Back from Carnival Sunrise ... very disappointed

[HappyInVan]

3 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

How many extra people do you think they were “stuffing” in the retrofits (which again all cruise lines are doing not just Carnival)?  Carnival has come out with new ships as well as revitalize 3 of their ships with major makeovers (Sunshine, Sunrise, Radiance).... 

 

I'm struck by the OP's descriptions. Example ...

 

"4. Lido Deck area … PACKED is an understatement! On the 4 sea days I never saw the water in either of the 2 pools, only bobbing heads. Never saw such a crowded pool area in my life. The bussing staff was overwhelmed by the amount of plates, glasses etc. they had to remove. It was very hard for them to keep up."

 

Seems that a lot of families heard about the $200m refit. And, Carnival allowed such numbers to board the ship. To the point where it was a nasty cruise for the OP.

 

It's a choice that Carnival made, presumably to recoup their investment faster.

 

I was on the Holland America's Rotterdam (1997) in May. It had dry docks in 2015 and 2017. I can detect no increase in the number of cabins. And, the ship was largely uncrowded. Just the usual crowds at peak periods. 

[jimbo5544]

1 hour ago, xDisconnections said:

For now.

Forever is a long time

 

[jimbo5544]

4 minutes ago, HappyInVan said:

 

I'm struck by the OP's descriptions. Example ...

 

"4. Lido Deck area … PACKED is an understatement! On the 4 sea days I never saw the water in either of the 2 pools, only bobbing heads. Never saw such a crowded pool area in my life. The bussing staff was overwhelmed by the amount of plates, glasses etc. they had to remove. It was very hard for them to keep up."

 

Seems that a lot of families heard about the $200m refit. And, Carnival allowed such numbers to board the ship. To the point where it was a nasty cruise for the OP.

 

It's a choice that Carnival made, presumably to recoup their investment faster.

 

I was on the Holland America's Rotterdam (1997) in May. It had dry docks in 2015 and 2017. I can detect no increase in the number of cabins. And, the ship was largely uncrowded. Just the usual crowds at peak periods. 

My HAL comment was on the age of the ships still in service.  I have sailed many Carnival ships, the Sunrise felt no more crowded than any other.  I was curious as to the Ops history and that is what I asked about which ship they had previously sailed ,and the experience.  Carnival is not known for spacious pools or 600 passengers on their ships.  Their product has not changed.    I have no idea whether 200 people made any difference. Their model for these major retrofits has not changed, they have not diverted for money.  They are a public ally traded company like most lines, and profit is key, even on HAL. When was the last time you sailed on a Carnival ship?

  

[HappyInVan]

10 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

Carnival is not known for spacious pools or 600 passengers on their ships.  Their product has not changed.    I have no idea whether 200 people made any difference. Their model for these major retrofits has not changed, they have not diverted for money.  They are a public ally traded company like most lines, and profit is key, even on HAL. When was the last time you sailed on a Carnival ship?

  

Never!!!

 

Are you saying that this is typical of Carnival ships?

 

"On the 4 sea days I never saw the water in either of the 2 pools, only bobbing heads. Never saw such a crowded pool area in my life. "

 

 

[jimbo5544]

6 hours ago, HappyInVan said:

Never!!!

 

Are you saying that this is typical of Carnival ships?

 

"On the 4 sea days I never saw the water in either of the 2 pools, only bobbing heads. Never saw such a crowded pool area in my life. "

 

 

Of course not.  I was on this ship 7/22. Can pools get crowded on sea days?  Yes  Which lines have you sailed?

[PhillyFan33579]

8 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

Of course not.  I was on this ship 7/22. Can pools get crowded on sea days?  Yes  Which lines have you sailed?

 

I have only sailed on Sunshine, but I don’t understand the logic in going from three pools on Destiny class ships to two pools on Sunshine class ships, while increasing the number of cabins/passengers. I guess/assume the water parks and slides are designed to replace the “missing” pool.  

