of the roll call never came to the meet and greet, so I guess they were just too busy having fun elsewhere on the ship! All of this was pre-arranged through Carnival, and they gave us the comedy club lounge for our private use all afternoon. They had 2 servers and one bartender, so there was quite a long wait for drinks, but they didn't stop us from ordering two (or four!) drinks at a time haha They served the drinks in very small cups and didn't put much alcohol in them, so I'm sure Carnival still managed to come out ahead on this deal... Here is my Kiss on the Lips:

 

 

I had a great time at the meet and greet and was so happy to finally put a face to all the names I had been communicating with for months prior to the cruise. We felt special that they put this sign outside the lounge for us...

 

 

After the meet and greet, we went back to the cabin to get changed for formal night.

 

 

I was still really full from brunch, but I wasn't going to miss my one chance to eat lobster for dinner!

 

 

Stuffed Mushrooms

 

Lobster Tail and Shrimp

[deladane]

Dessert Menu

 

I was so beyond stuffed at this point that I didn't eat dessert. Oh no! The horror!! I never thought I'd ever come to that point! haha

 

After dinner, we went to the show lounge at 7:45 and the doors were still closed.

 

 

They opened the doors at 8pm and nearly every seat was taken by 8:05pm! It was literally like a stampede of people running for seats... every man for himself! There really are not enough seats in the theater, and that is unfortunate as I know a lot of people look forward to seeing the shows each night but won't be able to because the theater is too small.

 

Anyway, tonight's show was Motor City with a Motown theme. It was great and a lot of fun to watch. Before the show started, they pulled a few people up on stage, but after that, no more photos were allowed.

 

 

When the show ended, the dancers took the party out into the lobby and continued with 4 or 5 extra songs.

 

 

 

Today was September 11th. It did feel a bit odd to be having so much fun and singing and dancing on such a somber day, but I really appreciated what the ship did to honor the day. While I was watching the dancers in the lobby, I looked up at the glass elevators and I found this hanging above me...

 

[deladane]

The flag was HUGE and was hanging from deck 10 so you could see it from several different floors. After the dancers finished in the lobby, we went upstairs to take a few more pictures.

 

 

 

Then we went back to the cabin to get ready for bed as we had an early wake up the next day in Athens.

 

[deladane]

Thursday, September 12th - Athens, Greece

 

Today was the first of many early port days, so I woke up to my alarm at 6:15am, got dressed, and ate breakfast up on Lido with a beautiful sunrise as my backdrop.

 

 

 

We were originally supposed to be able to get off the ship starting at 7am, but it was delayed until 7:45am. Luckily, that didn't impact us much because we were already planning to meet our tour group at 7:45 in the lobby anyway. Once all 12 of us were together, we went down to deck 0 and met our tour guide Kaliope (Kali for short) in the cruise terminal. There's always something reassuring when you first see that sign with your group's name and knowing that the guide you booked privately actually showed up haha Kali spoke perfect English and was an excellent guide. She went with us into every attraction, while our driver Nicos stayed with the van so he could drop of off and pick us up at the front entrance to each site.

 

We loaded up into the van and drove directly to the Acropolis in an attempt to beat the crowds, as there were 7 ships in port today! We arrived at the Acropolis by 8:45am and there were very few people ahead of us in the line to buy tickets.

 

 

The tickets cost 12 Euros per person, and included entrance to the Acropolis, Ancient Agora, and the Temple of Zeus. Kali escorted us all over the Acropolis, stopping many times to explain what we were looking at and to give us time to take photos.

 

 

 

[deladane]

I took hundreds of photos of the Acropolis, the Parthenon, the panoramic views, and all the other sites. Let's see if I can narrow this down to the best handful of shots...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

 

 

 

You can see in this photo that the crowds were starting to build as we spent our time exploring the Acropolis...

 

 

By the time we were ready to leave at 10:45am, there were thousands of people walking up the hill and narrow stairs to enter, so we were really glad we arrived early!

 

 

Luckily, Kali had a skill for weaving through the crowds (sometimes against traffic!) and we eventually escaped out to the entrance. The problem was that Nicos couldn't drive the van up to meet us because of all the big tour buses and heavy traffic, so we had to walk a short distance down the hill to meet him.

[NCTribeFan]

You're killing me here with the port photos! I want to do this SO MUCH!!!

 

I've wanted to go to Greece for as long as I can remember. And my DD's been to Ephesus and has taunted me with that for years, too.

