Carnival Sensation

Hello,

My husband and I are considering booking cruise on the Sensation in Sept. This will our first time on this ship. Does anyone have any advice on the best way to take advantage of all the ship has to offer? We will be stopping at Nassau and Grand Turk. Are there any excursions that you would recommend?

Thanks!

Hi there. . . to answer your questions, I would need to ask you a lot more questions. Are you splurgers or penny pinchers, because there are ways to do both, and the wrong strategy for your personality won't make you very happy. Are you going on the cruise to work on your tan, relax in padded loungers, and spend as much time swimming/snorkeling/water-sporting as possible, or are you more of a casino, nightlife, indoor type of person? Because Sensation, and more or less any ship plying the Bahamas route, will offer you all of that.

Do you like to eat all your meals simply and on the go, in which case you may enjoy the Lido deck buffet, Guy's Burger Joint, and the Blue Iguana Cantina, or do you prefer to be served in the main dining room, which has waiter service, a good Sea Day brunch, and different evening menus each night, and shell out close to $100 per head for an optional, very exclusive Chef's Table experience one night?

For Nassau, you can do any of the following - walk off the ship and shop up and down the main tourist street for jewelry, perfume, liquor, clothing, and souvenirs - no excursion needed. Or you can take a few different sightseeing tours where you will be put on a bus or minivan and driven around to see their idea of the island cultural highlights.

For a higher price point, you could get an excursion out to Blue Lagoon Island, a private island for a beach day with or without a dolphin or sea lion interaction. Or you could go over to the fabulous Atlantis resort for the day and enjoy the amenities.

What do you like on the other cruises you have taken?

For as frugal as I can be, I absolutely love Sandals in Nassau for a day pass

Thanks for the information. We are pretty laid back and we are ready to lay back and relax. We do enjoy the night life also. If we see something we would like to do, we are ok spending the money. I will look into both Sandals and the Blue Lagoon Island.

The Sensation was my second cruise, and besides the abundance of purple throughout, it's a pretty good ship. As for excursions, Grand Turk was pretty nice when we were there last year, we did a sightseeing tour called Top Ten Best of GT and it was very good, we saw pretty much the whole island, made 3 stops where we could get out and look around, first was one of the oldest churches in GT, second was a shopping stop, the area at first looks a little sketchy, but quickly discovered the locals are very friendly and laid back, we bought a small painting done by the young man we bought it from and a piece of metal art that his cousin made, we love finding these unique items made by the local people, so much better than mass produced souvenir junk. Last stop was the lighthouse. Our guide and driver Jerome was very good pointing out all the sights and giving us a good bit of local history and information. We really enjoyed it. There's also a beach and shopping/dining village at the port that is pretty nice, there was also a small marketplace there for locals to sell there wares, we bought a hand carved wooden tea set and a couple other small things, we bought everything at a fair price and nobody was pushy or aggressively trying to sell us stuff.