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Wellington

My husband & I had low expectations after reading the negative reviews. We have been on 20 prior cruises between multiple cruise lines. We decided a few weeks out to go on a short winter getaway and this cruise fit perfectly in our time frame.  We were both pleasantly surprised with the ship and our cruise experience.  The ship had been refurbished in lot of areas a couple of months prior which helped.  

The pool was a nice size and had plenty of chairs surrounding it. The bar service was better than our 4 prior cruises and in general the service on this ship was a better than prior cruises. 

Even though there wasn't a Steak House, we were happy with the food & service in the dining room.  Normally we eat in the Steak House 2 -3 times during a 7 night cruise. Did miss the wine you only get at the Steak House.  

All the Entertainment on board was very good, again better than previous cruises. The band was a standout, they played a variety of music and kept everyone dancing.

Our favorite bar is the Alchemy Bar and the service is always first rate.  If you like craft cocktails and willing to try something new, this is the place for you.

We loved the ports - Key West was a lot of fun and Cozumel is always a favorite of ours.

Overall we were very happy with our cruise and would definitely recommend this cruise to our friends for a short getaway.

Pleasantly Surprised

We had a group of 31 and the intent was for a party atmosphere and fun at sea, this was achieved. You will find this is a very very casual ship. If your your looking for opulence and serenity you may want to consider another ship or cruise line. I’m not a big complainer especially at this price point however these are a few experiences that I found disappointing. The main dining room food was poor and the service was equally poor. I had mixed reviews within our group between great and bad. I highly recommend the burger bar and buffet for hot fresh food. Our cabin was clean but ur dude went awol the day before the cruise was over. Lower your expectations and have a great time, bring more money and less clothes. Party Hats not Top Hats. Not for everyone. Overall it is worth the money but the ship is dated, the staff a bit uninspired and a majority of the food was JV. Bon Voyage.

Great Party Cruise

After reading all the negative reviews of this boat I was terrified of what was to come but was pleasantly surprised. The boat is smaller but there was loads to do and the service and food were all great. I've cruised before and the food was some of the best I've had!

A word of warning... the boat did get a bit tippy at points which I heard was due to the lack of stabilizers. I would reccomend packing gravel or some kind of seasick medicine if you're sensitive to motion.

The ports were incredible with Turks and Caicos my fav. We did the stingray kiss encounter and it's something I'll never forget. There is a beach right at port so you could just relax all day here.

Amber Cove was also good with a massive swimming pool and waterslides. We traveled with our kids who are are 9 and 6 and loved it.

My only negative is the shows are not nearly as good as some I've seen on other cruise lines. The late night ones sounded good but weren't appropropriate to take the kids to.

Overall an excellent holiday in the sunshine and I would reccomend this! Keep in mind it's an older boat with lots of purple and is a smaller ship...but get past that and you'll have a blast!

Fantastic trip...dont trust the negative reviews!

We chose this cruise based on price and sail dates. It was Thursday-Monday which made getting off work much easier. I was concerned about the boat after some of the reviews but soon realized it was much better. I think many of those poor reviews come from unrealistic expectations. This cruise was cheap and most people I spoke to booked it for value and in the end, it was a great value. 

This ship is old and despite constant cleaning and maintenance by the crew, she is starting to show her age but everything worked and there was no sewage smell as described in other reviews. Our ocean view room was basic but very clean. The food was delicious, though there were some misses in the main dining room. Honestly, they tried to hard with fancy dishes. The burgers on the boat were insanely good. We all had at least one per day. The burgers during the sea day brunch were out of this world, like shockingly good. 

As for service, everyone worked hard to show us a good time, especially at Alchemy bar. The crew was friendly and accommodating, not one bad interaction to mention. I feel the key is to go into this with realistic expectations, it's not a luxury trip. If you sit back, enjoy the sun, and sip on a cold drink, you're going to have fun. 

As for ports, our stop in Key West was cancelled due to an intense storm. Luckily the ship cleared the bad weather in a few hours and we ended up having a nice day. We got some money refunded and got an extra four hours in Cozumel which was great. If you're going to Cozumel the Chef Maestro's cooking excursion was awesome.

Good Experience on the Sensation 

I like going on a new year's cruise and  I had experienced carnival cruises at least 6 times; this cruise was renovated in early 2017 according to their website.  It's not acceptable to me how there were people smoking marijuana in the smoking area and cruise members let it happen.  Tables were dirty for a long period of time and no one visible to ask to clear table: so other than my dinner table at night; all this cruise I had to put dirty plates aside to sit down and eat; as well as other passengers . The pool was very small and the only one for the amount of passengers they have aboard.  My dining table was 303; all the way to the back; not only everything and everyone was going through my table site but also 5  lights around me were broken and after complaining every night they finally fixed it on Thursday night. We actually joked around with the manager and asked him to at least compensate our table with a bottle of champagne and his answer was: be happy you have water. 

I ordered a cake for my daughter and the communication between guess services and cherry on the top manager was so poor that I had to make the  guess service long line twice and still go to the restaurant to make sure the cake was ready before dinner time. The only thing the manager tried to do was to blame my waiter when he had nothing to do with their bad organization and lack of information for guest. Towels in the room were ready to be thrown in the garbage.  There is not enough towels in the pool; always out of towels.  Not enough activities.  Time to spend on excursion is short; especially on Cayman island.  Book your excursions with the cruise but eat wherever you want; those people are set up to make $$ with your shopping and dinning experience in jamaica. Buffett closed early; long lines for pizza; again lack of staff. plastic cups were dirty.only two jacuzzis; they were full all the time. Entertainment in the pool with Deon was not the greatest. One person in my party hurt their back on the slide and was lied about free mimosas and other stuff to lure you in. Poor shopping experience; very little selection on perfumes. Wet floors were not well supervised during raining times. Through out the day the boat felt dead. Piano bar was good. Amor cubano and the 70s show was excellent. Buffett food was horrible. No sports bars.The outside conditions of the cruise was scary also. Very poor hygiene; dirty carpet; 7th floor in the middle smells like foul sewage water; strong bad odor; which I think is a problem in all carnival cruises. 

I had a good experience with my dinning waiters Wity and saint. Hard workers ; friendly and very attentive. I booked this cruise since January; counted down my days to get in and visit Cayman islands but im very disappointed to the whole thing. Never again! I'm so upset that this is the longest review I had ever done and right after getting off the ship. I regret spending money on this family vacation. Also the professional pictures were touched up so much that they look worse and most of the guys taking this pictures don't put any effort on making you look good for it..they just don't care.you will think they want to sell the pictures.

Old ship. Bad management. Shortage in staff!

First of all ,  let me start by saying that I have taken multiple new years cruise with carnival and other cruise line.  My first impression was a worn down destroyed ship that needed a lot of work, but never thought that I would experience a horrible sewage smell throughout the floor where my cabin was at all times!!  (7th floor).  My cabin was kept clean by my stateroom steward , WIRAT, VERY ATTENTIVE AND NICE. BUT TOWELS are OLD AND NEED TO BE THROWN OUT!!!  My dinner experiences was nothing to brag about. Poor food selection but great service. Overall, the staff in the carnival sensation ship are wonderful, too bad the ship is in such a bad condition. There was rust and what appears as holes  from the bottom part of the ship that I saw during debarkation . The ship should have not be allowed to leave the port under those conditions!! The tours offered by the cruise are good with the exception that you can not listen to the tour guide when  there's a recommendation for local food and stores. Since it appears they take you where they might get a commission and no regards if the food is good or not. I would continue cruising but not sure if will ever go again on a carnival cruise due to my experience and definitely not on carnival sensation!!!

Horrible sewage smell

This was our first Carnival experience. I did the research on this boat far ahead of time and knew exactly what I was getting myself and my family into. Having done several DCL and RCL cruises prior we had low expectations, but even this cruise was lower than I expected. Our embarkation experience was awesome as we did the Faster to the fun upgrade. We were checked in and on board Quickly. We were also allowed entry to our room right away w/this upgrade and that was smooth as well. However, the faster luggage to your room never panned out. We got our luggage after the general boarders. Called guest services (very rude) and finally was able to receive a credit for this lacking feature. We explored the ship which is truly 70’s decor in dark purple everywhere. Ship is fairly small and certainly dated but still seemed for the most part well cared for and kept consistently clean by staff. Met cruise director from (this man is an asset to Carnival because he literally made this trip for us. Every activity he headed was fun, energetic and funny! Love him! Our housekeeper Romeo...worked just bum off! Loved him too. Our wait staff (parichart, mark gregor and Juno) were equally efficient and fun. Sadly though, the food in the main dining room was actually often inedible. Many times food arrived looking like dog food slip and tasting like it too. I almost never hit the buffet on cruises but I went away from every meal hungry and headed to blue iguana, guys burgers or the buffet or pizza/deli station. The buffet wasn’t as awful as I expected. We were always able to find a seat in there. Loved the yogurt or ice cream options but often the ice cream would come out pure liquid so that was no food. Pizza was pretty good and deli station too. Guys burgers snd blue iguana also good. The water served at meals tastes so strange like well water. We’d bring our own bottled water nightly to dinner. The chocolate lava cake is over rated...I expected much better. I also couldn’t believe that they never once served French onion soup which is offered as an appetizer on other lines nightly. They had lots of trivia, but we didn’t partake as it takes place midship 9 right next to the casino and the smoke wafts right yo you in a very overwhelming way. Comedy was good (Ajai Saunders snd geechy guy), but I did notice lots of jokes were repeated in their shows. My biggest issue aside from the MDR food is the fact that from set sail to debarkation this ship swayed like crazy. In 11 cruises I’ve never been tossed around like that ever. We even were denied our private island stop at half moon cay because of it.

