First Time Cruiser - Carnival Sensation review

This is my review of the Sensation. It is written for new people who have never been on a cruise. It is NOT written for you that are diamond, ect.

I would like to share a few things I have learned to any new people. For the record, I have spent hundreds of hours reading posts on Cruise Critic. I thought I had done all my homework.

There are many really nice people here that will answer your questions. There are many nasty elitist people who are snarky as heck and will flame you. (there are actually posts that have please do not flame me in the subject line in your do not believe me.) To you nice people, thank you. To you nasty people, you should be ashamed of yourself.

1. Learn what the search button is. Do not come on here and ask questions that there are 100 subjects on. It will save you lots of nasty comments.

2. Do not remove the tips. The people work hard for their money and deserve the tips.

3. No you can not take water and drinks on most cruise lines. Do your research!

4. Yes you can sneak liquor on board. BUT you should not.

5. Get cruise insurance. To many people have had problems, not had insurance and gotten into problems and wish they had it.

6. Consider flying in the day before. If there are airport delays it will cause you much less stress.

7. Research your cruise completely. This was a big mistake I made. The cruise I was on and I were not a good fit. Not Carnival's fault... we just were not compatible. Find out what kind of activities they have. Ask people to post their activity sheets. I will post mine in later posts. Had I known what a typical day was I might not have taken this ship. They did not have things to do that I was interested in doing and to be really honest, I was bored to death. (Before you nasty flamers start, I talked to many others and they said the same thing. Again all carnivals fault, we were hoping for a different experience and thus were disappointed. Do your research! f you are an early to rise, early to bed, make sure the ship you are going on is the same. Many of the most fun activities start very late. I was very disappointed and missed lots because my natural body rhythm has me tired earlier. I wish fun things started earlier or maybe had 2 sessions. I wish they had had organized card games and dance lessons too. I wish I had seen activity sheets from other cruises. I would not have taken this had I know.. Not Their fault, I did not know that I needed to do this research.

8. Sometimes stuff happens and you do not get to go to a port that you were expecting. No use screaming and hollering about it. The captain has to keep the whole ship safe. The weather was rough, the seas were bad and Grand Cayman was canceled. It is what it is. They did a good job of trying to give us something to do that day. It was actually the only day I had fun. They did fun things earlier. If you only have 2 ports, consider getting your souvenirs etc at the first one in case you lose your second port.

All of that said... Here we go...

I was on the Carnival Sensation 1/15 - 1/20/18

When you fly in and head downstairs to ground transportation. You may come across this booth

http://photobucket.com/confirmation?token=HdPwXqjcx31F4eThrUO6Y4NYTCB26eJIqaFgvD6B%2F3ryPNONgBneufzviSdhm9viVySN3S%2FJdBu1eLKPbJwEyAFUm8VL9jgj

You can EARLY check in! It will get you into the ship right behind the VIP's and fast to the fun. Also you can ride the shuttle for $33. both ways. There is a bus every 20 minutes heading for the ship.

Finally arrived :)

http://photobucket.com/confirmation?token=HdPwXqjcx31F4eThrUO6Y4NYTCB26eJIqaFgvD6B%2F3ryPNONgBneufzviSdhm9viVySN3S%2FJdBu1eLKPbJwEyAFUm8VL9jgj

They are going to take you to the terminal where you will go through customs and then you will wait in this big building.

This is only 1 room, there are 4 of them, 2 floors. Thousands of people!!

http://photobucket.com/confirmation?token=HdPwXqjcx31F4eThrUO6Y4NYTCB26eJIqaFgvD6B%2F3ryPNONgBneufzviSdhm9viVySN3S%2FJdBu1eLKPbJwEyAFUm8VL9jgj

There are many that seem to think they are special. You get given a zone, they take you to the ship depending on your zone. (That is why airport check-in is nice, you are in the first zones) People, just because you have waited, just because you are hungry, you are NOT special...wait your turn!! Stop your complaining!!!

They did not start taking us to the ship until after 1 pm. Apparently, there was a problem with the gangplank and they finally took us in from the bottom of the ship on the 3rd floor. They did give us a small refund for it being a total "Cluster".

Finally on our way to the ship! Down this very long hallway to get out of here!

Will post room pictures and more later today.

You will learn from experiencing more cruises and doing them on multiple cruise lines. You'll learn when to cruise and when not to cruise ..... This means high crowd months and bad rough weather months. Certain cruise lines cater to or attract a certain type of cruiser or age of cruiser. Certain lines have certain activities that target more specific cruisers even at earlier times. I'm guessing if you are an earlier to bed person that likes cards and dancing you may want to try Holland America, Princess, or Celebrity. You'll get better service and more up close personal attention.

