Photo review: H goes booze cruising on the Sensation ( post dry dock, FOOD PORN )

H GOES BOOZE CRUISING ON THE CARNIVAL SENSATION

March 8-12, 2015

Nassau and Freeport

I’m baaaaaack (read Oprah style)! As you may know, on my maiden voyage aboard the Carnival Freedom in December (warning! shameless plug of my previous review coming) I was just shy of legal Camp Ocean age (my mom’s a college professor, you think she would have been able to hook a guy up with a fake ID, right? No. And we ALL suffered for it.). Well, now I’m legit 2! (In addition to being thrilled with the option to unload me on those angels among us at Camp Carnival, my mom’s also relieved she no longer has to remember how old I am in months). And what’s the best, really only, way to celebrate coming of age? BOOZE CRUISE!!

Me, after a long night of partying.

FIRST, THE BASICS…

Our smaller “big boat:” The Carnival Sensation.

When you’re two, people are always trying to teach you things. Dudes, this isn’t my first time around the “big boat.” But alas, I’m told the Carnival Sensation has an important lesson to teach us (This sounds like something my Poppi would say. More about him later): If your ship is old and small, a little rough around the edges, full of almost totally naked and completely, totally trashed college students who yell louder than I do (little refresher here, I like to yell), and only sailing for four shooooort days, it’s best to try to see your DOD (drink of the day) as half full.

Really though, you weren’t on a Carnival Cruise if your booze wasn’t always half full (“Another drink Mr. H?” cha-ching!).

Or if you disembarked without a $45 photo of a Pirate all up in your grill in the MDR (cha-ching!, cha-ching!).

And some 75% off jewelry that would have cost you, like, 90% off that at Claire’s (cha-ching!, cha-ching!, cha-ching!).

Seriously though, for a smaller “big boat” mom still found herself lost at least a dozen times and we all managed to have a (spoiler alert) great time! Who’s we? Read on!

(BTW, feel free to ask questions or chime in…getting to know all of you and share our experiences is what makes doing these reviews so fun!)

Yay finally a post dry dock review I've waited not patiently!

The cast of characters:

H (that’s ME).

A lot of people think I’m a girl due to my long, curly hairs. Not that it matters, but for the record, I’m a dude. I like travel and long walks on the beach (no, seriously, I do). If you read my previous review (as promised, shameless plug: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2140134&highlight=freedom), you know my favorite foods are orange sherbet and cheese. Since we spoke last, I’ve mastered the ABC’s (in both regular speed and fast motion) and fake burps (Uuuuut, excuse me. Uuuuut, excuse me).

Mommy.

Mommy looks so young and hip that college guys kept asking her back to their staterooms to show her their view (wait, you have an interior!). She just smiled and said, “You’re going to be embarrassed when you walk into my class next semester.” None of that actually happened, of course, but it’s the kind of thing mom daydreams about while applying Preparation H, or whatever.

Daddy.

Daddy’s the kind of guy who doesn’t like outside and wears long black dress socks to the beach. My Gigi likes to joke that when they took daddy camping as a kid his eyes never left his book until it was time to pack up and go home. Then, he broke the sound barrier with his eagerness to get the H-E-double-hockey-sticks outta there. And let’s just say dad prefers camping to cruising (the food’s better). The nice thing about this guy though, he’s a really kick A-double-S daddy and mostly he just wants to do what makes his family happy, even if it’s a boring as crap cruise. Plus, he’s a big spender. Not really, but he’s not as cheap as mom and keeps me in Mocha Chocolate Getaways (keep ‘um comin, Everton!).

Grandma.

Grandma and I go way back (I gave her my very first sticky high five fresh out the womb!) and we’ve been cruising together for, like, 4 months now. She totally gets me. Sometimes I wish mom was (more) unfit so grandma could raise me as her own. She knows lots of songs and jokes and I’d get cheese and sherbet 24/7.

Our rooms.

U12 and U16. Both interior portholes. If you read my review of the Freedom, (for crying out loud, just go read it, people) you know that on my last “big boat,” the Freedom, we had a balcony which grandma and mommy totally hogged. Since I hardly ever got to chill there anyway, I didn’t miss it one bit (surprisingly, mom didn’t really miss it either – she thought the porthole rooms were an amazing value). Instead we got this awesome little cave with two steering wheels that doubled as windows. I drove them like a car and kept watch for Pirates. One slipped past me and took mom captive in the MDR (see above) though. Oops.

I did miss the fridge full of “happy juice” we had on the Freedom. I had to request some ice to keep my beers cold. The multiple reading lights right at my level almost made up for it though. On, off, on, off, on, off, on, off. My mom left me in the room while she got a 3 hour massage at the spa and when she returned: on, off, on, off, on, off. Saved her $6 an hour for babysitting.