 

Personally this isn’t an issue for me since I live in Florida and have a pool in my backyard. Spending time in a pool on a ship doesn’t really appeal to me since I can do that at home any time I want. But I can see how eliminating a pool could upset people who enjoy spending time in a pool on a cruise. 

[jimbo5544]

6 minutes ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

 

I have only sailed on Sunshine, but I don’t understand the logic in going from three pools on Destiny class ships to two pools on Sunshine class ships, while increasing the number of cabins/passengers. I guess/assume the water parks and slides are designed to replace the “missing” pool.  

 

Personally this isn’t an issue for me since I live in Florida and have a pool in my backyard. Spending time in a pool on a ship doesn’t really appeal to me since I can do that at home any time I want. But I can see how eliminating a pool could upset people who enjoy spending time in a pool on a cruise. 

The water is supposed to off load the balance.  My view on ships that have had this done to them is that it does, especially with younger crowd.  As you know, pools on a cruise are different than other vacation spots.  All mass lines.....

[herb]

 

By adding cabins in place of 2 lounges during refurbishment of Sunrise think it adds up to more than just an extra 200 passengers. 

[Micahs Grandad]

16 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

I doubt anyone outside of Carnival would know the figures of Carnival tipping ratios when comparing one port to all others. Not even a TA. That's a pretty strong accusation, or a whopper of an assumption.

 

 

The problem is more strongly felt/seen in common areas. When people complain about the feeling of being overcrowded, it's always in the Lido buffet, around the pool, or in the main theater or lounges. Things like that. Despite what seems like a relatively small increase in the number of passengers, when you break it down into these smaller common areas that always collect more people at once, it amplifies the issue. Especially on these refitted ships that weren't originally designed for increased numbers.

At the same time they added more passengers they reduced the size of the two main lounges. Seems it would make for a much more crowded ship

[purplephenom]

I'm curious to see how the Sunrise reviews look in January/February, and other times when its less common for the ship to be full of families.  Most ships usually get more "this felt crowded" reviews in the summer.  The Sunrise may be more crowded than other ships,  but I'm still curious.  

 

 

[glrounds]

There are no miracles. Marine architects spend a lot of time working with a key factor in their design criteria, VOLUME OF PUBLIC SPACE PER PASSENGER. When this ratio is ignored in refurbishing a ship by merely adding more passengers to the ship you expect a different result ? 😂😂

Edited August 19, 2019 by glrounds

[sanmarcosman]

55 minutes ago, purplephenom said:

I'm curious to see how the Sunrise reviews look in January/February, and other times when its less common for the ship to be full of families.  Most ships usually get more "this felt crowded" reviews in the summer.  The Sunrise may be more crowded than other ships,  but I'm still curious.  

If you can believe Carnival their ships sail full year round.

[purplephenom]

8 minutes ago, sanmarcosman said:

If you can believe Carnival their ships sail full year round.

 

 I'm pretty sure there are 2 different numbers- full and max capacity. I think full is 2 people per cabin, max capacity is 3 in every 3 person cabin, 4 in every 4 person cabin.  

 

The only reason I bring it up, is I was really nervous before I sailed the Sunshine because everyone said it was crowded and awful.  And it was my favorite cruise, and we never really felt crowded. 

 

Plus, whatever you think of refurbished ships, this ship is built and here now.  It would be a shame if it were a stream of constant bad experiences- hopefully there are at least some parts of the year when the reviews are good, because it means people are having a good time 

[herb]

On 8/17/2019 at 9:30 PM, Stick93 said:

What are your thoughts on the ships redesign/refurb?? Could you tell theses areas were redone?? 

Public spaces within ship were nicely appointed 

[thesmiths]

6 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

The last morning as we were beginning the debark process I had a discussion with senior ship management and I brought up what had happened at dinner and my surprise.  

What did they have to say?