Definitely do your research. Sensation is a small ship with far fewer amenities and relies heavily on the daily "Fun Times". If you have a port day cancelled and aren't interested in those activities it certainly can get bland in a hurry.

This is why mega ships have been so profitable for cruise companies. Less emphasis on the ports and more emphasis on customers spending funds onboard with their amenities. There are people who would literally be cool with 7 sea days if the ship has the amenities to occupy them. Get a drink package and try different restaurants and they could care less about where they are going.

I prefer using a cruise ship as my "resort transportation" to visit all these different islands that I have never been to. Often, the smaller the ship, the cheaper the price and a lot of those small ships go to ports that aren't visited by the big ships. I think once I have seen all the islands then maybe I will be more interested in the big ship amenities or I will likely take my cruising adventures to Europe/Asia.

I did the Allure and it was just ok. Nothing wrong with the ship, it was beautiful, but it was so big and the design of it, in my opinion, made it lose that "cruise ship character" that I love. You could go a whole week on that ship and barely ever see the ocean.

That said I have never been "bored" on any ship. I am on vacation and even reading a book on the lido deck with a drink in my hand is just such a relaxing thought.

Everybody is different and that is ok.

KDawg is right, take the Vista for instance. It has plenty of lounges with different music. It has the skyride, the IMAX movie theater, 4D thrill theater, water park, craft beer bar, specialty restaurants, mini golf, bowling, bean bag toss, shuffleboard tables, Dive in Movies on deck at night. Impossible to be bored. Boredom as the original poster mentioned is why we only sail on new(er) ships with much to do. We avoid old small ships for this reason. I'd rather pay a bit more in price to be content than to save a few bucks and be bored.

Not flaming, just correcting....

You said "3. No you can not take water and drinks on most cruise lines. Do your research!"

Yes, with Carnival each passenger is allowed to take their own drinks on with them. (1 12pk per person, and can buy more in ports)

Also, your pictures aren't showing up.

We aren't able to see your pictures.

I have uploaded pictures 3 times, they appear on my screen, they upload, it ask me to tell I am a robot, then it sits and big circle of death.

I am going to give them to you on the back page of my website.

Here is the check-in desk you will find at the airport - Miami. If you check in here it saves you time when you get to the port. Also, people who do the airport check-in get loaded after the "special" people and the faster to the fun people. Was so happy I happened on to it.

I arrived!! (I am traveling solo) Very surprised she is not painted as garish outside as she is inside.

The huge waiting room, I counted 4 more. (I may have missed some) Imagine thousands and thousands of people all impatient to get on the ship. The noise was deafening.

On the long walk to the ship, FINALLY!! We did not get on until after 1 pm. Nice thing was the rooms were ready.

Next post will be the room I stayed in.

Ok... off to my room. I stayed on the 4th floor, Had an inside with a window. It was perfect.

Thought having a curtain was really silly but the entire floor is made of the rubber and is all sealed up the side. If the water was to run out onto the bathroom floor it would go down another drain. Was actually a decent design.

HINT for new people. Take a picture of your room number. It is NOT on your sailing card. Since you have your phone with you, it is easy to find.

As I said earlier, I was bored often on this ship. Yes there was lots to do, but not stuff I enjoy.

Ask yourself what kind of things do you like to do?

Are you a, I want to go do lots of things and see things person?

Are you a, I want to lay in a chair and not do a thing person?

Relax is not something I do, I am a go go type person. This was not the right cruise for me.

I am an early to rise, early to bed person, the fun stuff started late on this cruise. We just were not a good fit.

Not Carnival's fault, it was my mistaken expectations.

Here are some of the daily activity sheets. I wish I had tagged them, I took pictures of them instead of bringing all this paper home with me to scan. And random pictures of activities around the ship.

They had a wonderful show called 88 Keys, This is TL, he was amazing!!!

Lots of serious drinking! These guys had 2 of these earlier. I do not know why the picture is turned. It is straight on my screen. here is the direct link if you want to see it straight up https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/fun5.jpg

More of the show, this show is worth seeing!

The sensation does have a few water slides. I like water slides and did go on them a few times.

Oy, you are limited to 6 pictures per post...

This one is not as awesome as it looks. The water pressure is not strong enough and everyone gets stuck on the last curve. Was a disappointment. And I really like water slides.

