Oh Canada!! Our Carnival Sunshine NE/Canada review (with pics) 9/3/16

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
Ahoy there mates! My name is Jeff “Jamman54” Maskall, and I am a cruise addict. My wife Patti and I just returned from a wonderful cruise on the Carnival Sunshine, a 7 day cruise from New York City to New England and Canada. Our ports of call were Boston, Portland, Saint John, and Halifax. We are excited to do this review for you since there are hardly any photo reviews of this itinerary “floating” around. As always, we want you to come along for the ride and experience this cruise with us, and if it helps you to decide whether or not to cruise on the Sunshine, or visit these ports of call, then we have done our job.

We have done the 4 and 5 day cruises to Canada from New York many times over the years on the Destiny, Triumph, and Glory, but this was our first time doing the 7 day cruise. That was because every year, on Carnival, this itinerary is only offered in September and early October, and Patti being a teacher, wasn’t able to go. Now that Patti is retired, the first cruise that we booked was this one. So, you can say that this was Patti’s official retirement cruise, and to top it off, it was also her 25th Milestone cruise on Carnival. Yay Patti!

This was our first time cruising on the Sunshine, but we did sail on her twice when she was the Destiny, back in the first few years of her career. Both of our cruises on the Destiny were very special to us, so forgive me if I wax nostalgic a little bit, and share some photos that haven’t seen the light of day for some time. I promise to get back to our latest cruise shortly.

After our honeymoon cruise in March of 1994 aboard the Sensation, we took the next 4 ½ years off from cruising as we welcomed Kevin, and then Ryan into our family. By the summer of 1998 we were ready for some alone time, so for Patti’s birthday, I surprised her with a cruise on the Destiny. She had less than two weeks to prepare for that one! Lol. Patti’s Mom and I kept this a secret from her for over 8 months, and it wouldn’t have been possible without her, since she was the one that was going to take care of the boys while we were gone. So, on July 5th, 1998 we boarded the Destiny…..

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This was a 7 day cruise from Miami to St. Croix, St. Thomas, and Nassau…..

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Patti relaxing on our balcony…..

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Having a drink at the Lido Pool swim up bar. Remember the swim up bars? The aft pool also had one. Carnival realized very quickly that this was a bad idea. The area became a jungle gym for kids, so they changed the design on the Triumph and didn’t include them…..

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Formal Night photo on the staircase…..

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Welcome to St. Croix…..

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To be continued…..
 

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
Patti and I in Nassau…..

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Patti enjoying a drink on deck…..

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Here is Patti on a staircase. Those copper walls remain on the Sunshine…..

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Remember when the last night was American Night, and the waiters sang “God Bless America” instead of “Leaving on a Funship?”

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I pose with a towel creature…..

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We were so happy to be cruising again. In fact, since 1998, there has only been one year that we didn’t cruise at least once.

To be continued……
 

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
Our second cruise on the Destiny in August of 2000 was also special for a couple of reasons. The year 2000 was a difficult year for us, especially Patti. I might have mentioned in one of our past reviews that Patti is a breast cancer survivor. In March she detected a lump which turned out to be cancerous. The next 10 months were a whirlwind of surgery, chemo, and radiation treatments, and through it all Patti was a rock. Her mantra was “I don’t have time for this. I have two boys to take care of”.

By midsummer she was feeling a little stronger and wanted to take a short cruise between chemo treatments just to get away. We felt that the boys were now old enough to come with us, so this would be their first cruise. We decided on a 4 day cruise to Halifax on the Destiny from New York, and so on August 18th away we went. Dad and the boys wait for sail away…..

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The World Trade Center…..

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Leaving Manhattan behind…..

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Kevin, Ryan, and Patti enjoy their first breakfast at sea…..

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Kevin loves the waterslide…..

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To be continued…..
 

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
Since it was raining we decided to let the boys stay in Camp Carnival while we went ashore. Here I am on the waterfront……

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Here is Patti in front of Murphy’s Seafood Restaurant where we had lunch. We also had lunch there on the Sunshine cruise…..

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After lunch the rain let up, so we went back for the boys and hired a couple of rickshaws to take us back to the waterfront…..

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The boys enjoyed playing pirate…..

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To be continued…..
 

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
Ryan and Kevin on the jogging track…..

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We are heading back out to sea…..

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It’s snack time…..

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Ryan’s just hanging around…..

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Kevin jumps into the pool…..

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Ryan and Kevin heading back to Camp Carnival…..

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This was a great little get away for us, and the boys had a blast. They were definitely hooked!! As an added bonus, a day after we got back from the Destiny, we went back to New York to board the brand new Carnival Victory, which had just arrived from the shipyard in Europe, for a two day cruise to nowhere!

I hope you enjoyed that little flashback, and now we will press on with our cruise on the Carnival Sunshine.

To be continued…..
 

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
Fast forward to September 2nd 2016, which is the day before our cruise. We received this email from Carnival…….

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We have been watching as Tropical Storm Hermine has been advancing up the Atlantic coast towards New Jersey and New York. We weren’t supposed to feel the effects of the storm until the day after we sailed, so there was no concern about not being able to sail. However, there was some question about our itinerary being affected. Will we be able to sail the scheduled itinerary? Would we be heading to Bermuda? Would we be doing a 7 day cruise to nowhere? Only time would tell.

Embarkation Day is here!!!

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I was up early as I wanted to watch the Sunshine sail under the Verrazano Bridge on her way back to New York on the Harbor webcam. The weather for today was calling for mild temperatures and mostly cloudy skies, as the outer bands of TS Hermine began to move in.

The Sunshine sailed under the bridge a little after 6:30am, which is about 50 – 55 minutes later than normal. I told Patti that we may be boarding a little later than usual today.

