On Sensation Questions

[ckcb4u2]

My wife and I will be sailing on our 1st cruise on 5/21/06. We have heard good and bad reviews about the Sensation, but are determined to have a great time regardless. We have booked shore excursions at both Freeport and Nassau. We are going on the Dolphin Close Encounter at Freeport, and the Ardastra Gardens and City Tour in Nassau. Has anyone else been on these excursions?

[ckcb4u2]

Also, has anyone been on the Kennedy Space Center excursion at the end of the cruise at Port Canaveral? Our flight home doesn't leave Orlando until late afternoon, so we will have time to kill.

[GoinCruisin]

You might want to check the ports of call forums for your excursion questions... you can search over there for the names of the tours.

 

Enjoy the Sensation... she's my favorite!!

[bobobeagle]

You can check out Queen's Staircase and the fort on foot. It's not that much to see. You can also see much of Atlantis for free. Take the water taxi $3.00 per person each way.

[ShoMeChiefsFan]

My wife and I will be sailing on our 1st cruise on 5/21/06. We have heard good and bad reviews about the Sensation, but are determined to have a great time regardless. We have booked shore excursions at both Freeport and Nassau. We are going on the Dolphin Close Encounter at Freeport, and the Ardastra Gardens and City Tour in Nassau. Has anyone else been on these excursions?

 

My cruise was from the 4/30/06 to 05/04/06...... I can start off by saying if you arrive early it will be well worth your while. We arrived at the cruise terminal at 10am and to our surprise they were allowing people to enter the terminal for the cruisers that were scheduled to leave out that day. I can say this I have been on several cruises, and this by far was the most organized events that i have ran across. We were directed to have a seat in the seats, as instructed we did, and later learned that since we arrived early, we would be one of few to board early, like the VIP'S (platinum members).

 

Was allowed on the ship around 1145 am. I was assigned to cabin Empress 212. Upon entering the hallway that i was assigned i observed that several rooms had brand new carpet, and several rooms still had old carpet. I based my decision on this due to the brightness in the newer carpet and the wear and tear on the other carpet. While traveling down this hallway, we could smell a sewer smell, emitting from the hallway. It was not a carpet smell. We arrived to our cabin. Even though our cabin was mostly cleaned, we placed our luggage in our closet that we had carried on to the ship. our cabin steward introduced himself to us, and stated that the room was not ready.

Prior to sailing: We had advised our cabin steward of the sewer smell that was emitting in our cabin, it was extremely bad, to the point that it was giving us both headaches. We also complained about the ventilation within the cabin.

After sailing: 1st day- I went to the pursers desk to make them aware of the situation, of the sewer smell emitting from our cabin as well as the hallway. They stated that they would send the head of housekeeping down to our room for inspection. After several minutes went bye.... I had to leave the door open, to allow the fumes to subside that had built up, there was several people in the hallway, complaining on how bad the sewer smell was then the head of house keeping showed up and she stated that she smelled something but tried to give the response don't know if it is sewer or not....she then directed all the cabin stewards to redisinfect all the rooms in this hallway to try and minimize the odor. This worked for about 1-2 hours, after that it became ineffective.

The Ocean was very rough this day, everyone was getting sick even crew members. It was so bad that people were taking bets in the dining room on how many would leave the dinner tables, they were leaving so fast, and looked so green it was not even funny, My wife was the first to leave at our table, then followed by another, then another.....you could see that a lot of people were having a very hard time.

At dinner that night, the soup of the day almost came off the center dinner stand table. due to the waves, if it would not have been for one of the waiters in the dining room it would have hit the floor, he caught it just in the nick of time. We heard dishes clashing and banging like they had hit the floor in the kitchen. After dinner went to check on my wife, ordered room service for some hot tea and crackers, had walked down to the pursers desk, and they were handing out free Dramimine.

After room service arrived i started to open a packet of a tea bag for my wife's drink, after I opened the tea bag, it had mold all over the inner inside of the tea bag and package. I then called down to the pursers desk and complained about this, not only was this upsetting but the sewer smell was really getting to my wife and the rough seas, and no ventilation. Martina Kruljiac 2nd Purser responded and stated that she was very sorry about receiving the molded tea bag, she too did smell the sewer smell as well, she had some one come down and redisenfect our cabin, which got us thru the night.