I believe this is the info sheet from embarkment day.

here is the link so you can see it upright instead of sideways

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/funfirstday.jpg

Part of the last day

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/funlastday.jpg

It wouldn't let me delete the one above, here is the whole page

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/funlastday2.jpg

Here is the sheet for our port day in Jamaica

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/funportday.jpg

We were supposed to have a port day in the Cayman Islands. We got within 30 minutes and then the captain was forced to cancel it. Our weather was very rough and we were not going to be able to dock. It was the right decision. The sea was very very rough, we were walking like drunks and we were going to have to take tenders. For safety sake, the captain canceled it. We were disappointed but safety first.

This was the sheet before it was canceled.

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/funreplacement.jpg

Here is what we actually ended up doing. I had some fun this day. There were things early enough that normally were at night.

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/funseaday.jpg

I hope this gives you enough idea of the activities on the Carnival Sensation.

TIP for new people on the sensation.

There is a private adult only area with hot tubs and no kids :)

Walk through the buffet all to the way to the end of the ship.

Go through the doors to the outside sitting area

Go down the stairs one flight.

You are now in the adults-only area.

I like sitting in the hot tub. The ones upstairs with the pool were always full of children jumping in and out ontop of each other and were not a pleasant place to be.

Thank you for sharing that tip of taking a pic of your room number! And thank you for the review. I am wondering what types of activities would have made the cruise more enjoyable for you? My husband gets antsy and I'm concerned he might get bored on our cruise too.

Good review, newcruiser! Just a FYI, Gr. Cayman is a tender port and that is why you missed it. It would have been dangerous to try and transfer passenger from ship to tender and back. The captain made the correct choice.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

I'll be on Sensation in August, there's not many threads of this ship, therefore I'm interested in seeing more info/pics from you. It'll be my second cruise, there's alot more things to learn.

Thanks for doing the review.

OK On to the food. Let me start with the disclaimer. Food is subjective. What I may like you may hate, etc. I am not a foodie. I am not someone who is into lobster etc. I am a Golden Corral type person. I am happy with simple.

If you eat plant-based as I do, you will struggle to find food to eat that has no oil. I am not the talk to the chef type person. You may have a different experience than I had if you eat in the dining room the whole time.

The burger joint by the pool is Guys Burger. (The sign is small) They do have a veggie burger, you have to ask for it. They make it in about 10 minutes. it is a black bean burger. It was good.

There is a cantina next to guys (Both are in the pool area) (level 10) Tacos and burritos. I ate there a lot. You could get beans, etc instead of meat.

IF you are Gluten free...oy vay. if you eat meat you will be fine. If you are also vegetarian you will have to do some searching. I did find gluten-free bread on the last day.

HINT to find the food. The first day was so crowded I never found the buffet.

To find the buffet, go to 10, walk past the pool, next to the burger and Mexican food places are doors. ENTER the doors. That is the big buffet. There is also a pizza joint there. I did not eat there, being plant-based (which means I eat no meat products) there was no reason to try.

The main dining room is on 8 and 9. They usually make you enter on 8.

On to the food. Here are lots of shots from the buffets. It will give you some ideas of the foods

Personally, I think my local Golden Coral does a much better job. I was very unimpressed with the food.

I am NOT a eat in a sit-down restaurant. I did eat in the main dining room twice. Eating alone in the pool area is much less painful than in the main dining room.

There is fruit, this is at the continental breakfast. The fruit is not in season, the cantaloupe is so hard you can not cut it with a fork. I grabbed lots of banana's from another area and took them to my room to snack on.

Gluten Free Bread, Looked good, I did not taste it, I typically am not a big bread eatter.

Menu from the grill. This is at the buffet.

You can see it straight up https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food12.jpg

This is the menu for Brunch in the main dining room

to turn it you can see it here == https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food13.jpg

The cantina https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food14.jpg

The buffet dining room very early in the morning. The doors for the secret adult only area hot tub are at the very end to the right.

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food15.jpg

A menu for breakfast in the main dinning room

to turn it right side up https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food16.jpg

Continental breakfast, doesn't this look healthy? https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food2.jpg

This was supper I think, https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food3.jpg

Breakfast, that is grits in the bottom left https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food4.jpg

Another day, continental breakfast https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food5.jpg

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food6.jpg

More continental breakfast https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food8.jpg

The main dining room set up for the next meal

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food9.jpg

Guys burger, this place was hopping. I ate there a lot, that is why you do not see many pictures from the buffets from later meals.

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food18.jpg

Tacos and burritos. Next to the burgers. My 2nd favorite place to eat.

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food19.jpg

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/food20.jpg

Our first port was Ocho Rios Jamaica

There are several threads right now on other lines about is the port safe. Keep in mind I was there a few days ago.