 

Some day!

 

We only have two sea days on the 11-night sailing and I know the Serenity Deck is going to be packed. I don't need to be by the pool, so I'm hoping I'll get somewhere to sit on one of the higher decks. I'm a pretty early riser and certainly hope it won't be too much of an issue. And, hopefully, there won't be too much noise pollution from the big TV. I haven't found a Serenity deck yet that was very serene. :(

[deladane]

You're killing me here with the port photos! I want to do this SO MUCH!!!

 

I've wanted to go to Greece for as long as I can remember. And my DD's been to Ephesus and has taunted me with that for years, too.

 

Some day!

 

We only have two sea days on the 11-night sailing and I know the Serenity Deck is going to be packed. I don't need to be by the pool, so I'm hoping I'll get somewhere to sit on one of the higher decks. I'm a pretty early riser and certainly hope it won't be too much of an issue. And, hopefully, there won't be too much noise pollution from the big TV. I haven't found a Serenity deck yet that was very serene. :(

 

It's funny- I too have a fascination with Greece, and I LOVE Greek food so I was very excited to visit Athens on this cruise. Athens is a very modern city with a few historical landmarks scattered throughout. I really want to go back to Greece and see a few of the islands. Photos I've seen from Oia and Fira are amazing and I have that as one of my bucket list places, so hopefully I can get there sooner or later. As amazing as the historical sites were, Athens didn't quite fulfill that need I have for seeing Greece.

 

And I suppose I'll be taunting you about Ephesus too as that's the port day coming up next after Athens ;)

 

I just looked at the itinerary for your Sunshine cruise... it looks AMAZING!!! It's like the best of the two Southern Caribbean itineraries I have done haha Dominica is a beautiful island and very unique compared to most other Caribbean ports. It is similar to St. Lucia, but far less developed and touristy (and that says a lot because St. Lucia is one of the less touristy islands as it is lol) Not sure if you're in to active tours, but I did a full day tour with Levi Baron of Buumping Tours and it was unforgettable! Tortola and Antigua are both on my to-do list, but not many cruises go there so that's great that you'll get to check them out. I hope you plan to write a review when you return because I'm sure you'll come back with incredible experiences to share :)

[deladane]

After a short drive, we arrived at our next stop, the Temple of Zeus. We re-used our same ticket from the Acropolis and there was no line to enter. Kali escorted us to the only small area of shade as she explained the history of the site, and then we had some time to take photos. By the time we left, there was a huge line to enter because a tour bus had arrived, so we had some pretty good timing thus far!

 

 

 

 

Our next stop was the Ancient Panathenaic Stadium.

 

 

 

We got back on the bus and drove through Athens to the Prime Minister's and President's house just in time to watch the changing of the guards. It was very impressive how well Kali and Nicos timed all of our stops so we arrived just at the right time everywhere we went!

 

[deladane]

Up next, we drove through the city center and the Plaka to see the market area. We got off the van and walked through the market to eat lunch slightly off the main strip at Hermion Restaurant (per Kali's recommendation).

 

 

 

 

We were bummed that we didn't have time to shop at all the stores we walked passed, but the lunch was very good. I ordered pork souvlaki with a side of tzatziki sauce (my favorite!) The restaurant had a pretty outdoor seating area in the shade, and they were willing to do separate checks (although they had some trouble processing our credit cards!)

 

 

 

[cruiselife4me]

Great review! Looking forward to more,

Mary

[NCTribeFan]

...

 

I just looked at the itinerary for your Sunshine cruise... it looks AMAZING!!! It's like the best of the two Southern Caribbean itineraries I have done haha Dominica is a beautiful island and very unique compared to most other Caribbean ports. It is similar to St. Lucia, but far less developed and touristy (and that says a lot because St. Lucia is one of the less touristy islands as it is lol) Not sure if you're in to active tours, but I did a full day tour with Levi Baron of Buumping Tours and it was unforgettable! Tortola and Antigua are both on my to-do list, but not many cruises go there so that's great that you'll get to check them out. I hope you plan to write a review when you return because I'm sure you'll come back with incredible experiences to share :)

 

Dominica is my favorite island, so far. I've been three times (past two have been the November repos from San Juan to Miami that have had great itineraries which I booked specifically because they were calling there). I've toured with Levi all three times. I love him, but we're doing a different tour this time. This will be my 3rd time to Antigua, 2nd to St Lucia, but first to Tortola. It's really why I booked this one - I'd rather have done the 10-night return so I could fly down and spend a couple of pre-cruise days in San Juan, but it didn't have any "new" ports for me.