[jimbo5544]

2 hours ago, glrounds said:

There are no miracles. Marine architects spend a lot of time working with a key factor in their design criteria, VOLUME OF PUBLIC SPACE PER PASSENGER. When this ratio is ignored in refurbishing a ship by merely adding more passengers to the ship you expect a different result ? 😂😂

There are so any holes in your logic I do not know where to start....😉

[HappyInVan]

7 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

I understand your view.  That said, the “busy” experience is really part of main line cruising today.  It not only happens on Carnival but also Royal, NCLand others.  

 

No doubt. But, where do you draw the line?

 

You need to be clear about the cost/benefits you are paying for. The OP's experience (crowding and other things) was horrifying. Should it occur to you, are you going to complain? Switch to another brand?

 

Like I said, I'm sympathetic to the OP. I would fire a warning shot to Carnival, if I was a Carnival customer. After all, it is the duty of a customer to complain about a poor product?

 

 

[jimbo5544]

1 hour ago, HappyInVan said:

 

No doubt. But, where do you draw the line?

 

You need to be clear about the cost/benefits you are paying for. The OP's experience (crowding and other things) was horrifying. Should it occur to you, are you going to complain? Switch to another brand?

 

Like I said, I'm sympathetic to the OP. I would fire a warning shot to Carnival, if I was a Carnival customer. After all, it is the duty of a customer to complain about a poor product?

 

 

When ships have a price tag in excess of a billion dollars (couple of Royals are getting closer to 2),you need to recoup those costs from somewhere.  While HAL (you know that HAL is a subsidiary of Carnival right?) has kept the size of the ships relatively low (and size as well), someone picks up the slack. 

[pacruise804]

@herb My condolences on the loss of your wife 😞 

 

I'm glad there were parts of your trip you did enjoy (check-in, ports, weather) and wish the rest of your cruise was more enjoyable.  I have mostly sailed the Pride with Carnival and noticed long lines at some of the other Lido deck restaurants too.  If you choose to sail again I would recommend giving at least some of them a chance.  While the lines were long, they did usually move quickly (except the deli - which wasn't that great when I did get it).

 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience.

[jimbo5544]

28 minutes ago, pacruise804 said:

@herb My condolences on the loss of your wife 😞 

 

I'm glad there were parts of your trip you did enjoy (check-in, ports, weather) and wish the rest of your cruise was more enjoyable.  I have mostly sailed the Pride with Carnival and noticed long lines at some of the other Lido deck restaurants too.  If you choose to sail again I would recommend giving at least some of them a chance.  While the lines were long, they did usually move quickly (except the deli - which wasn't that great when I did get it).

 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience.

The Deli was probably the worst area on Lido.....

[scpirate]

On 8/17/2019 at 8:08 PM, herb said:

Last year family and friends ( approx. 40) made the decision to take a cruise out of NYC. I was definitely looking forward to this and enjoyed spending quality time with them, especially since this was my first vacation without my wife who passed away last year.

 

Carnival Sunrise was marketed as a newly refurbished ship costing millions of dollars. What they did was get rid of the old Vegas glitz as well as remove 2 lounges in the back of the ship to add many more cabins = many more people!

 

Check in, (as well as disembarkation) in NYC was quick and efficient. Upon entering ship you immediately noticed that all the previous "Carnival Look" was changed to muted colors. My cabin was fine and kept neat and clean. Our dining room waiter was very pleasant and cordial. The lounges were all very eye pleasing.Yes, they still do the waiter shows at every dinner. Pretty much wear for dinner what you want. No one at door that stopped anyone, they just said hello.  We had opted for early seating.

Ports: Grand Turk: we walked to Jack's Shack to enjoy the water … great day

           Puerto Rico: we waked around Old San Juan … fun exploring and doing some shopping

           Amber Cove: a duplicate of Margaritaville in Grand Turk with different signage … pool was refreshing

We had beautiful weather all week … sunny and hot.

