Quite possibly the longest Sensation review ever!

[ruready]

I am enjoying your review as well.

[jaxkai]

lol i love the humor i love the details , im taking my adult children on our first cruise on this ship in jan and im way more excited than i was i just woke my daughter up to go read the whole thing, its ok she knows her mother is insane :)

 

im so glad you got to see the dig and the aquarium its a place we plan to go also.

 

i am so glad you had a good time and hehe i was right who sleeps on the ship.

[jleiwig]

Does this have anything to do with the cruise?

 

DON

 

Yup..to me it does. If you don't like it don't read it. Although from reading your previous posts this is your favorite thing to post in other people's threads.

[jleiwig]

Suggestion for your next review...don't refer to your wife as "the wife" or your in laws as the "in laws". Names are so much more personal...esp. without posting pics. Also may I suggest you keep any future tiff (hopefully there won't be another one) between you and your lovely wife because, to be quite honest, if I had read that you posted this on-line I wouldn't be sticking around.

My DH and I have had a couple of tiffs while cruising but if I knew he was talking about in on-line i wouldn't be a happy camper.

Just my $2 worth as 2 cents isn't worth anything and I know i am on a soap box!!

 

Well to be honest, I don't know you or anyone on this forum from Adam and Eve, so why would I use names?

 

And this review will be complete and include everything that happened good and bad, because that's what makes up the vacation. :D

[jleiwig]

Thanks everyone else for the positive comments. I will continue the review and possibly finish today. We spent two nights in Gatlinburg, TN after our cruise. Should write about that as well because it was part of our cruise experience? Or would it make DON mad?

[camper49]

Thank you all for the compliments. I've read many reviews and I want to make a good review because I feel the Sensation is an underreviewed ship.

 

I'll now continue a little bit more that I wrote on my lunch break.

Our very first cruise was on the Sensation in 2001...we have sailed on her 3 times since then....

[markntara]

Thanks everyone else for the positive comments. I will continue the review and possibly finish today. We spent two nights in Gatlinburg, TN after our cruise. Should write about that as well because it was part of our cruise experience? Or would it make DON mad?

 

Roll with it! Keep it coming, and Yes, fill us in on Gatlinburg also.:D

[jleiwig]

After bingo they were having a towel folding demonstration, but none of us were really that interested in that, so we headed our separate ways. I went back to the room to start to pack, the in-laws went off on their own way, and the wife went to the casino again. We had agreed to meet for lunch at the fantasy dining room at noon when it opened for seating.

This was the only day that the dining room was open for lunch. For an appetizer everyone but my wife had the medley of garden and field greens, while my wife tried the California roll. For my main course I had the spaghetti zia teresa, the wife had the oven fresh sun dried tomato baguette, and the in-laws each had a burger. For dessert the father-in-law and I both had the ice coupe “black forest”, the wife had the chocolate gateau, and the mother-in-law did not have a dessert.

I thought the spaghetti was very good. The meatballs may have been the standard frozen type, but the sauce seemed freshly made. The in-laws really liked their burgers as well. The wife did not like her California roll all that much, and thought the baguette was just ok. As we ate lunch we discussed what our plan was for the rest of the day. We made it to the lido deck just as the ice carving demonstration was going on so we got a table and watched that. The guy was quick with it, so it was over fairly quickly and then they let people come up and take pictures with him and the ice sculpture.

After that was the bean bag toss. Around here in the Midwest we call that cornhole. At first I wasn’t interested in doing it, but my father-in-law was interested in competing. In my round, I got smoked by an eight year old kid only getting two bags on the board, and my father-in-law won his round sinking one and leaving two on the board. Anyone who had scored a fiver or higher went to the next round, so we watched my father-in-law compete in the next round. In his next round he sunk two bags and left one on the board for a total of seven.

The next round after that was anyone with a 7 or higher. It was 4 guys and a kid who made that round. My father-in-law went first and again sunk two and left one on the board. No one did any better than him, and I think two others tied him. The host then decided that they were going to do another round and add the scores together. My father-in-law sank one, whiffed one and left another on the board for a grand total of 11. Another guy who had to be a ringer sunk three more bags for a total of 16, and then another guy said he had 15, so it was narrowed down to those two guys and my father-in-law came in third overall.

[jleiwig]

After that was over it was almost time for the marriage show. My father-in-law wanted to use the restroom so he went back to the stateroom. My wife went back to our stateroom to get her hoodie since it is always freezing in the Fantasia lounge, and my mother-in-law visited the galleria shops. I went into the lounge and got us seats near the front. The marriage show started by Skip talking about marriage and then asking if we had any newlyweds onboard. I was surprised at how many people raised their hands.

 

There must have been at least 30 couples that had gotten married the past weekend. Skip narrowed it down to what day they got married and then even further to what time they got married. When there was just one couple standing, he told them congrats, and it was now time to come on down to the stage. The guy did not want to come on stage at all, but his wife made him come. Skip then asked who had been married the longest. There was quite a few 25 and 30 year couples, a smattering of 40 year couples, but then we had one couple who had been married 55 years. Their children volunteered them to come down to the stage, and they slowly made their way from the upper balcony down to the stage.

