Carnival Sensation - Bless her Heart - Preview and Report

I have always had EXCELLENT, large tip-worthy room stewards on my previous sailings. So I was shocked by no service two days as was guest services. My fault was having an idea of what I was getting & comparing one ship to another. I should not have done that. When I spoke to guest services yesterday, I did find the reason there were very limited comedy shows is that a large group (100 +) booked this cruise & Carnival blocked out areas (including the comedy club) for them to use for private events. A cruise is what you make it, so go enjoy! We did... even with the areas that needed improvement. Happy Sailing ya'll!

Great points all around. Of course I expect this cruise to deliver everything we liked about Triumph, but she ain't the same boat. Seems like just an unfortunate fluke on the cabin service.:( Glad you still enjoyed yourselves.

Huh. A concept I never fully explored. A pre-cruise review. Don't see any reason why it couldn't be useful. So, keep it up.

 

Now, that said, one of our earlier cruises was on the Sensation. I'm talking about 1995 or so. Does that sound right? At that time, I found the ship crowded and gaudy. But keep in mind this was after 2 cruises on the old Constitution in Hawaii, and one on the Crown Princess. The old one. The Sensation is the same size as the old Crown Princess, 70,000 tons, give or take, and it had 1,000 more passengers. Now, it seems kind of nostalgic to go on a cruise to the Bahamas with only 2500 of your closest friends.

Hi Tub! Useful is in the eye of the beholder so thanks for weighing in with the encouragement. Yes Sensation entered service in 1993 and my guess is she's every bit as crowded and gaudy as you left her. I don't have very good taste so I sort of dig the crazy old loud decor. There is an awful lot of beige and gray in the understated design trends of today. Very lovely but boring.

I live according to one key crowd management principle: Arrive early. The Triumph was jam packed with nearly every berth occupied on a spring break sailing, but that simple strategy helped tremendously. I agree, it's funny to read reviews complaining this ship is small with nothing to do! These ships were industry changers and now they're antiques. Like us, I guess! :)

Hi Sjn and thanks for the kind words! You know more about Fantasy class ships than I do, so I respect and appreciate your positive take on Paradise. I'm sure the young people are enjoying their youth and all, but it's pretty cool to have been around for the first moon landing!

That it is and thanks for your kind words...you are so talented and just loving your approach and planning wisdom with the family's varied desires!!:)

Driving from Chicago to Miami (and back) might not sound like the most fun you have ever had. For a lot of years, Kmom was a childless young adult who, surprisingly, spent excess funds in travelling around the world. England? Check. France? Check. Netherlands, Italy, China, Peru. Not all at once, but that would be quite a trip!

For all of these trips, there was only one way to get there, and that was in the air. This all occurred during what I call the Golden Age of Flights. Since I was childless, I could travel during off-seasons, and bargains were often available.

The Golden Age is Gone. In short, I really hate flying these days. It's expensive and everything about it seems a lot less convenient than the good old days.

First off, my info says we are South Chicago but that is a stretch. We are far enough out to be fairly inconvenient to Midway or O'Hare, though we have of course flown out of both several times. Add that to the time for parking, schlepping your stuff in to the terminal, the "who knows how bad it will be" question about gate and security lines, the limits on what you can bring, and the pressure of being on someone else's schedule. At best the idea of a flight is a kind of "meh" situation. I like Southwest the most but they are not the bargain they used to be either.

And when I was a kid, we traveled mostly by road across the land of the free and the home of the brave. Because that's what Americans do! It's a big country, with lots to see, and there are roads leading to pretty much all of it!

So it just seems to be fair and right to put my kid into the car and drive her around. For this trip we are breaking up the drive to Florida into 3 days. First day we are going only to Louisville, KY. Second day Atlanta, GA. Third day we reach my parents at their home north of Orlando.

There is a potential problem here. This economic recovery is pulling a lot of people back into a vacation state of mind, and it is Christmas time, a/k/a the highest of the high seasons. So we booked our road rooms well in advance (Hyatt properties, booked mostly using reward points). We are hoping to get off the road before dark each day, which is a challenge due to the stupid solstice! It is so dark this time of year.

Back when I lived in Florida for 16 years, the latitude closer to the equator meant that the seasonal light change was not quite as drastic as it is up here in Northern Illinois. I do not like looking out the window at 4:30 pm and feeling like it's midnight. While I do like sunlight, I am also not always thrilled with the summer solstice either. By 9pm I like to be snoozing, not sunbathing.