I can’t convince anyone to buy me cigarettes, so I have no position on the epic war of the Carnival smoking policy, but I will say that our rooms smelled very smoky. I’ll leave it up to you as to whether that’s a good thing (sweet, light up and blame it on poor ventilation or your neighbor) or a bad thing (I’m never leaving my house again if I get within 12 miles of those cancer sticks). In any case, here’s a photo of my room -- check what’s on the TV. Teehee.

Okay, so naturally the rest of the review will be organized as follows: ship activities, port activities, and finally “the good, the bad, and the ugly.” Guess what’s up first? Seriously, don’t you know me at all?

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!

Yeah! Another H Review! Loved your Freedom review, and know I am going to love this one too! Sensation was my first Carnival ship!:) Looking forward to more of your review, and I know it will be fun:D

Yay finally a post dry dock review I've waited not patiently!

Hi Shadia,

I'll try to highlight all the changes I noticed post dry-dock, but feel free to ask me about anything specific you might be curious about.

Hi Shadia,

 

I'll try to highlight all the changes I noticed post dry-dock, but feel free to ask me about anything specific you might be curious about.

Thanks going on 4/19, I've been on this ship several times so wondering what was fresh.

Yeah! Another H Review! Loved your Freedom review, and know I am going to love this one too! Sensation was my first Carnival ship!:) Looking forward to more of your review, and I know it will be fun:D

Thanks for humoring me a second time around, SMSACE6. :D

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!! (old menus on the Sensation, still)

So, to review, mom and I are vegetarians and if grandma eats any more fish she might sprout fins and swim away. Lucky for you, I’ve added a new character to this second installment, daddy, and as such, a fresh perspective on dining. So, here’s what you need to know about dad and food. He likes to think of himself as a foodie, but mommy thinks of him more as a Picky Parker. Sometimes we have competitions to see who can throw our green vegetables the farthest and yell in unison “NO MAMA.” Daddy really loves good food, though. In fact it’s one of the few things he enjoys about vacation. This concerned mommy, so she warned him to keep his expectations low -- I mean not everything can be Golden Corral and it’s certainly no Olive Garden (those are seriously her favorites, don’t judge). So, without further adieu…

MDR soups and apps

Baked stuffed white mushrooms. Mom's favorite. Our head waiter Everton convinced grandma to get them too. I like any waiter who encourages gluttony .

Vegetable spring rolls. Fool me once, shame on (there's a George Bush quote here)... Anyway, mom didn't like them the first time and didn't like them the second time. She'll order them again though, mark my words...

Cured salmon and candied tomatoes. Didja? Grandma did! And thought it was pretty good.

Fried shrimp with plumb sauce.

A study in sushi. Daddy heard all kinds of great things about the sushi on Carnival and then chickened out. Grandma went for it and liked it (in case you haven't noticed, grandma pretty much likes everything she tries.

Crab cake. Daddy didn't make a face, so it must have been okay.

To be continued...

Great review so far!

"H" - your story started out fabulously, couldn't stop laughing. So I just had to go to your first review because I couldn't wait for this one to continue! Priceless! I shall stay tuned!

"H" - your story started out fabulously, couldn't stop laughing. So I just had to go to your first review because I couldn't wait for this one to continue! Priceless! I shall stay tuned!

I knew I could get at least one sucker to click on my prior review! Hehe. Thanks for reading, Denise!!! :D

Can't wait for more "H"!

subscribing

Yay! So excited! I loved your last review!

Subscribing.

Your reviews are very entertaining. I enjoy them. I am looking forward to much more.

Happy to see another review by you and your little darling has grow since your last review.

Too cute. I have no interest in this ship but I can't stop reading. :)

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

"H" I love how you keep your family on their toes!;) Can't wait to read more of your escapades!:D

MDR soups and app continued...

My mom thinks I was born yesterday. I almost have a full set of teeth, lady! Speaking of which she does this thing where she throws anything I won't eat or can't eat due to lack of chomping capabilities into the blender and calls it "soup." If that wasn't bad enough, she was a little worried about how I would behave in the MDR and tried to pull a bunch of cons on me (I have so much to tell my friends at daycare on Monday. "You won't believe what that crazy woman tried now?!?"). So, the fruit soups are pretty kick butt anyway, but mommy wanted me to be so into them that I wouldn't throw stuff and hear all the "grown up talk" (even GRANDMA was shocked!) going on at the table of 11 ROTC guys sitting next to us (they started out so adorable and innocent in their matching khaki's and Hawaiian shirts...we're glad they had fun tough, they deserve it!). Anyway, she tried to convince me I was getting "ice cream soup." Almost worked too. Almost (muu haa haa).