YES it is safe.

You get off the ship on the 3rd floor (tip, they will try to get you to go to the auditorium (7th floor!!!) and wait there and then march everyone down the stairs to get off. My room was on 4, I waited in the hall and was off the ship very quickly. I had time to shop and come back on the ship and they were still getting people off!! It took them a good hour.

You will come out, they will waste more time and blocking people by taking pictures (I do not do pictures I refused and kept on walking). You will walk down a very long pier to a building where all the tours meet. You may also buy a ticket there for an excursion if you have not done it yet.

Outside those doors are many booths with lots of colorful souvenirs. This area is inside a LOCKED secure area. No one will bother you. You may freely walk around and will be fine.

IF you want to go outside the gates you may, Make sure you have your room key, you will need to show it to come back in, no key no come in... Outside the gates are many shops and places to eat. There were many police officers out there also many taxi drivers wanting your business. The police kept them back and away from me and I was able to go into the shops without being bothered. I felt safe at all times.

I wish I had taken pictures outside but I didn't think it was a big deal. You are locked in an area that is owned by the port. You are safe.

You get into the vans and out of the vans INSIDE the gated area. They make everyone on the vans show their room keys before they even allow the vans in.

The roads up the mountain are quite a ride. The physical conditions of some of the road are the worse I have ever seen, some are so narrow we had to stop and back up so the other direction could pass. The cars would be so close to each other you could have easily touched them if your window was open. It was quite a ride!! The driver knew what he was doing but Oy Vay it was something LOL

You will see the crushing poverty in some of the areas you pass through and wealth in others. Made me happy to be an American.

The tube ride, the zip line, bobsled and the 4 wheeler rides are all up in the same area. You will see each other. No one bothered us there. The guide was very nice. There was a nice restaurant and gift shop.

Land Ho!! There is another ship in port with us, we never saw them, they were coming down the mountain as we were coming up. Their ship was gone when we came back.

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/jamaica1.jpg

The pilot ship coming next to us. The man climbs up a rope ladder and gets on the 3rd floor. Nerves of steel driving that boat right next to our ship! The pilot climbing up that ladder is NOT young!!

HINT best place to watch docking is the deck right outside of the buffet on 10 under the life boats.

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/jamaica4.jpg

Regal Princess is in town with us :) Look at the HUGE movie screen on top! It was really cool!!

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/jamaica2.jpg

If you are going to be on a water trip, you will want one of these

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/jamaica12.jpg

It is $25 on the ship. I forgot to pack mine.

More pictures as we are coming in. Isn't the area pretty? The water is so blue!

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/jamaica11.jpg

I went on the float trip. Like I said earlier many of the other excursions are in the same area. We saw the zip liners and the 4 wheelers from the water. We saw them coming back to their vans as we were leaving.

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/jamaica.jpg

Getting ready to get into the water. It was not warm, it was not super cold, but it was a bit of a jolt getting in the water.

PACK TOWELS, you will leave your clothes and property in the van, but bring a towel. Someone in our van said she was told by the guest service people that towels would be provided. Nope.. You will find 2 big beach towels in your room when you arrive. If you use them at the pool you can always exchange them.

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/jamaica7.jpg

In the water

Our tour guide. He was very funny. Poor guy was in the water the majority of the time!! We kept floating in the sides etc. He kept having to unstick us. We each tipped him $5. he seemed offended. I personally would have hated to have his job that day!

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/jamaica8.jpg

Our next port was supposed to be the Cayman Islands. We got close enough to see it but the captain canceled because of the weather. The water had been very rough and we were going to have to be tendered. The winds were very strong also.

Safety first, I agreed 100% with his decision. I will repeat if you only have 2 ports. Consider getting your souvenirs at the first one, you may not get a second one.

They automatically refunded our money back to our account. You did not need to do anything. Make sure to download their app. It will save you many trips to guest services. TIP Go to guest service very early in the morning if you need them. Usually, there is no one in line. Other times the lines are very long!

Our rough water heading into the Cayman Islands. You felt drunk going up the stairs. Many people were seasick. My room was on a lower floor (4th) I just felt it as a gentle swaying. The higher your room the worse it was. Allison who does trivia said the crew rooms are on 3, The water was splashing the waves over their windows!

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/jamaica9.jpg

The Cayman Islands... so close yet so far.

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/cayman.jpg

A rainbow. Look where it ends. In the water!

Thank you for sharing that tip of taking a pic of your room number! And thank you for the review. I am wondering what types of activities would have made the cruise more enjoyable for you? My husband gets antsy and I'm concerned he might get bored on our cruise too.