 

What I didn't like …

1. The unbelievable crowds everywhere. The lido buffet where the food didn't look very appealing as well as the pool food options, which were good, always had very long lines. Never even bothered trying to get on the Deli line. I basically didn't eat what I wanted, I opted to eat wherever I found the shortest line. For breakfast we decided to eat in the dining room, lunch was a "free for all", dinner in dining room.

2. The only indoor area where smoking is permitted on the whole ship was the casino. I smoke, but I felt bad for the people who had no choice but to pass through the casino (it was a blue cloud) to get to the other venues, … unless you wanted to climb up and down staircases.

3. The lounge where they had the Punchliner comedy shows at night was stifling throughout entire cruise. I only went once, couldn't wait for show to be over. When my cousin found an officer who happened to be in the lounge and complained, she looked at her as if she was making it up. No response.

4. Lido Deck area … PACKED is an understatement! On the 4 sea days I never saw the water in either of the 2 pools, only bobbing heads. Never saw such a crowded pool area in my life. The bussing staff was overwhelmed by the amount of plates, glasses etc. they had to remove. It was very hard for them to keep up.

5. Guest behavior - I love having a good time and laughing; and our group did do that, but the amount of screaming vulgar language used by adults as well as unsupervised children running rampant was appalling. It wasn't uncommon to be woken up way after midnight by kids running up and down the cabin hallways as well as adults having loud screaming arguments right outside cabin doors as guests were trying to sleep.

6. Thankfully I was not one of many who had toilet plumbing issues in their cabins, thank God!

 

We've cruised many times on many different cruiselines including Carnival … but unfortunately this cruise has left a very bad taste in my mouth regarding the Carnival product.

I fully understand our third carnival Cruise on liberty was the same.i made the switch after that.my wife would miss carnival and we went back again ,another disappointing experience.i have one booked for 2021 out of charleston.we always wanted to sail close to home but I'm thinking of cancelling and taking a loss .Norwegian has a 14 day itiniary I like.out of Tampa.

[nybumpkin]

DH and I just disembarked Sunrise this morning - a weekend getaway to Bermuda. Although we never sailed on Triumph (had a 9-day Canada booked some years ago, but it didn't sell well and Carnival ended up canceling it), we sailed Victory four times so we had something to compare Sunrise's layout to. We were also prepared for lots of families and people like us, wanting to get away for a long weekend.  Overall, we liked the redo. There are traces of Triumph's "world" theme, with globes decorating the stairs (gives me hope for Victory's infamous seahorses😃) and in the atrium.  Overall, the cabins are nicely done and the public spaces are airy and comfortable. There are problems with congestion points, though.

 

The problem with the buffet is that it wasn't well designed in its first incarnation. Destiny, Triumph and Victory all were (are) shorter than the Conquest-class ships and accordingly had smaller buffets and fewer lines. (The lines themselves are a problem - having stations works better.) Since the ships aren't larger space-wise but carry more people, the buffet area is very crowded. During breakfast the crew kept trying to direct people to two "express" lines they set up in the middle of the buffet - all well and good if you didn't want cereal, or yogurt, or hard-boiled eggs, or...you get the idea. Still, I found the food very good for both breakfast and lunch. Lucky Bowl, which is an Oriental line, was very enjoyable for lunch - and while the line can be long, it moves fast.

 

Another choke point is the photo area. It's the same as before, but now the main floor of the Liquid Lounge empties right into the photo area. That area used to be the main theater's balcony, so it wasn't nearly as crowded when a show was over. They also didn't label the photos as "Embarkation," "Radiance Early Seating," "Sunshine YTD," etc. You had to guess where you might have had a photo taken. 

 

Speaking of the Liquid Lounge, I've now experienced it on three ships and just don't like it. I get that the old three-deck lounge was underutilized, but now you have movable chairs crammed together with no tables for drinks. Same with the Limelight Lounge, which used to be the cigar bar (talk about underutilized space).