 

I always write reviews. :)

 

Anyway, back your wonderful cruise. Bring on Ephesus!! :D

[deladane]

Great review! Looking forward to more,

Mary

 

Thank you! More coming soon :)

[deladane]

After lunch, we continued walking through the city center until we reached the Ancient Agora. We used our combo tickets once more to enter this site, and Kali walked us through to explain everything we saw.

 

 

 

 

 

Remember that temple I showed earlier from the view at the Acropolis? Well that is the best-preserved temple in Athens, and it is located down in the Agora, so we got to get up close to it.

 

 

 

[deladane]

Our next stop was a half hour drive up to the top of a hill which offered incredible panoramic views of the entire city.

 

 

It was a nice way to round out the day because we had views of all the places we had just visited up close, but I'm not really sure that it was worth such a long detour. By the time we got back down the hill and arrived at the shopping area, it was 3:30pm. Kali suggested we could have 20 minutes to shop, but our all aboard time was 4:30pm and we still had to drive back out to the port and were afraid there might be traffic considering there were 7 cruise ships docked today. We decided it wasn't worth 20 frantic minutes of shopping to risk possibly missing the ship, so we opted to just drive straight back to the ship. Had I known how the timing would work out, I probably would have preferred to skip the scenic overlook to have more time shopping. Oh well! On the drive back, we passed a few of the venues built for the 2004 Olympics.

 

 

We got back to the port at 4pm and spent a few minutes shopping at the duty free stores in the terminal. Then we got back on the ship and got ready for dinner at 6pm.

 

Dinner Menu:

 

Prosciutto Ruffles

 

Sushi

 

Penne Mariscos

[deladane]

Dessert Menu

 

Warm Fig, Date, and Cinnamon Cake (one of my favorite desserts of the cruise... it was soooooo good!!)

 

Strawberry Cheesecake (it was disappointing)

 

After dinner, mom played a game of bingo (and sadly, did not win) and then we watched the magician. He was not very good... he repeated the same jokes over and over to fill his hour on stage, so he was funny the first time he did the trick but not every time there after. We then went back to the cabin to unwind and get ready for our next day in Izmir, Turkey!

 

[Jeafl]

I am truly loving your review! I did not catch it the first time around, so I am very happy you decided to repost it! This itinerary is definitely on my bucket list!

 

Did you find that you had enough time in all the ports to at least hit the highlights? That's my biggest concern with seeing Europe on a cruise. I feel like there is so much to see and so little time in the ports.

[deladane]

I am truly loving your review! I did not catch it the first time around, so I am very happy you decided to repost it! This itinerary is definitely on my bucket list!

 

 

 

Did you find that you had enough time in all the ports to at least hit the highlights? That's my biggest concern with seeing Europe on a cruise. I feel like there is so much to see and so little time in the ports.

 

 

Thank you! It was a bucket list cruise for me too (although now that it's been 2 years and reposting the review, it makes me want to go back and do it all over again!!). Obviously it was a bit rushed each day knowing we had to make it back to the ship before sail away, but it was still plenty of time in port each day. Port days in Europe tend to be longer than in the Caribbean (~10 hours vs 7-8 hrs in the Caribbean). It helps if you take a small van guided tour when they pick you up and drop you back off at the pier so you don't have to waste time with public transit of navigation. That was the case for us in nearly every port and it was definitely worth the added cost as it allowed us to see many more sites than had we tried to do it all on our own (as you can see from our day in Athens, the only thing we didn't have time for is shopping, but we did get to see all the main tourist sites). When I get to the Italy ports, you will see that I used Rome in Limo tours for 3 consecutive days and they were amazing at taking us to so many sites in a short time! It was incredible how much we were able to see each day!! Yes, we only had a brief time at each site, but we knew that in advance and knew we would take this as a sampling of what each port had to offer. If we wanted to spend more time somewhere, that would likely require a land trip (but I much prefer to see a little bit of everything like we did!)

[092306]

Love your review and beautiful pictures! Looks like an amazing trip, thanks so much for posting!

[cruisexlife]

I took hundreds of photos of the Acropolis, the Parthenon, the panoramic views, and all the other sites. Let's see if I can narrow this down to the best handful of shots...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Was just here about two months ago, these pictures are bringing me back. AMAZING review, Can't wait to read more! (: