*Cassie*

When we finally arrived in Cozumel, there was some kind of delay with the port authorization, so we were told to stay in our rooms or public lounges until given the ok to exit. We took that opportunity to open up our room curtain and enjoy the view since we weren’t moving.

Finally they announced that those who had booked excursions could exit first, so we made our way off the ship. They of course had the photographers and people dressed up to take pictures with as soon as you exit the ship. So we did a couple of those and then had to get the ship background photos.

The Triumph and Paradise were docked right next to us. And yes, we wore matching shirts for the race. Had to represent Team 52! It’s a family inside joke and we already had the shirts, so we knew it would be the perfect team name.

And that view! Oh man do I love palm trees!

Cozumel

Our morning started off at sea. We weren’t going to arrive at Cozumel until noon. So after getting ready, we went right up to get breakfast.

After breakfast I wanted to check out the Serenity area, since I realized we hadn’t been there yet. It was still mostly empty at this point. We thought about grabbing a drink to get the full relaxing lounge chair experience, but our excursion for today was The Amazing Cozumel Race, so we thought that might not be the best idea. It was still nice to just hang out here for a bit.

Molly needed to finish getting ready and we needed to pack our things for the day, so we started making our way back to our room. Then we remembered that the café drinks are also included in the Cheers package, so we stopped there and each got a chocolate milkshake and bottle of water to bring to the race.

I still needed to find a place to mail my postcard home to the kids. I didn’t see any mail boxes around anywhere, so I asked someone in a shop and they suggested going in to the lobby of the resort that was right there to ask them. They right away said yes of course they could add it to their mail for me. Unfortunately, it has still not arrived. I’m not sure if I did something wrong or it really is just that slow? Guess we’ll see if it ever shows up.

Hey hey, it finally arrived today! Guess I left it at the wrong spot because it was postmarked on 6/20, which was 4 days later and the day I arrived home. But Sophia loves receiving any kind of mail, so she still loved it anyway!

Did your mom try any sea sickness remedies? Seabands work for me and for bad cases I take Bonine. I get all kinds of motion sickness just found what worked so I could still enjoy.

 

Love your pictures.

I believe she used bonine. I just take ginger root pills, so she also had some of those a few times. We'll have to suggest she try something stronger if we can (hopefully) talk her into another cruise eventually!

And thank you! :)

We then called it a night and found some surprises back in our room. The room steward left this message on the mirror, which remained there the rest of the cruise.

Then our towel animal with fun times and a birthday card.

It had a $50 spa gift card and $12 for pixels. Now I was really kicking myself for not getting a nice group photo taken earlier that evening.

Coming up… Cozumel!

After dinner, Kabir was starting a music trivia in the atrium in between the production show times. I’m thinking it was 80’s music, but not entirely sure. He would call someone up who had to pretend to be that singer. Some of them were sure entertaining to watch!

Molly wanted a front row seat for the show, so we went early and listened to Johnny the piano man do the pre-show.

And after the show we went to the comedy club, which was another first for me on a cruise. There were two comedians tonight, Jaylyn Bishop and Roman.They were both great, but we really loved Jaylyn. We weren’t allowed to take pics during the show, but here’s the empty stage.

Another first for me, this was my first time getting to see the waiters performance. That was fun! Molly was picked to stand up and dance with our waiter, but when she saw they were doing a choreographed dance she called it quits and sat back down.

Dinner tonight was yummy. I started with the chilled strawberry bisque, then the prime rib, and pineapple sherbet for dessert.

We then wanted to go find the “secret” deck up front. It’s always one of my favorite quiet spots each cruise. It was empty, as usual.

We walked over to check out the view on the side and when we turned around we realized mom wasn’t there. Hmm where did she go?? So we walk back to leave, open the door and find this… :')

Poor mom started feeling motion sick watching the water so she had to escape and now had no drink, so we had to stop and grab one more! I can’t remember what this one was called, but something peachy as well. Maybe margarita??

After finishing those, we went back to our room for a little cat nap before getting ready for dinner. I forgot to mention I got the social media package for the week, so that I’d be able to use Facebook Messenger to talk with my hubby and MIL about the kids. So I took that time to upload my Key West photos. The service worked pretty well, but there were a few times it wasn’t working. We mostly had issues with Instagram and Snapchat. Facebook usually worked fine.

We debated getting a nice photo taken, there were some cute backgrounds, but we didn’t want to stand in the lines. Our group photo didn’t turn out great, bad lighting, but it will do.

We then walked back over to the ship, made it through security, and of course the first thing we had to do was grab a drink. I went with the strawberry daiquiri this time.

We were ready for some lunch, but first needed to go back to our room to take our motion sickness meds and freshen up a bit.

The buffet once again didn’t look too appealing, so we all decided on pizza. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so good. The fruit from the buffet was, though! I always love all the fresh fruit each cruise. Oh and I had picked up a Diet Coke from the bar up there and I don’t know what the deal was, but it was completely flat. Like, so awful I couldn’t drink more than a few sips. I can’t remember if he opened a new can or had poured it, I’m really not sure, but it wasn’t good. I didn’t want to bother standing in that line again, though, so I just grabbed a lemonade.

Dessert was tasty, though! I believe this was another cheesecake (can’t remember what flavor) and a chocolate cake pop today.

After eating we thought we’d try our luck at the casino. I guess we weren’t far enough out at sea yet though, so the casino wasn’t open yet. So we grabbed another drink while we waited. I was in the mood for something peachy, and asked our bartender for a suggestion and went with that, a peach bellini. That was a first for me, but I liked it!

Once the casino opened up we made our selection of slot machines. None of us our big gamblers and honestly didn’t really know what we were doing. But we finally kinda sorta figured it out and each put $10 down. Molly and I each lost ours fairly quickly, but my mom found herself up $1 and decided to cash out while she was up!

We stopped at a few souvenir shops and I found a postcard to send home to my kids and our traditional trip souvenir of a magnet for the fridge. I also stopped in a kids shop and found something for my daughter there. Then we found the Tropical Juice stand. We wanted to get one of the whole pineapple drinks. It was huge, so we all shared one. It’s $15 and you choose whatever drink (with or without alcohol) you want in it. We went with the Pina Colada. It was yummy!

Walking on, we passed by the famous Willie T’s dollar bar.There was live music playing. Looked like a fun place to hang out!

And finally, Kermit’s Key West Lime Shoppe! I picked up a bunch of souvenirs here for the fam and of course had to get a chocolate covered key lime pie on a stick for myself. Oh man it was good!

I think it was around noon now and we had to be back on the ship by 12:30 (I believe), so we started walking back over to the port. We briefly stopped to check out the statues around the Custom House.

I still needed to find a place to mail my postcard home to the kids. I didn’t see any mail boxes around anywhere, so I asked someone in a shop and they suggested going in to the lobby of the resort that was right there to ask them. They right away said yes of course they could add it to their mail for me. Unfortunately, it has still not arrived. I’m not sure if I did something wrong or it really is just that slow? Guess we’ll see if it ever shows up.

We lucked out and the line at Southernmost Point wasn’t bad at all yet, so we got our photos.

It was already pretty hot out in the sun, though, and with the mile walk down there we were ready for a little break in the shade, so I took that opportunity to video chat my kids. Unfortunately it wasn’t working great, but I got to briefly see their sweet faces and talk to them, so that was nice.

We next made our way over to Higgs Beach. I had seen some photos out on a pier that look really neat, but we were bummed to find that it was closed for some construction. So we kept on walking. Our next stop was the West Martello Tower. It was a cute place, but it was very buggy and they were starting to bite, so we didn’t stay for long.

Then we realized how far we actually walked and that we’d have to walk back… It was so hot out. But we made our way back and went down Duval Street this time. We had to stop for a few photo ops on the way.

My mom asked this random guy to join her for a photo! He seemed unsure at first, but then said heck why not. He was a good sport!

This was each of our first times to Key West. We didn’t book any excursions, just planned on walking around and exploring the city. We wanted to go straight down to the Southernmost Point first, to get that photo op before the line got too long, so we headed down Whitehead Street. This city is so cute! I’d love to go back and have more time to visit. I just loved all the cute old houses.

Lots of neat trees, too.

We walked past Ernest Hemingway’s home and saw some of his infamous cats outside.

The lighthouse is just across the street.

Key West

Today was our early morning. We would be arriving at Key West at 7:30 and were only there until 1pm, so we wanted to get off the ship as soon as we could. We were up by 6, got ready for the day and went over to the buffet for breakfast. Breakfast has always been my favorite meal on the ships, but I have to say I wasn’t quite as impressed with it this trip. Not to say that it was bad at all, just not quite what I remembered. Here’s my breakfast selections.

We were still sailing when we had gone up to breakfast, but by the time we finished we had docked in Key West. We snapped some pics from the ship before making our way off.

And had to get this one before leaving the port area, although the lighting wasn’t the best.

Great start to your review! Did your mom and sister get hooked on cruising? I'm treating my mom to her first cruise next year, and I keep going back and forth between the Fantasy class ships (like Sensation) and something bigger.

