Sensation Spring Break - March 13th-18th

Just returned from our 5 night sailing over our spring break onboard Carnival Sensation. We departed on March 13th, traveling to Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay and Nassau. It was hard to find many reviews on the smaller ships prior to our trip so hopefully this will be helpful for others.

Before I get into the day by day, a little info on my traveling group. We had 5 people in total, my DH, DS age 13, DH, age 11 and my mom. This was my 6th cruise, 2nd time on Sensation and previous sailings on Carnival Conquest, Magic and Breeze along with NCL Epic. For all others in my family, it was their first time on Sensation and a smaller ship.

We took advantage of the ship sailing out on Monday and flew into West Palm Beach on Friday, arriving mid-afternoon. We rented a car for the duration of our trip and drove down to Islamorada in the mid Florida Keys. Traffic almost the entire time was an absolute nightmare finally improving shortly before Key Largo when the speed limit changes to a whopping 45mph! Enjoyed the next day with a much more leisurely drive to Key West for a day of sightseeing. Booked tickets in advance on Groupon for one of the hop on/off trolleys and had a great day seeing all the sights. We were hoping to stick around to watch the sunset at Mallory Square but due to it being a Saturday during spring break, Key West was in full on party mode and by 430p wasn't exactly as family friendly as it was earlier in the day with overly inebriated people passed out in public. So headed back to our hotel in Islamorada.

Sunday we headed north to Miami for a one night stay at the Holiday Inn Port of Miami. Great location for a single night pre-cruise stay. Longer duration stays I would most likely return to staying in the South Beach area as there is so much more to see and do. We did enjoy strolling around Bayside but it was mainly normal stores and restaurants that we have here at home and on vacation we try to eat at places we don't have. The highlight of the Holiday Inn for me was "ship spotting" from the window and getting excited for our cruise to begin!

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My next cruise is on the Sensation so I am tuned in!!

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Cruise Day 1 -

We all woke up excited to finally get onboard the ship. We had the 11a check in window and left the Holiday Inn at 1030a. It took maybe 5 minutes tops to arrive to the terminal and find parking garage D which was the closest. Port parking is $20 per night which is a little bit higher that off site parking but it was so nice being right there, especially for when we got off the ship. We lingered around outside for about 15m or so before trying our luck at checking in a few minutes early. There were no lines at all for the initial check in outside, security or the final check in where we got our sign and sail cards. Boarding did not begin until close to noon so we had almost an hour wait in the terminal which quickly filled up fast with other cruisers.

I was excited when we got onboard to see the updates that had been completed just a few weeks prior and to introduce the DH to Guy's Burgers :) I thought overall the ship was very nice. I was a bit nervous even when we booked at what the others reactions would be since their experience was on the newer, big ships. But I figured with such a port heavy trip with only one sea day, we wouldn't be on the ship all that much anyways.

After a brief walk around the ship we headed up to the lido for lunch with all of us happy to enjoy a burger and fries. We were boarding group 2 so the line at this point was non existent! After lunch we went back to checking out the ship.

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We ended up cutting through the dining room which brought us to deck 6/Upper, which was where our rooms were located. We had two oceanview cabins and they weren't officially ready yet but they had doors open to several while they were finishing them up. Snuck in a few photos of the suites. First pictures are of oceanview categories.

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Great start to your review!!!! Sensation was our first, back in 1994.

Nice to see the purple again but even better to see her with all of the upgrades.

Cannot wait for more!!!

Rest of day 1 was spent lounging in the sun and just enjoying the ship. We went to the Hasbro Game Show which we really enjoyed on the Breeze and fun to watch. I returned to walking around the ship as it's my favorite time to get pictures, the ship always looks so pretty all lit up at night. I too will include pictures of the day 1 Fun Times.

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Bon Voyage Miami!

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Thanks for the review.

Following along. Sailing in May on a different ship but love seeing reviews.

Love the ship at night!

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Great start to your review!!!! Sensation was our first, back in 1994.

Nice to see the purple again but even better to see her with all of the upgrades.