Strawberry "ice cream" bisque

There was a mango cream "ice cream" soup too. And an asparagus one. Asparagus ice cream soup? Seriously? It stopped working after the first day, so mommy was busy dodging flying cutlery and couldn't snap photos of those.

Vine ripe beefsteak tomatoes and fresh buffalo mozzarella. Can't go wrong.

Cream of garden fresh broccoli. Mom thought the hot soups were much better on the Sensation than they were on the Freedom. Less salty and really flavorful and delicious. Mom refuses to eat with anything but this little red plastic spoon.

Lasagna bolognese (also available as an entree). Dad cleaned his plate.

Black tiger shrimp cocktail. There must be, like, 600 million photos of this on Cruise Critic by now. Make that 600 million and 1!

Spinach and artichoke dip. A little blah (mom has such a sophisticated vocabulary).

Well I've reached the maximum 6 photos for this post, so I'll have to sneak the snails in somewhere else. Maybe you'll find one in your briefcase or something. No really, I've done that.

Hey H! Love your review and pics! Looking forward to more!

I see you and mom have a love of the same plastic red spoon cause I remember it from the last review. So cute! =)

Enjoying your review! (Also, I did read the other review first....lol)

MDR Entrées

First, a word about our wait staff. If grandma was my first great love, Art (our head waiter on the Freedom) was my second. He brought me all my favorite foods and taught me Gangnum dancing. Eh – sexy lady and so on. I’ve been talking about him non-stop ever since. When I heard we were going on another “big boat,” I got all excited to give him and Florin (his assistant) sticky high fives. When I found out we’d have “a different Art” on our next “big boat” -- I just assumed it would be his clone or something (it worked on that Dolly, why not Art?).

So, I sit down at dinner, don my car bibbie, give a “sup” to the ROTC fellas, make some initial demands of mama, and over walks this dude who did all the same things as Art, but who didn’t look a thing like Art. Like, not a thing. If you paid for a human clone, get your money back, people. Or don’t. Because I liked this Everton and his assistant Juka just as much as Art and Florin. In addition to bringing me cheese and orange sherbet and giving me lots of high fives, Everton laughed at all my jokes. He had this fabulous, genuine laugh -- mommy loved it. And her eyes lit up when he offered to keep me on the big boat with him. Mommy was a little too eager to get his stateroom number and make arraignments to drop me off. We were both disappointed to learn Everton was bluffing (sure, it’s all fun and games until you have to live with one of me).

Onto the entrées. Let’s begin with the grilled flat iron steak. I’m only going to include one photo of this, but you should know that daddy ordered it 3 out of the 4 nights. I’ll show you why in a second.

Martini braised basa fillet with tomato, chili and fennel. This was a winning recipe from the 5th Bacardi competition in the Italian category, from chef Ajay Nair. It was also the reason daddy ordered the grilled flat iron steak for our remaining 2 nights. No offense to the judges or to chef Nair, but daddy spit this out in his napkin.

Broiled filet of corvina (take a guess who ordered this).

Chili rellenos. Mommy didn't like this much on the Freedom, but LOVED it on the Sensation. So much better! I guess the lesson here is that booze cruises serve the best food. Or, rather, that drinking makes food taste better.

My mom makes me eat the grossest crap at home. But on vacation she let's me eat quality food, like this...

Cinnamon, pumpkin, squash, yam, and cheddar pot pie. Mom loved this, but wishes she had ordered two. It's pretty small.

To be continued...

MDR entrées continued...

Broiled filet of salmon. This is on the everyday menu. So if you wanted to be like daddy with his steak, you could.

Indian vegetarian. Mommy ordered this twice and loves it, so, so much. Please, if you're going on a "big boat" anytime soon, bring some back for her in your luggage. Wait, why wouldn't that work out?

Here's the second version. It's served with rice and 3 relishes too. But mommy couldn't wait around to take another photo. Oink.

Duet of broiled Maine lobster tail and jumbo black tiger shrimp. This may be the first time you're seeing this -- I hear it's not a very popular selection.

Up next...

Mommy took some really crappy photos of two night's worth of menus. Go get your glasses.

 

Mommy took some really crappy photos of two night's worth of menus.

Does mommy know you're using your potty mouth here? ;)

These might be worse than nothing. Sorry!

No, you're not going blind. Well you might be. Just don't use these menus as an eye chart. Up next, DESSERT!!!!! But you'll have to wait -- mom's making me take a nap. It's only fair that we both feel TORTURED. Waiting, waiting, waiting...napping, napping, napping. :mad: