My girls are three and five years old and I thought it would be years before we took them on their first cruise. But when, Carnival Cruise Lines invited us to sail on Carnival Sunshine’s inaugural voyage from Port Canaveral, Florida – I just knew we had to go.

In the days leading up to our trip, I was a little nervous about whether there would be toddler activities – and boy, did Carnival prove me wrong! The ENTIRE ship was toddler-friendly and my girls had a blast! (I’ll share the scoop on the awesome Camp Carnival soon in a separate post!)

Here are just a sampling of activities you can enjoy with your family on the Carnival Sunshine –

SportSquare – You don’t want to miss seeing this fantastic, suspended ropes course 150 feet above the seas. My girls loved playing Twister and mini-golf. Maggie likes to think she’s a pro-mini golfer and there’s no better place to play than on the 10th floor of a cruise ship! In SportSquare, we also found tons of families playing fooseball, basketball and even outdoor chess!

Hasbro, The Game Show – This is the one event I wished we had been able to squeeze in during our trip. It’s a live game show with larger-than-life adaptations of Hasbro’s popular games and participants are chosen from the audience. An oversized Yahtzee game? Yes, please!

Dive-in movies –  Maggie was literally speechless when she noticed Gru from Despicable Me 2 was the dive-in movie of the night. She couldn’t believe that we were outside watching a movie – on a cruise ship. Talk about best of all worlds – she was in heaven.

WaterWorks – The squeals of excitement coming from WaterWorks was contagious! The 334-foot-long Twister water slide – the longest in the fleet – was the highlight, there is a height restriction of 42inches. For the little ones,  my girls loved the smaller slides and splash areas for toddlers. Beware of the splash bucket that dumps out water!

Sweet Treats – The Shake Spot served up great milkshakes (including spiked ones for parents!) and SeaDogs near SportSquare served up tasty hot dogs. Of course, there’s always soft-serve ice cream and yogurt available on the Lido deck too – 24 hours a day! Inside, Cherry on Top was the ship’s candy store – the selection of gummy treats was overwhelming (in a great way) and there were plenty of treats to bring home as gifts too.

This is just a small sampling of the activities families can experience on the Sunshine Carnival. In the coming weeks, I’m going to share even more about our cruise – dining, kids club amenities and even our shore excurision in Freeport, Bahamas. I’ve got all the scoop – stay tuned!

What activity would your family like to experience? 

 

** My family and I were invited guests of Carnival Cruise Lines. Thoughts and opinions here are 100% my own. **