hello everyone my name is zach i am the travel man and behind me here we have
charleston south carolina and i'm on board the carnival sunshine where i'm about to embark on a
five night settling down to the bahamas so come on let's get this carnival adventure started
so this is my first time on the carnival sunshine the carnival sunshine had a major refurbishment
back in 2013. they completely gutted what was formerly the carnival destiny and came
up with carnival sunshine it was one of the first carnival ships to feature a lot of the more modern
appearances and the modern venues that carnival has across its newer fleet of ships today so
really excited to be on this ship like i said five days we're gonna have a stop in bimini my first
time ever in bimini and then also stop in nassau so lots to share with you this cruise vlog series
if you're not already subscribed make sure you go down below hit that subscribe button because
you're not gonna want to miss a minute of the action from here on board the carnival sunshine
i'm staying in state room 8177 it's a standard balcony cabin here on deck eight so i'll give
you a brief little tour and we'll go inside the bathroom and i was actually pleasantly surprised
the first time i saw this just a few minutes ago uh that the shower takes up the whole portion of
the wall it's not a corner shower usually it's a corner shower on carnival ships the order ships
so i'm glad it's an actual like full length or almost full length shower at least for
a cruise ship it's pretty big uh for carnival standards um and then you have just your standard
little sink over here and the only amenities you're getting is soap that's all y'all and they
also have the standard shower gel and shampoo in the closet coming outside the bathroom you
do have your standard closets that you have on all the ships so no need to look at that
um here's just the desk area vanity area a little couch in here of course king-sized bed made from
two full beds put together there is also an option in this room for an upper pull-down
bed which is not going to be necessary and of course the best part about the stateroom is
the balcony and i this is actually two balconies put together i'm traveling with someone this
cruise so we got a room that had a partition that was able to be open so the partition is open and
uh so this is actually two standard balconies just uh with the partition open so pretty standard
stateroom uh for carnival pretty standard balcony i will say this ship does show its age uh quite
a bit i mean there's one example um another example we have to go back out on the balcony
see the doorknob is like really really decrepit it's also very rusty this door
uh the ship itself the superstructure of the ship actually uh you know was building like the 95 i
think the destiny debuted in 1996 and when this ship debuted it was actually the largest cruise
ship in the world so ahead of its time back in the day but it is a only 103 gross tons uh now so it's
actually not that big compared to some of the ships we have on the sea uh it's also pretty dirty
out here on the balcony i've noticed just first glimpse in being out here for a few minutes uh
the chairs are pretty dirty uh there's like very rusted balcony so um the handrails here are pretty
dirty and they have paint splattered all over them so just a few early things that i've noticed that
i wanted to point out now for you we're here in the port of charleston and i will talk just a
minute about what check-in's like because check-in is completely unique here in charleston the
embarkation process is different than just about anywhere else you're going to cruise from and
we'll talk about that it's very disjointed process but a beautiful day temperature currently about 55
degrees it's breezy it is mid-february and we're about to head out pretty soon to the bahamas
so
good morning everyone from a c day
good look out it's a beautiful morning
good morning everyone it has now been almost uh a full day since the last time i talked to
y'all i'm actually traveling this cruise with my parents so i'm not going to be vlogging as
intensively as i normally do because i want to spend time with them and just enjoy the cruise
but i do want to show you some things about the carnival sunshine because the carnival sunshine is
a ship that i've wanted to sell on for many many years back in 2013 as i stated the ship came out
right around the time when i started sailing with carnival cruise lines so i was always intrigued
with it but just never had the opportunity but now we're here on the sunshine so i'm gonna be
able to tell you whether or not she lived up to my expectations and what i thought all these years
we are headed down to bimini we'll be there tomorrow today's the day at sea then we'll be
at nassau then we'll have one more at sea back up to charleston so a five-day cruise down in
the bahamas gonna be my third time in nassau uh in the first two months of 2022 so um yeah not
sure what i'll get into there regardless of that it's going to be a great cruise right now just uh
it's 9 a.m so just getting ready for sea day brunch city brunch is one of my favorite
times to dine on carnival i love their sea day branch i always have i loved it even more when it
was the punch liner brunch because they had that french toast with the cereal on it that was really
good i don't think they have that anymore but i do like the brunch you're gonna head down there i
will say this is my platinum cruise with carnival i finally reached platinum status back when i was
loyal to carnival and only selling with carnival i just couldn't wait for the day that i would turn
platinum and that's finally happened yesterday i got my platinum card so i'm really proud of that
really excited about that so just gonna live it up here on my platinum cruise and i'm gonna
show you some of it as well oh i will mention here speaking of eating we did go to gigi's
asian kitchen last night and unfortunately i did not take any pictures or video of that but it was
an amazing meal ggs i've eaten there a couple times on the vista when i've sat on the vista
and it was so good but i was really happy that it was on the sunshine so good really good meal
so much food especially when you have multiple people because each person gets an appetizer
uh they get an entree and then they get a dessert but everything is shared so everything's brought
out in like a family style portion so it's a lot of food it was very good so highly recommend gigi
if you're coming on the sunshine enough about food i'm gonna go eat some food so i'm gonna
go to brunch and i'll catch up with y'all later to talk a little bit about the embarkation process in