 

You all are so pretty! Very photogenic too:)

My sister, yes! She already has her next one booked for August. Have to say I'm a little jealous! My mom, however, although she never actually got sick, she couldn't look out at the water at all. So unfortunately our ocean view room was a bit of a waste since we could never have the curtains open. And she couldn't just sit out on the deck, other than when we went out to Serenity and she could lay down on the lounge chair and close her eyes. She said she would do it again if we all wanted to go together (I want to do a big family group cruise eventually), but she doesn't think she'd just plan one herself.

I hope you have a great time on your cruise. Good luck on picking one out. And thank you, you're too kind!

Oh, and go Cardinals! ;)

Great start--thanks for writing!

Great review! Following along for the rest of the cruise.

Thanks for reading! :)

I'm glad that you luggage arrived [emoji33], how rude of that porter! Great start on the review.

 

 

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Right? It was such a relief when we saw they had all arrived. Thanks for reading!

After we finished up dinner, we went over to the Gender Showdown going on in the theater.

We didn’t know what to expect exactly. They separated the audience into men on one side and ladies on the other. Then Chad, the game host, picked out a team captain for each side. We would then go back and forth with him asking the ladies a question relating to something the men might know and then asking the men questions about something the ladies would know. It was alright, kind of entertaining.

After that, some kind of music trivia started. We stayed around for it, but I can’t remember now what it was exactly. Here’s a pic of CD Kabir up on stage.

Bingo was getting ready to start next and my mom wasn’t feeling great, so we went back for a little break in our room. Earlier in the day our room steward had stopped by and asked if we wanted morning or evening cleaning. We chose evening. So while we were out we had turn down and our first towel animal had arrived!

My mom decided to be done for the evening, but Molly and I wanted to check out the Welcome Aboard show. This is also something that we had to skip our past two cruises, with it being too late for the kiddos, but wow it’s really changed from how it was my first cruise. I was expecting a show with the singers and dancers the whole time, but it started out with two teams doing a challenge involving sticky balls. Then the towel animal puppets. The singers did make an appearance at the end, though.

After the show we went up to the night club. I guess it was still too early for the crowd, but Molly wasn’t feeling it so we just called it a night since we knew we’d be getting up early for Key West.

Coming up… Key West!

After a little rest in our room, we got ready for dinner. As a SAHM, I don’t often have a reason to get all dressed up and spend the extra time on my hair and makeup anymore, so I really loved getting to do that each night of our cruise!

For dinner I started with the Caesar salad, which I thought was ok.

The brisket with bacon mac ‘n cheese was amazing, though! So so good!

For dessert, my mom and I each ordered the warm chocolate melting cake, but we tried asking for peanut butter on the side as I’ve seen other people on here have done. Our waiter said ok, but when he came back he said they were out, but had given us peanut pecan ice cream instead. Bummer! (of course Molly tried it the next night and got it…)

Just shortly after they brought that, out came a surprise. I had noticed during dinner that there was lots of birthday singing going on, which I hadn’t remembered from the past (but our last two cruises have been with the kids and we stuck with Lido dinners, so this might not actually be anything new). But out came the singing waiters and a birthday cake for me. I was definitely not expecting this as my birthday was the week before. Unfortunately, and I felt terrible about this as it was a nice surprise, but I was so stuffed by this point and the cake wasn’t really that great, so it was pretty much a waste.

Our next thing we wanted to do was the Spa tour for the raffle drawing. This is something I’ve never done and thought we’d give it a try. As we walked in, someone was waiting and took us on the tour. Our first stop was the gym. I was really hoping to make it to the gym for some running on our sea day this trip, but that never ended up happening. It’s really nice, though! They had a trainer with a sign up table for classes they offer and he gave us his spiel on each.

Next was the spa rooms. Someone there explained the services she offered and handed us some kind of product to smell, which did smell wonderful!

Next up was a room full of chairs that they were waiting to fill up a bit before they started talking about the massages. They even walked around with a few tools (hot stones and some kind of rolling thing) to give us a little tease. I have to say the hot stones felt amazing! And our last stop was the hair salon. We entered our tickets and decided to go see if our luggage had arrived yet. And it had!

We started some unpacking until we heard the announcement for Muster Drill. A lady was already walking through the halls knocking on doors asking everyone to make their way down. Our station was in a lounge. We waited there for the talk and then they brought us up to the Lido to show us where our boat was. I can’t remember exactly how long the whole process took, but it wasn’t too bad.

After a stop back to our room when we realized mom hadn’t taken her motion sickness meds, we were ready for sail away. We were going to go up to check out the Sail Away Party up on the Lido deck. On the way there we walked past the Casino.

And had to stop at the bar to grab another drink. I went with the Miami Vice this time.

