BERMUDA
Carnival Sunshine
June - July 2026
The ship I'm cruising on the Carnival Sunshine. You can read more information about the ship here. Sunshine is the oldest ship in Carnival's fleet having been built in 1996 as the Carnival Destiny, however, the ship underwent a major overhaul of $155 million in 2013. The overhaul added the waterslides and an enhanced 3-deck adult only are called "Serenity" with multiple lounge chair areas, a pool, hot tub, and bar. The The ship has been homeported in Norfolk since February 2025. In 2028, it will be moving to Galveston, Texas and Carnival Freedom will be homeported in Norfolk.
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The embarking and disembarking process in the Norfolk terminal was very organized and efficient. Neither process took very long.
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The ship is fairly large. It has a capacity of 3,002 passengers and 1,150 crew. It has 13 decks and these dimensions: Tonnage 102,853 GT, Length 893 ft, Beam 116 ft, Draught 27 ft, Speed 22.5 knots (25.9 mph)
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I will be in cabin 7305 which is a balcony cabin in the aft part of the starboard side of deck 7.
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Since the Fourth of July was occurring during the cruise, Carnival had a variety of special events celebrating the holiday. The ship has a library, so I 3d printed a bunch of bookmarks and placed them in the library. (When I checked back near the end of the cruise, the cup and little signs were still there, but the bookmarks were all gone, so I guess it was mission accomplished.)
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The cabin stewards placed "towel animals" in the cabin each day. They are very creative in addition to being hard working.
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I took a behind the scenes tour the last day of the cruise. (No pictures allowed. In fact, we couldn't even have our phones on us, and they security wanded us at the beginning of the tour and before we entered the bridge as a precaution.) But it was super cool. We had to wash our hands in the kitchen. In addition the bridge and the kitchen, we toured the engine control room, the laundry, food and beverage storage areas, crew areas including the crew mess, behind the stage in the theater, and got explanations in each place.