Wah, wah, wah. Kmom sure has a lot to complain about. Hey, the change of seasons is wonderful. It kills off the mosquitoes. It renews the earth, and we are all darn lucky to be a part of the cycle of life and all that! I get it! But a nice, uniform 12 hours of daytime and 12 hours of nighttime every day of my life would be nice, and no, I am not going to up and move to the Equator to do so.

But I am also not moving to Alaska, no matter how many of those shows we watch about people buying tiny dry cabins so they can live in a forest on a lake miles from the rest of civilization. Yes, your walk to the outhouse with a nice view of Denali is nearly bear free, which must be just great in the eternal frozen night of your winter. How does Denali look in the dark?

What I would like to do is be a snowbird, a/k/a a retiree who lives in Florida or some other warm southern state in the winter, and then either goes back to their old home up north or travels around other places in the summer. Ha. See I'd have to retire to do that, and because I blow all my money on travel, there won't be any retiring for Kmom. She'll be carted out of the workplace one day, hopefully far in the future.

Sorry for the digression. Well not really. I'm sure nobody is reading the post anymore so I might as well digress at will. This Preview thing is like the friend who tells you they are pregnant too early, like when she is only 3 weeks pregnant.

Then the months go by, with all the talk of the pending baby, and by the time she's about 7 months along you are like, WHEN IS THAT BABY ACTUALLY COMING? Seems like forever and ever she's been pregnant.

That's like this Preview and what will eventually be a Trip Report. It's been going on quite a while and still no actual trip to report on! Just a lot of random babbling for my own entertainment. Anybody ever actually going on a cruise here?

Well I am one of those many people - and I know a lot of CC readers are too, that's why we read all this stuff - who researches extensively and plans thoroughly, and it is all part of the fun of travel for me. The anticipation of the journey gives me something to look forward too on bad days. Also on good days! And even with the time I invest on the front end, I still make mistakes! On my upcoming Oasis of the Seas booking, I am not sure my timing was perfect for the optimal pricing / cabin category options.

I promise to return with enlightening photos of lovely Hyatt Properties along the scenic byways of this lovely land. Probably a little Disney as well, since we're making a stop. Since you can't stay at my dad's condo, I will refrain from taunting anyone with photos of it. While in Florida we will be visiting various friends and family that we left behind.

This is really happening. And we are going to love every stinkin' minute of it!

It's time to go finish packing now and make sure I don't go and do something stupid like forget the passports. See you soon!

I hope the weather holds up for your drive. Any hint of snow South of Louisville and everyone will be in panic mode, but to be fair we're not very good at clearing the roads down here.

Really enjoying your reports!! Safe drive to Florida...and I agree....love Southwest...but they are not such a bargain anymore:rolleyes:

Please digress as much as you like; I have no cruises planned and this is very entertaining! :)

Heather

We were just talking about this ship last night. It will be 20 years in July that we first sailed her as a family. We are thinking we need to book her again this summer. Can't wait to hear about your cruise.

Hope you have safe travels and an enjoyable cruise! We are going to be down Orlando way January 11th ourselves for some time at Universal. Looking forward to your Nassau reviews as we'll now be going back there in mid-February aboard the Sensations sister ship Elation out of Jacksonville.

I have unapologetically booked two more vacations before my upcoming Spring break cruise because I worked my posterior off these last few months and daddy needs to get somewhere warmer and sunnier. :D

I am on this ship Jan. 15 Look forward to hearing about the ship :)

Hello KmomChicago,

I too am from Chicago, River North neighborhood ( Groupon building)

I'm retired Air Force 1977-1997, give your father a Thank You from me.

I'm sailing on the Sensation January 25-29th 2018, sooooo am looking forward to your review.

I hope you have a blast, and safe travels.

HNY!! Brian

Hi there! It’s embarkation day and I’m awake here in Miami. We’re at Country Inn and Suites Kendall. The drive from central Florida on New Year’s Day was easy and weather was great. We’ll be parking at Port of Miami thanks to unanimous advice on Cruise Critic. We are all very excited. We selected the earliest check in time of 11 am and we have Faster to the Fun. We are carrying on all luggage (really rolling most of it rather than carrying) so we can unpack and get settled as soon as possible.

Boarding passes are printed and everyone remembered their passports. It has been brutally cold in the Midwest but we have missed it all, having arrived at Dad’s place on Christmas Eve. We’ve been to Disney and visited several other people over the last week and now it’s time for the real vacation to begin!