Organized card games would have been nice. I was solo so I had no one to play with. You did see others playing but they were with their own people. I had no people. Karaoke earlier would have been nice. They did it early on our extra sea day, that was nice. Dancing and/or dance lessons early would have been fun.

If he likes to gamble the casino is open later in the day but I will say:

The smoke at the casino area is horrible, it stinks. You can smell the smoke down the stairwells and in the halls.

If he is a Type A, and does not define relaxing as sitting doing nothing he will probably not be happy. To me relaxing is going and doing things I have never done. I enjoyed our day at port. I enjoyed karaoke. I want to be busy. I do not want to do sitting doing nothing, especially when I am alone. Thus I was bored to death.

Organized card games would have been nice. I was solo so I had no one to play with. You did see others playing but they were with their own people. I had no people. Karaoke earlier would have been nice. They did it early on our extra sea day, that was nice. Dancing and/or dance lessons early would have been fun.

 

If he likes to gamble the casino is open later in the day but I will say:

The smoke at the casino area is horrible, it stinks. You can smell the smoke down the stairwells and in the halls.

 

If he is a Type A, and does not define relaxing as sitting doing nothing he will probably not be happy. To me relaxing is going and doing things I have never done. I enjoyed our day at port. I enjoyed karaoke. I want to be busy. I do not want to do sitting doing nothing, especially when I am alone. Thus I was bored to death.

Thank you for responding! We are early to rise, early to bed, Type A people :) While I can read for hours, husband needs other stuff to do. We may need to split up because I need my reading/sun time. I showed him the Fun Times for our cruise that someone else posted to give him a better idea of stuff he can do. We definitely avoid casinos because of the cigarette smoke...our visit to Vegas was interesting. Hopefully he will be happy to join me for a few games of Bingo instead :) But I totally get what you are saying about them offering more fun stuff to do earlier.

I think you are doing the same cruise I'll do. 5 days cruise stopping in Ocho Rios and Grand Cayman. I really liked the review. It's also my first time and I've been reading every single post here in the past weeks and also asked few questions that I didn't find a convincing answer.

The weather looks great in the waterslides picture. I hope it will be like that everyday for me. What scares me most is if the weather is bad, because I will not only miss the fun (pools, port days, etc) but also I'd be very seasick.

And different from you, I like to wake up early but even though I normally go to bed late.. I'm the kind of person who sleeps 5-6 hours a day and this is more than enough. So, I like the idea of having late attractions and in the morning I can relax at the sun.. :)

I think you are doing the same cruise I'll do. 5 days cruise stopping in Ocho Rios and Grand Cayman. I really liked the review. It's also my first time and I've been reading every single post here in the past weeks and also asked few questions that I didn't find a convincing answer.

 

 

The weather looks great in the waterslides picture. I hope it will be like that every day for me. What scares me most is if the weather is bad, because I will not only miss the fun (pools, port days, etc) but also I'd be very seasick.

And different from you, I like to wake up early but even though I normally go to bed late.. I'm the kind of person who sleeps 5-6 hours a day and this is more than enough. So, I like the idea of having late attractions and in the morning I can relax at the sun.. :)

Our weather was chilly and cloudy for the most part but the water slides were ok. The pool was impossible because of all the kids, the only hot tub was the hidden one, the others had kids like crazy. I enjoyed Jamacia, wish we could have gotten off in The Grand Caymans. The secret about sea sickness. The higher you go the worse the rocking. If your room is on a lower level the rough water was more like gentle rocking. Walking up the stairs, the higher we got the more you could feel it. Felt like I had been drinking too much (I had not been drinking at all) Hope you have great weather. We had lots of rough water but we did not get rain during the day so the pools etc were open.

I will post more pictures later tonight. I will show you the pool... singular...the pool. One pool, thousands of people. Hope you don't have kids.

When you get off in Jamaica, how about posting pictures inside the secured area and the long walk way ...(the pictures I did not take so people will see it is safe :)

Thank you for your candid review. I am a part A? kind of person, and like to have the option of taking a nap or reading, but also having plenty of things to do should I choose.

I'm sorry your weather was bad in Grand Cayman, we were there 12/19 and it was pretty calm.

Part of the fun of a cruise are the towel animals. I had one appear every day. On the last day, they had a class in the auditorium and you got to make a few.

You get to guess the animals.

I made this one in the class. Not as good as the pros but not bad for a first try :)

to turn it straight

https://www.blindcatrescue.com/cruise/misc9.jpg