No matter. We loaded up the car, and as we always do, we left for the pier at 9am. Being that this is Saturday, traffic into the city is light, so in no time at all we have driven up the New Jersey Turnpike and are exiting for the Lincoln Tunnel…..

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To be continued…….
 

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
Driving through the tunnel into New York City……

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We’re getting closer…..

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We are here!! It’s exactly 10am…..

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We get our first glimpse of the Carnival Sunshine as we drive up the ramp and get in line to pay for parking. Right now we are on Pier 92. Once you pay, ($40./day, cash or credit card), you will be directed over to Pier 90 where the Sunshine is docked, to park…..

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Here are a couple more shots of the Sunshine as we wait in line to pay…..

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To be continued……
 

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
Now we are heading over to Pier 90 to park, passing right in front of the Carnival Sunshine…..

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Turning onto Pier 90, you can see the luggage drop off area. Once you drop off your luggage you are free to park in any available space. Oh oh, I see passengers from the last cruise pulling their luggage to their cars……

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However, before you can drop off your luggage, you have to let Officer Dan and his friendly bomb sniffing dog Cujo, have a look in your trunk or luggage compartment…..

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Our luggage sniffed, and then dropped off, we head to park. Here’s a view looking up at the Carnival Sunshine’s bridge…..

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Once parked, we make the short walk to the escalator, and down into the terminal. Before we can go to the VIP line, we have to fill out a Canadian Customs Declaration form. Easy enough, but don’t slip up when entering the date. For some reason those crazy Canadians have to have the date listed first, then the month and year. Lol. Mess up and you’ll have to do it again!

Going through the scanners was no problem at all. They didn’t even bother checking the two bottles of wine we brought with us. We entered the VIP lounge, signed in, then sat down to wait to be called to check in. There were a lot of people already in there, and there weren’t many seats left to be had. I noticed that a line was quickly growing waiting to get in. It was apparent that the staff doing the check-ins couldn’t keep up with the influx of VIP’s. Also, for those that were wondering, at this point the ship was going to sail the original planned itinerary.

After about 15 minutes or so we were called to check in. That went very quickly until the part where they give you your Sail & Sign cards. They couldn’t find ours! After about 10 minutes they asked us to sit down and they would bring them to us. I was beginning to worry that boarding would begin, and we would still be sitting there waiting for our cards.

Meanwhile, staff began taking groups of VIP’s over to the regular check in lines to try and catch up. It was now approaching noontime, and normally boarding would have begun already, but like I mentioned earlier, they were running late. Finally they found our Sail & Sign cards, and it seemed like only a few minutes later they began boarding VIP’s. There was no distinction between Diamond, Platinum, or suites. Everyone got up together and got in line, which went directly outside to the gangways and bypassed the embarkation pictures. The gangway to Lobby Deck 3 backed up right away, so we were directed to the gangway that entered on Deck 2 mid ship. Not the spectacular entrance that you get when you enter into the atrium, but we didn’t care. It was 12:15pm, and we were on board the Carnival Sunshine!!

To be continued.....
 

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
Once on board, we made our way up to our cabin, which was on deck 7 mid-ship….

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This was an inside cabin. We chose not to book a balcony for a couple of reasons. Since it would be chilly at night, and we would be in port most of the days, we felt that we wouldn’t use it enough. Secondly, the Canada / New England itineraries are known for the sometimes foggy conditions at sea. If you have ever sailed through fog, you know that they blow that ear piercing fog horn every few minutes, non-stop, even in the middle of the night. We wanted to be as far from the outside hull as possible so we wouldn’t hear it. Our cabin…..

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The desk area with all our embarkation info on it……

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Here’s some info Good to Know for people that want to know…..

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Here’s a view looking towards the cabin door. The bathroom is on the left and the closets are on the right…..

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To be continued…..
 

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
The bed in the king bed configuration…..

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Here are the three closets…..

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The typical Carnival bathroom…..

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I included this picture to show that we did have a mini-fridge. We were not expecting to have one, but were glad we did…..

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It was time to get some grub, so we took the elevator up to the Lido Deck, where along the Atrium they had tables set up to take reservations for their up-charge venues. Here’s the table for the Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse…..

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To be continued…..
 

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
That’s DJ Surge up on Deck 10 spinning tunes…..

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The Red Frog Rum Bar on the starboard side…..

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On the port side is the Blue Iguana Tequila Bar…..

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Patti catches me ordering my first Guy’s Burger of the cruise…..

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The Toppings Bar…..

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To be continued…..
 

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
Here’s the really good stuff…..

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Patti’s burger along with her favorite drink, the Caribbean Colada….

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My burgers with my first of many on this cruise, Thirsty Frog Red…..

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Here we are enjoying our first lunch aboard the Carnival Sunshine.....

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I have met my new best friend in the world, I Guiste, who would save me from taking two steps to the bar, and bring all my drinks to me. Lol.

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After finishing our lunch, it was time to take a little tour of the ship. A view from the Lido Deck looking up at Serenity…..

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To be continued…..
 

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
Here are a few views of the Norwegian Gem, which was docked next door at Pier 88…..

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My new BFF I Guiste waves to us…..

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Now would be a good time to check out Serenity since as of right now nobody is here!!

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The Serenity CHOG warning…..

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To be continued…..
 

Jamman

Carnival Specialist
Community Sponsor
There’s our blue van parked on Pier 90…..

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Here’s a good view of the entire Serenity area…..

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This is the smoking section on Deck 10 starboard side. The No Smoking signs are there now because the ship is being refueled…..

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This door leads to Camp Carnival, Circle “C”, and Club O2…..

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Waterworks is open but nobody is using it yet…..

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Waterworks sign…..

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To be continued…..
 
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