There was some dancing going on up at the Lido, but we seemed to catch the end of most of it. The cruise director, Kabir, had been up there on the stage, but then left to move on to something else. The DJ took over, but most people left shortly after.

We realized we’d need to head back to the Spa for the raffle drawing. Unfortunately we didn’t win, and fyi you apparently don’t have to do the spa tour to enter as there were people just walking in and being handed raffle tickets to enter...

It was now 1:30, when we were told our rooms would be ready, so we decided to go there to check it out. One thing that was different on the Sensation from the ships I’ve previously sailed is the number system. We were on deck 4, but it is called deck R. Each floor is labeled as a letter on the elevators. Also, the elevators don't go from the very top floor to the very bottom. You might take one elevator up to the top, then you have to walk over and take the stairs up the rest of the way or walk over to another elevator if you need it. But we were in room R131, an ocean view. Here’s some pics.

And this took place before any drinking had begun… :')

Speaking of drinking, as I said earlier we had not been planning on getting the Cheers package, thanks to me. I’m not that big of a drinker and couldn’t justify spending that price when I’d already spent so much on the cruise. But my mom decided she really wanted it and was going to get it for us. Thanks, mom! We first got in line at Guest Services, which was already quite the line, but thankfully someone was walking down to see what everyone was waiting for and they told us that we could just sign up for it at any bar. So glad we didn’t stand in that whole line to be told that! So we stopped at the Atrium Bar and grabbed our first drinks! I went with the highly recommended Kiss on the Lips. It did not disappoint! I had it several times over the trip.

Our first to-do after lunch was to snap a bunch of selfies to post for social media! I won’t tell you how long it took to get decent ones that we all liked or didn’t have somebody’s hair blowing in the wind. ;p

Not a bad view!

We also walked to the other side to get a shot of the whale tail with the view.

The mini golf is over there, so I took that opportunity to grab a pic.

Embarkation

In the morning we grabbed some breakfast at the hotel, which had a limited selection but hey we knew we’d be grabbing some cruise food soon enough. Once we were packed up, we checked out and called another Uber over to the port. We had selected the 11:00 check in time, and I believe that’s right around the time we arrived.

First sight of the ship on the drive over! Getting excited!!!

The Uber driver was a little confused on where to drop us off at and originally started getting out to grab our luggage on the complete opposite side of the port. We asked him to drive closer and he finally got us at least close enough that it was just a short walk. But what happened next still just blows my mind.

So we walked up here to where I remembered dropping off our luggage the last time we sailed out of Miami. You bring your luggage to the section on the left here and then go into the building on the right. There weren’t any signs, but a porter waved us over. I got there first, so I pulled out my wallet to get a tip out for him and as I hand it to him, he points to each of our suitcases and counts out loud 1, 2, 3 and would not take my dollar until both my mom and sister had dug theirs out of their purses for him. I was in shock at his rudeness! Then he immediately takes off walking over to the building, leaving our luggage there in that spot and we were left wondering did he say to follow him or what is going on? But he just charged off, never turning back. So we were a little uneasy just leaving our luggage there, but we didn’t know what else to do, so we moved on over to the building.

There were workers there checking the boarding passes to make sure we were at the correct check in time. And we quickly moved on in, through security, and the whole process was the fastest we’ve dealt with yet. It was so easy! We had just a short wait before they called our zone and before we knew it we were walking onto the Sensation!!!

We went straight up to the Lido deck to grab lunch. It was already getting crowded, so we found a table first and of course being the sweet mom that she is, she let us girls go pick up our lunch first while she sat with our things. The buffet options didn’t look too appealing and I was dying for that Guy’s Burger and Fries, so I went straight there. I’m thinking that’s what we all got actually.

Soooo good! And then we chose a few desserts next. I forgot to snap a pic before eating that first cake pop. But it was as yummy as I remembered from last time. The caramel cheesecake was excellent as well. I normally find the buffet desserts to look better than they taste, so I was better this time with my choices and what I remember liking previously, since I hate wasting food.

Thanks for the review.

Thanks for reading! More coming up here in a bit.

Looking forward to the rest of this review! We'll be sailing on the Sensation for the first time in September (actually it'll be our first cruise ever) so I'm excited to hear about your experience.

Oh exciting! Enjoy and prepare to get hooked!

Will be following your interesting review.

 

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Hope you enjoy! Feel free to ask any questions. I'll try to keep this going as quickly as I can (or as the kids will let me).

Love the Sensation!

It was the smallest ship I've been on so far, so I wouldn't necessarily say it's my favorite, but we had a great time! No complaints.

Great start to you review! :)

 

How much was the Uber? the hotel?

I believe the Uber ride was $45/$15pp and the hotel ended up being $132.