 

I plan to write up something a little more detailed and with photos (I'm still working on the three weeks we spent last month on the QM2), but it's enough to say we liked the ship and would sail her again.

[jimbo5544]

1 hour ago, nybumpkin said:

DH and I just disembarked Sunrise this morning - a weekend getaway to Bermuda. Although we never sailed on Triumph (had a 9-day Canada booked some years ago, but it didn't sell well and Carnival ended up canceling it), we sailed Victory four times so we had something to compare Sunrise's layout to. We were also prepared for lots of families and people like us, wanting to get away for a long weekend.  Overall, we liked the redo. There are traces of Triumph's "world" theme, with globes decorating the stairs (gives me hope for Victory's infamous seahorses😃) and in the atrium.  Overall, the cabins are nicely done and the public spaces are airy and comfortable. There are problems with congestion points, though.

 

The problem with the buffet is that it wasn't well designed in its first incarnation. Destiny, Triumph and Victory all were (are) shorter than the Conquest-class ships and accordingly had smaller buffets and fewer lines. (The lines themselves are a problem - having stations works better.) Since the ships aren't larger space-wise but carry more people, the buffet area is very crowded. During breakfast the crew kept trying to direct people to two "express" lines they set up in the middle of the buffet - all well and good if you didn't want cereal, or yogurt, or hard-boiled eggs, or...you get the idea. Still, I found the food very good for both breakfast and lunch. Lucky Bowl, which is an Oriental line, was very enjoyable for lunch - and while the line can be long, it moves fast.

 

Another choke point is the photo area. It's the same as before, but now the main floor of the Liquid Lounge empties right into the photo area. That area used to be the main theater's balcony, so it wasn't nearly as crowded when a show was over. They also didn't label the photos as "Embarkation," "Radiance Early Seating," "Sunshine YTD," etc. You had to guess where you might have had a photo taken. 

 

Speaking of the Liquid Lounge, I've now experienced it on three ships and just don't like it. I get that the old three-deck lounge was underutilized, but now you have movable chairs crammed together with no tables for drinks. Same with the Limelight Lounge, which used to be the cigar bar (talk about underutilized space).

 

I plan to write up something a little more detailed and with photos (I'm still working on the three weeks we spent last month on the QM2), but it's enough to say we liked the ship and would sail her again.

Thanks....look forward to your review...

[HappyInVan]

7 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

When ships have a price tag in excess of a billion dollars (couple of Royals are getting closer to 2),you need to recoup those costs from somewhere.  While HAL (you know that HAL is a subsidiary of Carnival right?) has kept the size of the ships relatively low (and size as well), someone picks up the slack. 

HAL is just one brand operated by Carnival Corp. Each price point has a different value proposition (comfort, entertainment, itinerary etc). What repeat passengers want to know is if Carnival has moved the goal post. Have they changed the value proposition?

 

Have they added more amenities but reduced the comfort? Any feedback after the refurbishment is welcome. The OP has posted a balanced review; some good points, some very bad experiences. 

 

You offer the opinion that the crowding is pretty 'normal'. Have you posted a balanced review of your 7/22 trip? I would like to read it in order to get the context of your opinion.

 

[RRLLAL]

17 minutes ago, HappyInVan said:

HAL is just one brand operated by Carnival Corp. Each price point has a different value proposition (comfort, entertainment, itinerary etc). What repeat passengers want to know is if Carnival has moved the goal post. Have they changed the value proposition?

 

Have they added more amenities but reduced the comfort? Any feedback after the refurbishment is welcome. The OP has posted a balanced review; some good points, some very bad experiences. 

 

You offer the opinion that the crowding is pretty 'normal'. Have you posted a balanced review of your 7/22 trip? I would like to read it in order to get the context of your opinion.

 

 

He did a very long “live” review.