Day 2- The sewer smell was getting real bad, had gone to the pursers desk 4 -5 times that day, was trying to allow the system to work, but after realizing that all they were trying to do is pass it off to another person, or go back to housekeeping, then i had asked to step it up a notch, since nothing was getting resolved. At this time I got to speak with Alister Licorish- 1st Purser, he then came to my cabin, and stated that he could not smell anything, but once he arrived several people in the hallway were waiting for a handicap individual to get into their room, once he told me that he didn't smell anything, I had asked all those people in the hallway if they were experiencing any sewer smell issues emitting from the hallway or the cabins and several people spoke up and stated that they had. Mr. Licorish then stated that he would have the head of housekeeping come down and inspect the problem, I then instructed him that we had already been down that road, he then suggested that he would send a plumber to inspect the drain areas. A plumber arrived and found the drain areas were clogged in our cabin. They disinfected our cabin again and then another guy attempted to resolve the no A/c issue in our cabin. When the guy removed the screen vent you could feel the A/C very good but when he put it back up it seemed liked it had choked off the vent. Since I had cardboard from the 12 pack that I had snuck on board, I used it to give the vent about 1.5 inches of space and by prying down on the vent so we could get air ventilation in our cabin.

Freeport, Bahamas was very warm, but I would not go back to this place. You have to take a 11 mile taxi ride to get to the shopping district of the island, or to any beach. But once arrived everything was all within walking distance. The cab ride cost $5 each person each way.

Day 3- Still the problem had not been rectified so I had requested to speak with 1st Purser -Licorish, the desk gave me a response that he was not available. So at this time I had requested to speak with the Chief Purser or the next officer higher than the Chief Purser to get this issue resolved. Chief Purser Luis Mejias responded and seemed very willing to try and resolve this matter. I had received a letter from the 1st Purser -Licorish prior to the Chief purser arriving to my cabin which had advised me that I would be receiving 20% off a future cruise, and had to be used within 18 months of date of the letter and a onboard credit of $150. After speaking with the Chief Purser he seemed to get the ball rolling, he tried to use the housekeeping scapegoat, after I nixed that avenue out, he then stated that he would get his plumbers and engineers on this problem, I just advised him the problem should be rectified before the next cruiser has to encounter the same problems.

Nassau, Bahamas- Was a great place to visit, and would return with or without any future cruises, we walked down the shopping district, and after we did our shopping we figured we would catch the #7A bus to the bridge (going to Atlantis) we then walked up the bridge and over to the bridge, when we reached the other side, we introduced by a local who told us that he could get us into the Atlantis resort with all access as regular guests, plus the dig, and the beach and all the pools, plus provide a free lunch, and free taxi ride back to the cruise ship....after walking all this way we said why not.... we had saved $10 on a taxi ride (cheapskates). After sitting for a 60 minute presentation on the timeshares, we told them we were not interested and then they gave us our wrist bands, fed us, and gave us $10 for the taxi. We could not believe this. It was beautiful, we had been told you could go view the Atlantis, but if you did not stay at the resort you could not use any of the facilities. except the casino. well it's worth sitting thru the 60 minutes spill for the timeshare to get your access to the resort. We had a wonderful time, and plan on going back to this resort....very beautiful.

Day 4- Still had sewer smell in our cabin started using towels to cover the drains after day 2 to minimize the smell emitting from the drain. It was a sunny day at sea....Enjoyed the comedy shows, and the Far from Over shows.

Here is a hint for you cruisers that are new or who are not aware of the dinner menus in the formal dining room. You do not have to order directly off the menu, they have several items that you can order off the menu, like one of the nights they didn't have anything good to eat so I ordered a filet mignon for dinner. Another couple was ordering desserts that were not on the menu.

If I was to base my overall cruise opinion on this cruise, I found the staff was not very friendly in my eyes or didn't seem that they wanted to address the problems at hand, but I did meet persons who I had tipped even though they were not assigned to us, they went out of their way to make sure that we were being taken care of. I didn't allow the sewer smell to spoil my cruise...yes it was a problem, but i worked around it, and tried to work with the staff as good as possible. The food rating in my opinion was average. The cleanliness of the ship was far better than any other cruises that i had attended on before. I liked the idea of the mini golf course on the sports deck, as well as the volley ball, and basketball goals. They still have shuffleboard too. One thing I did find that they didn't open the Texas HoldEm tables up until the evening. When they did open up they would only have 1 table open and people standing around waiting to get to play. The entertainment shows were great.....I like the idea of the comedy shows each night. I think this will get better as the company keeps growing. Well I don't know what else to say......we had no problems debarking, was off the ship by 9am and shuttled to the airport, without any problems except for the wildfires that had closed down the Beeline highway.