charleston we need to talk about that that was uh yeah i'll tell you about that in just a bit
me
you
oh
hello everyone later zach here as promised i did want to touch on that embarkation process
just a little bit because as i said it is quite a bit different in charleston this is my first
time sailing out of charleston south carolina and it's a very disjointed process we arrived
by car because i was with my parents so we arrived uh probably about 9 30. i had a 10 a.m or 10 30 i
don't remember exactly which but it was the earliest you could get since i was platinum
uh at 16 days out ahead of the cruise i was able to go on check in and i got the earliest
time i could get so we were there in the parking lot about 9 30 and about 9 45 they actually let
parking start so the first stop you pay the next stop is you're directed to stop at the
porter station and you actually get out of your car here one person gets out of your car
go to your trunk you get out the luggage whatever luggage you have in your car
give it to the porters then you're free to go around and park and there's folks all around
the parking lot and they're directing you and they actually tell you which spot to actually park in
after that you get out of your car you walk to this warehouse looking building and you'll see
all sorts of folks directing you over there but this is where you're actually gonna show
your boarding pass this is where you're gonna show your vaccine card uh your any kind of uh coveted
test any kind of required paperwork documents your birth certificates your id your passport etc
you're going to show this as soon as you get inside this building but keep those documents
out because i thought i was done and they stamped it and everything my boarding pass to show
that i had all the documentation i needed so i was like good i'm done
and then they're like all right go to this next building and i thought that's where we were going
to be waiting to actually board the ship not so i get to the next building and then they
call me up to booth number 17. i think there were about 20 booths and they're like all right
number 17 they hold the sign up i'll walk up there they want to see my documents
yet again so make sure from the time you walk inside that warehouse there in charleston
uh all the way into the next building or the next room that you go in you keep your paperwork out
because you're gonna have to show it multiple times now once they checked my paperwork here
they gave me another stamp on my boarding pass and i was checked in good to go they asked us to
take a seat because they weren't quite ready to start boarding the ship yet but uh i think right
around 11 o'clock 11 15 somewhere around in there was when they were actually ready now there's not
an actual port building there right at the pier in charleston so you actually have to board a shuttle
that will take you over to the building where you go through security so when it was ready for our
boarding group they called a1 we got up walked out of the building got on a shuttle bus the shuttle
bus then drove us from the little warehouse check-in building over to the ship we go into
this other building wait in another line to go through security right before getting on the ship
then we proceeded up the stairs through the gangway and onto the carnival sunshine so it was
a multi-step process there was a lot of different buildings and lines and places to wait involved
i can't say that i enjoyed it i did actually have to go back to the car after going through security
i realized i forgot something at the car and had to get get on a bus be taken back to the car then
had to go get on another bus to get back to that building to go back through security it was a mess
i don't think there's ever going to be a port built at charleston because the residents there
aren't four cruise ships being in the port in fact we had to do a silent debarkation on the last
day of the cruise because of the noise complaints from residents so they couldn't just come over the
pa on the ship and say okay we're now calling zone one to disembark the ship or whatever
so it was all silent they couldn't make any announcements while they're actually in port
so that was interesting and they also were like please don't set up your car alarm whatever you
do don't set off your car lumber because there's like apartments right next to the parking lot and
apparently they get a lot of complaints from folks that live there so that's my piece about
the embarkation process at charleston i highly do not recommend it so uh if you um are close
to charleston you want to try it out absolutely charleston is a great city a great place to visit
but just know that it could be a lot different than what we're used to on embarkation day
because it is my first platinum cruise i get my first chocolate delight this is one of the perks
band platinum on carnival you get a chocolate delight every time you sell carnival there's some
macrons there there are so covered strawberries and there's a chocolate covered whatever that is
so yum it is now the second night of the cruise and i have been so inconsistent with vlogging and
talking to you uh like actually here on the ship but i did want to say tonight was elegant night
and i tried something different in the main dining room tonight and actually tried steakhouse
selections from that menu and it was a disappointment it's 20 upcharge and i got the
surf and turf which is lobster tail and a piece of fillet the fillet was very tough the fillet
was not cooked was overcooked it was too done and the lobster tail itself was just very tough
uh it almost resembled the lobster that you used to get on carnival
uh they might still have lobster if you're on a six night sailing i'm not sure but it resembles
that lobster the free lobster in the main dining room so would not recommend you doing that up
charge or at least what i got tonight wasn't good the best part of the meal was the sicilian
meatball soup that i got from my appetizer y'all that was some good stuff i really enjoyed it
really glad that i got that and i got creme brulee for dessert so that's gonna wrap up this combined
embarkation day and first day at sea tomorrow we're gonna be in bimini and i'm gonna have a vlog
coming out for you shortly on bimini showing you what you can do it's a relatively new port so
showing you what all you can do in bimini what all you might expect if you're headed there soon and
yeah that's it so i will see you guys in the next video thank you so much for watching make sure you
go down below and subscribe give me a thumbs up if you like this video as it does help out my channel
and thanks for watching i'll see you in the next adventure tomorrow from bimini goodnight everybody