Cruising with Corinne and Sabrina

Caribbean cruise Carnival Sunshine Jan. 2018

Jan. 6, 2018 Flying Delta Air from YVR to Port Canaveral, Florida. Spending the night at the Hilton Cocoa Beach and boarding the Sunshine ship at noon on Jan 7th for 13 day cruise. Our cabin is number 8249 for this special Journey Cruise

The Sunshine is 102,853 gross tonnage

3002 passengers

892 ft. In length

1040 crew

This ship has everything under the Carnival sun inc. the biggest Serenity area ever which is spread over 3 decks with plenty of recliners and even a waterfall. Carnival Waterworks with the first slick Speedway Splash slide. There’s also SportsSquare with a jogging track Skycourse high up above as well as the usual foosball,ping pong and giant chess.

Food wise there’s the free favourite Lido buffet, Guy Fieri’s burger Joint, Blueiguana Cantina, Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse, Pizza del capitano and Jiji Asian Kitchen which is free for lunch.

As well, there’s restaurants with an extra charge such as Cucina del capitano, Jiji Asian for dinner, Bonsai sushi, the Steakhouse, and the Chefs table. The Shake Spot and Java Blue also cost extra but serve yourself ice cream and frozen yogurt are serve yourself and free.

Bars are plentiful with RedFrog Pub, Blueiguana Tequila Bar, Skybox Sports bar, Alchemy bar plus the classic Havana bar.

Nightly entertainment will be musical revues from Playlist Productions as well as the ever popular Hasbro Game show, bingo, casino and all sorts of misc demo’s, games and much more

Between the actual sunshine and Carnivals Sunshine fun at sea is guaranteed with 7 ports of call on this “Journeys”cruise. The problem is how are we ever going to fit it all in between the Bingo games, slot pull, cabin crawl, trivia contests, food demos, the casino, the pool with amazing slides plus port excursions? Time will tell....we’re gonna give it all our time in a much needed winter get away to the sunshine.

Travel day finally arrived and what a long day it was. Actually it was like two days because our flight was at 6a.m. Saturday Jan 6 which meant we had to be at the airport by 3 a.m. How can a body sleep at the wrong time of day to prepare? I couldn’t and was up at my usually time on Fri. and spent the day packing and organizing my stuff, then finding my suitcase too heavy I had to redo it and remove things all over again. By midnight I was zonked and hadn’t even left the house, by 2:30a.m. I was really wack-a-doodled waiting to leave for the airport and then the airport routine until 6a.m. almost killed me. Needless to say I was pretty much brain dead by the time the first of our two plane rides got underway. Most of the windows remained closed onboard including the ones in my row and I missed seeing our take-off which I really like to see but half an hour later the captain announced that if we looked out the left side we would be able to view the international space station flying above us. The guy in the window seat beside me was sleeping and I felt like omg this is a once in a lifetime chance to see the space station and I had to miss it because he was sleeping and I couldn’t disturb or startle a perfect stranger. Oh well, better to be safe and not sorry for gambling that he wouldn’t mind so I just kept playing my iPad game. Soon it was coffee and cookie time and then passengers started opening their window blinds just in time to be blinded by the harsh glare of the sun rising on the right side, I couldn’t win on this flight! When you don’t get enough sleep a body gets exhausted and I think kind of bitchy so lesson learned. Never again will I accept such a crappy cheap flight, I’d rather pay a few bucks more and fly at a decent time of day and direct on a larger plane.

Minneapolis, Minnesota was nice and had a fab airport, huge with interesting shops and restaurants. There was snow on the ground and it was cold but that’s what you get in Minnesota until March. We got a lift to our next gate and it was a good thing because it seemed miles away. Then just a short wait and we were on a different bigger plane to Orlando. Hope it’s a little warmer there, we’ll find out in a little while and once installed into the Hilton Cocoa Beach we’ll make do and hopefully get a much needed sleep before boarding our Sunshine ship.

We arrived in Orlando, got our luggage and a kind man who we assumed was an airport employee helped us get outside where the buses and cabs were waiting. After a while we realized we were at the wrong place and our helper lead us back inside and down to another bus/cab area. He seemed very nice and helpful and i thought he was on our side. He had a few cards on a cord around his neck, all of which were backwards but we didn’t suspect that anything was wrong or weird as lots of employees there wore these cards and everyone knows cards swing around backwards at times. At some point I actually asked him if this was routine to stay with people until they made their transfer connections and he said yes, that was his job. He had us waiting at transfer station number 26 but indoors as it was really cold outside. There were floor to ceiling windows and a few other passengers waiting nearby. I didn’t notice at first that the windows were not doors and the exit was down a ways which seemed odd that he hadn’t taken us closer to the exit but then I didn’t dwell on it thinking it was just as well because every time the door opened a cold wind came blowing in and I thought that was a kindness he had done looking out for us. At some point a while later he used his phone to contact the transfer car and he told us that traffic was very heavy getting into the airport but our ride would be there within 20 mins. He lingered for another 10 mins. then he received a call on his phone and said he had to leave us but he reassured us that our ride had entered the airport and would be at number 26 spot in just a few mins. I felt that he had done a lot for us and so gave him a nice tip before he took off up the escalator. And so we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Two hours and still no vehicle of any sort parked at number 26. That’s when we knew we had been took and called another cab which was there within minutes. Holy crap-olly! The bugger had taken advantage of very tired, cold and fatigued people.

We then got into a cab and headed for Port Canaveral with a driver who tailgated at high speed and my daughter sitting in the front seat asked him to stop it and he did, thankfully because it was scary as hell. It was about an hours drive to our hotel and we arrived safe but hungry. We then had to schlep all our luggage into the elevator and then to our room without any help which was another strange thing being as it was Hilton we thought they were classier than this letting three tired ladies handle our luggage by ourselves but somehow we survived. We hadn’t had a meal since starting this 30 hour journey unaware that the cheap flights we had been happy to get meant we’d get no food, no comforts of any sorts in small crowded planes with weird flight times. So downstairs we go to find there was just one very expensive restaurant and one little stand that probably has a few nice sandwiches during the day but had just one left over sad and tired looking ham and cheese wrapped in handiwrap which we passed on. Back in our room we found the number of a 24 hr. pizza place that delivered and so ordered one which turned out to be all right and so we were ok knowing that the next morning we’d be on the ship of plen