An honest review of our 1st Carnival experience

We are are family of four and we cruise every Christmas and then some. This has to be our 6th Carnival cruise and we are rating it as one of our worst. We chose this particular 6 night cruise because we had time constraints.

Embarking was almost foolproof, very organized and it took us less than 45 minutes to get onto the ship. The Sensation is a smaller ship than we are used to but that wasn’t much of a concern to us until a majority of the passengers became seasick due to the rough waters heading to Turks. To follow suite with some of the other reviews, the ship is old and that is clearly apparent especially with the rooms.

One major complaint that we had was that the quality of the food was not good and they served the same variations everyday. To add insult to injury, if you ventured to order room service, especially after 6pm, there were up-charges on the menu items.

Our particular cruise consisted of 3 stops beginning with Grand Turks. The day of our 2nd stop to Half Moon Cay, we were advised that due to sea swells and strong winds we could not board the shuttles to get onto the island. This would have been acceptable but they knew the night before that they weren’t going to get the passengers onto the island, they could have offered an alternative instead of just writing it off.

I can’t say one bad thing about the staff aboard the ship as they make up for the mistakes made by  management. We don’t think we will be going back to Carnival.

Christmas Cruise- Very Disappointed-Never Again

We chose this cruise because we wanted to visit different islands for Christmas and we had not been to Turks & Caicos or to Half Moon Cay. This was the only option. I have done more than ten cruises in my life, but it was my first Carnival. NEVER AGAIN. The ship is old, the decoration is very tacky, the whole ship smells of mold, sweat and grease. The curtains had poke holes throughout the ship. The swimming pool's water was brown. The buffet food looked like something you would eat in prison. At the formal dining restaurants, the food was better, but nothing compared to a Royal Caribbean or a Norwegian. However, if you paid extra to get the Specialty Menu, the food was delicious. The cabin carpet had stains. Entertainment was terrible, the only thing fun was the Cruise Director, he made the impossible to keep people entertained, but he was on his own at this mission. The cruise did not stop at Half Moon Cay and they only let us know about it an hour before the scheduled time, blaming the weather conditions (I had faced much worse weather and was always able to leave the ship). It was a terrible experience and I am never choosing Carnival again.

Old ship, terrible cruise

This cruise has been a horrible experience from day one. EVERY bit of this cruise, with the exception of the cleaning and wait staff, has been awful. I am severely lactose intolerant,  and NEVER before have I had the flat refusal to make me something I could eat like I have on this cruise. I have starved for five days. I reiterate,  I have paid an obscene amount of money to starve for five days. There hasn't been one ounce of sympathy nor had there been any effort at all to resolve this issue. Not even a "sorry". Just a, "no, you cant eat this". They have a minimal amount of dairy free options and the ones they do have are awful. How hard is it to cook a hamburger that isnt like eating sand or cook a steak that isnt horribly bland and tougher than my belt? Also, the lemonade,  water, tea, and ice tasted horribly of chlorine.  Now let's get to the wedding. The so called wedding director missed ALL of their scheduled meetings and had no clue what was going on. To make matters worse, once we got to the island the folks their yelled at us and chewed our backsides because SHE either didn't relay the information we were supposed to have or told us wrong. Now let's move on to the reception where the paid open bar was not a true open bar. To make matters worse, they served the children,  I repeat CHILDREN,  alcoholic punch, rum punch to be exact. This has been a horrendous experience from day one and I would not recommend the Carnival  Sensation,  let alone the Carnival Cruise Line,  for any cruise.

Awful

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