I appreciate all the posts from more newcomers to the thread and Happy New Year. I will post better replies to you all after we return to the tundra in about a week!!

We had some fabulously fun times on Sensation about nine years ago, when I first started cruising. Looking to go back again, hooking some Victory b2bs with a b2b on Sensation, since they dock together some days, in Miami.

We know there are some great officers and crew onboard we look forward to visiting. Hope you have a wonderful cruise on the little purple ship. Maybe it's not so purple now? ;p

Enjoy your cruise! We are looking forward to hearing all about it (and about Disney :hearteyes: ) when you get back!

Have a great trip!!

KMom- I know you're boarding today so you might miss this, but in case you spot this before you sail, make sure to find out where and when on the ship they'll have the veterans' appreciation event- get your dad to go- he'll love it I'm sure!

Loving the review, can't wait to hear about the cruise when you get back!

Waiting to disembark in Miami. Wow there is a lot to tell about this cruise!! Pics of obscure and not so obscure stuff. Great times and a lot of unexpected things on this cruise that got off to a VERY rocky start.

Really looking forward to your review, I am on this ship in 9 days.

Yes... definitely a rocky start but overall it was a great cruise with great staff and food.

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Looking forward to your review! I'll be on the Sensation in 12 days

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Looks like I got caught up just in time! Very much looking forward to reading about your actual cruise! The Sensation was my very first cruise way back in 1998 when I was just a young twenty-something. She started my cruising addiction which is still going strong 17 cruises later!

Welcome Home!

Misty

Looking forward to hearing all about it! I am hopeful my negative experiences were just a fluke.

Good morning! Because a few commenters have mentioned they are sailing fairly soon, here's a short-ish summary of our cruise experience on the Carnival Sensation. I will follow up with lots of additional posts with photos and lots more of my personal brand of sarcastic, snarky observations about details both relevant and worthless.

Like some of the more comprehensive reviews on these boards, it will likely take some weeks until I fully exhaust you, dear readers, as well as the topic of this here cruise.

Also here I am going to discuss just the cruise-specific part of what was an 18-day, 17-night journey for my family of 3, which included driving from northern Illinois to Florida and sleeping in a total of 9 different locations. The most exciting of these, aside from Our Gal The Carnival Sensation, was Disney's Port Orleans - Riverside Resort.

But this is Cruise Critic, not All Vacations Critic, so the non-cruise stuff will come last unless someone asks a specific question.

It's 1:48 a.m. It's 61 miles to Chicago. We've got 3/4 of a tank of gas, some cigars my husband picked up in Nassau, it's dark, and I am wearing my prescription glasses. Let's hit it.

It was cool and cloudy when we arrived in Miami for our pre-cruise overnight.

The next morning, Tuesday, January 2, we arrived at the port at 8:37, parked and waited until shortly after 9 when we were allowed into the terminal, and we boarded around 10:30.

We had Guy's burgers, then did a tour of the ship with Tyler the Intern, followed by the muster drill. We were asked if we would like a free tour of the kitchen at dinner time, with samples, so at 5:15 we headed there. The seas were extremely rough but everything on the evening menu, except the 4 recurring items and the steakhouse selections, were provided for us to share/sample. All the appetizers, entrees and desserts. Great experience and we were stuffed.

The seas were the rockiest I have ever encountered that first night. Lots of people were seasick, including crew. I normally don't get seasick but I popped a Bonine which knocked me out early.

But not before we watched Hasbro the game show where the 12 year old went up onstage and shot a couple of balls into a giant Connect 4 apparatus and we got to know our CD Orlando.

The next day we had breakfast in the DR and started to get ready to go ashore in Princess Cays. DD had just gotten into her swimsuit with an outfit over it when the captain announced, regretfully, that the stop was cancelled due to rough seas which made it impossible to tender safely.

So for the next hour or so nobody was quite sure what to do while the Fun Squad rescheduled activities. We ended up at trivia with Tyler the Intern again, who was just a great guy, even though we failed to secure a GPSOAS on this cruise. That's the little ship on a stick trophy they give to trivia winners, which we ain't this time around.

A word here about the decor. It's just like it always was, bright and crazy looking like an old vegas casino, dominated by not one but two shades of purple. One shade is this dark blue purple of the light fixtures all over the ship, and the other is a magenta purple on a lot of the metal walls. The two shades actually kind of clash with each other and are often found together. I think this is the reason why so many people belly ache about the decor.