Cannot wait for more!!!

I too love the purple, especially being from MN and a fan of both the MN Vikings and Prince :) My favorite new feature was Alchemy, it's beautiful!

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My next cruise is on the Sensation so I am tuned in!!

 

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I hope you have a great time!

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Thanks for the review.

Thanks!

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Final wrap of day one. We met our room steward, Christopher earlier in the day when the rooms were ready. He was hands down the BEST I've ever had! He was so attentive, always present and let us know how to reach him should we not see him. It almost felt like he was only serving us personally. Exceptional! Here are the fun times and our nightly towel animal.

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Enjoying the beautiful photos!

Very nice photos! Following your review.

Boyfriend and I will be sailing on our first cruise on the Sensation in September. I'm so excited to read the rest of your review; thanks for sharing!

Enjoying your review thank you

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Thank you so much for posting this! My mom and I sailed on the Sensation last March and are booked for next March; we are so excited to see the updates!

Day 2 / Sea Day!

I love sea days and all the variety of things going on. I have this horrible problem of waking up extra early during vacation, especially cruises and this trip was no exception! I was up well before sunrise and walked around a very quiet ship. It was quite breezy but could tell it would be a mostly clear day. No signs of any chair hogs out yet at this time and everyone else in my family was still sleeping when the lido opened for my favorite meal of the day, breakfast, which is usually pretty good on Carnival though I have to say, the French toast on NCL is the best! Returned back with everyone else once they woke up and plotted out the main things we all wanted to do from the Fun Times.

I'm a huge trivia fan and love trying to win a ship on a stick and it seemed like there weren't as many trivia games as there were on the Magic or Breeze. But I get that there's not nearly as much available rooms to host it either. Two other things my mom and I love watching are the hairy chest and mixology contests. They are hilarious! Everyone at this point ventured off to do their own thing with DH and kids playing mini golf while mom and I pretended to be sun goddesses lol. There are so many places with deck chairs--main lido deck, all along deck 11, the waterworks area and serenity that we never had a challenge finding a prime spot. The seats immediately around the pool filled up quickly but we were just fine overlooking it all from deck 11 near the giant chessboard. The wind definitely picked up but it was clear and very sunny which for us ultra pale Minnesotans proved to be the ultimate test for our sunblock as you couldn't really feel the heat.

We got out of the sun and mom returned to the room for a nap and I met up with the DH and kids for a late lunch.

Went and played a little bit in the casino and met up with the family for trivia pursuit which was fun. Returned to the cabins to get ready for dinner which we ate again in the lido. It was formal night and while it's fun to watch everyone else all dressed up, since we had a longer than normal trip for us, we really had no extra room in the suitcase for dressy clothes. Between lunch and dinner, food in the lido seemed to be lacking some and we noticed that all of the menu items posted in the dining rooms was the same as what was available in the lido, which happened every night and found odd or just never paid attention to.

We went to the PG comedy show which we found really funny. The comedian asked quite a few questions to a family sitting in the front row starting with where are you from etc and they were from Huntsville, AL and the comedian commented about NASA and as if turned out, the husband of this family happened to be a rocket scientist who worked there! Needless to say, it turned into quite a funny conversation and the family were great sports with being on the spot for such a long time!

After the show grabbed some ice cream cones and returned to the rooms. The early wake up equalled early to bed plus the next day was our first port day with an early 7a arrival to Grand Turk, one of two places of this cruise that none of us had been to, so I personally was really excited!

At the end of the day, I was really sad that this was the lone sea day of the cruise. There was so much else we wanted to do that we normally could get done on the 2nd sea day like Dr Seuss brunch and extra shows that there just wasn't enough time for.

Here are some pictures from our day at sea and I'll follow with the Fun Times.

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Thank you so much for posting this! My mom and I sailed on the Sensation last March and are booked for next March; we are so excited to see the updates!

That sounds like so much fun! Now that I've officially converted my mom to a cruise lover, I'd love to do a trip with just her and I!

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