I personally have terrible taste, and I find the beigeification of America rather disturbing and boring. Yes, beigeification is a thing. So I find the Sensation to be cheerful and fun. Unlike the Triumph when we sailed in March 2017, the Sensation's public restrooms have been updated and beigeified.

We played bingo after a few trivia games and lost that too.

Our cabin, inside E96 was on deck 7, the Empress deck. We could hear some noise from the atrium and/or the art gallery but with the white noise from the A/C vent we slept just fine. Pierre did a fine job of taking care of it, nothing like Ace of Base's problems a few weeks earlier with a different cabin steward.

The pool and waterslides were closed much of this cruise due to cold temps and high winds. At one point we faced 54 knot headwinds!

We watched 88 Keys, the big song and dance routine with a piano theme, on our second night. I see some people don't like the Playlist Productions shows, but we thought it was fabulous, as was Studio VIP with its disco theme on the last night of the cruise. Similar to the shows we enjoyed on Carnival Triumph.

Our 12 year old found a couple of older, harmless teens to hang around with on this cruise and she enjoyed the digital scavenger hunt which was a Circle C (ages 12-14) activity. They are often combined with O2 (15-17).

To partially compensate for missing Princess Cays, we went into Nassau early with an overnight, arriving at 3pm, as soon as one of the other 5 ships left to open up a spot for us.

My husband, daughter and I went in that afternoon for some shopping and recon, but it was quick as the shops still closed at 5:30 per usual and we are not nightlife people.

The next morning, we got off and were immediately approached by the barrage of drivers trying to sell informal tours. A uniformed official rescued us and asked what we needed, and summoned Ms. Sherman as our taxi driver. She took us to Fort Charlotte and I negotiated with her a price to stay and wait to drive us back, and she quoted a total price of $70 (25 each way plus her time while we toured) and I tipped her another 10 when she got us back. We enjoyed the tour of the fort and would have happily spent more time there, but my dad was tired and ready to return to the ship.

He and DD went aboard while we shopped a bit with my stepmom. After she went back aboard we visited the Pirates of Nassau museum and the Pompey museum of slavery and emancipation before heading back to the ship and leaving Nassau.

Aside from the kitchen meal, and one MDR breakfast, we also ate one lunch in the dining room on the unscheduled sea day, one dinner and Sea Day brunch, which was on the day we arrived in Nassau, in the dining room.

We ate most everything else in the buffet, Guy's, Blue Iguana, the deli, or the Pizza Pirate. It was just quicker and easier for us, and seemed to fit our oddball schedules better than the dining room. We usually did this at off times so there was little wait. My parents ate most meals separate from us and we were all very, very satisfied with the food. No, we did not get any lobster. Yes, 3 of us got the filet at Sea Day brunch.

The last morning we were off the ship and at the car at 6:44 am, and in the tunnel from the port into Miami at 6:58. This was due to us having FTTF, which also saved me quite a bit of time the 3 or so times I went to Guest Services. We will probably always get this, but the upcharge is not worth it for everyone.

In summary, with the rocky conditions the first night, we were off to a bad start and I was feeling very disappointed with the cruise, but by the end we were all completely happy.

It never got very warm, but the bright thing up in the sky did come out briefly here and there. I have pics of adults on the Serenity deck chairs in parkas and wrapped up in towels in full sunshine. The main pool occasionally opened but hardly anyone got in it, choosing to cram into the little hot tubs instead.

I did not get any tan at all. In fact I think I am whiter than when I left Illinois, but we got out of here just as their terrible weather was moving in on December 22 and did not come back until the cold snap ended on January 8, so I am going to keep any complaints about weather to myself.

Thanks for staying with me for this preview/review. For those interested I promise to keep blathering on for some time about many more details of this cruise and the one port stop. I am not really a photo person but because of this project I took tons so they will be coming in due time. I am glad I did this, because obviously it helps preserve the memories but also keeps the details organized as everything is date and time stamped on the phone. Thanks to Cruise Critic reviewer Harry Fat, who discusses his photo strategy in his reviews.

Feel free to ask any specific questions and I will do my best; please understand everyone is looking for different things in a cruise and we are early to bed, early to rise people who typically don't drink (though we may have forced down a mimosa to get a free Effy necklace).

I will get the Fun Times posted as time permits along with the pictures. I do have to get back to work and the rest of real life today so can't predict how soon this will all happen.