 

Skip then said that since he had been fair in determining the newest and the oldest couple that we should continue and be fair by picking someone who had been married in the middle. Half of 55 was 27.5 years, and two couples were found who had been married 27 years. Skip said he wasn’t going to pick the couple that had volunteered, but wanted the couple who’s friends nominated them. Skip asked a series of questions and each couple had to write their answer down and what they thought their spouse’s answer would be.

 

The highlight of the show was when he asked the question “when you see your wife’s bottom as she is bending over, how would you describe it?” Of course the newlywed guy said “perfect”, but the 55 year married guy said “an open invitation!” This lead to everyone laughing and I had tears I was laughing so hard. Overall a very funny show.

 

After the show was over, my father-in-law wanted to nap, so he went back to their stateroom, and my mother-in-law and wife wanted to go back to the casino to gamble some more. I didn’t want to gamble, and really couldn’t have taken much more of the smoke in their anyway as my sinuses were already giving me fits and had swollen up to the point I could hardly see. So they went gambling together and I returned to the stateroom to finish up the packing and just relax.

[jleiwig]

When I returned to our stateroom, our debarkation information was there and we were scheduled for the very last zone with an estimated time of 9:15. This was way too late since we were driving 12 hours to Gatlinburg, TN to spend the weekend. I read the debarkation info about self-assist debarkation and that sounded like the way to go. However after watching the cruise director’s debarkation video on the TV in the stateroom I wasn’t so sure because they implied that you could only carry off airplane carry-on sized luggage. I was wondering if it had to go through an x-ray scanner on the way out, but couldn’t imagine why.

 

About that time my wife returned to the room so we could get ready for dinner. We wanted to be there right at 5:45 when the any time dining would open so we could catch the early show and then get to bed at a decent hour. I told her about the self-assist debarkation thing and she suggested we check with the guest services desk to find out for sure. So after she got ready for dinner we headed to the guest services desk to wait in line. The in-laws saw us waiting and came over and waited with us.

 

After talking to one of the officers and verifying that there were no size restrictions, we headed up to the dining room. At about 5:35, there was already quite a line forming, and I thought we would be in for a wait and not get our now favorite table and wait team. As it turns out, we were able to go straight to the front of the line as most of the people waiting in line were for the early seating, which didn’t start until 6 pm. Quite a few got mad when they were told they would have to go back in line and wait. I even heard one lady ask why we got to “cut” in line. I guess maybe the anytime dining isn’t advertised widely? Who knows?

 

We got our favorite table and favorite wait team just as hoped. I whispered to my wife that I should mention something to Giannina about my mother-in-laws cake, but she shot that idea down. For my appetizer I had the vine ripe beefsteak tomatoes and fresh buffalo mozzarella as well as the gratinated onion soup. I had debated on the gratinated onion soup or the wild mushroom cream soup, but finally chose the gratinated onion soup as I had had a mushroom cream dish last evening. Everyone else had the crab cake as their appetizer.

[jleiwig]

For the main course, I had the flat iron steak again since nothing else really appealed to me on the menu. The in-laws both had the veal parmigiana with tomato sauce, and the wife had the bourbon and honey glazed roasted spring chicken. Everyone liked their meals, and as we finished, Renan the asst. waiter brought over the dessert menus.

 

At this point I was a little worried that there was a snafu with the birthday cake, but played along as my mother-in-law declared that she was going to have the warm chocolate melting cake since she had been good the rest of the cruise. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Giannina giving Renan the once over about giving us dessert menus, so I was relatively relieved that someone knew about the birthday cake.

 

After a few minute wait Giannina, Renan and the team waiter all appeared with a heart shaped cake with a candle in it. The look on my mother-in-law’s face was so priceless, and as they began to sing “Hoppy Bursday Two Shoes” to her she began to cry. She blew out the candle before anyone had a chance to take a picture, so after a good laugh, Giannina lit it again and we took pictures of her with her cake. She told my wife and I that we had made this the best cruise ever, and then told me that she was going to take me out to dinner in Gatlinburg wherever I wanted to go since technically it was my birthday cruise too.

 

Giannina cut the chocolate cake in to four giant squares and we each ate it with a gusto. The cake was surprising good for diabetic cake, and I was glad that they didn’t use Splenda as I find it has an off-putting aftertaste. I do know that it wasn’t low fat though as you could feel the butter in the icing. After dessert, the in-laws took our picture with Renan the asst waiter, and we took the in-laws picture with Giannina.

 

Shortly after that it was time for them to sing “Leaving on a Funship”. Some of the wait staff really got into it, and some did not. Whomever Ohran the Maitre D had given the microphone to had a pretty good voice though, so it was overall really sappy, cheesy and totally awesome to watch. Of cours that song was stuck in my head the rest of the evening.

[jleiwig]

Ok...looking back I may have been a little snarky this morning and for that I appologize.

 

It just takes an amazing amount of time to do these reviews, and to have someone question it or suggest changes gets under your skin after devoting so much time to it. So all I ask is that next time you critique a review think about that for a moment.

[balcony bound]

Fun read, thank you for taking the time:)

 

The Sensation is always a fun time for us and I love to read other's experiences.

 

I do hope you also include your post-cruise!

[markntara]

Ok...looking back I may have been a little snarky this morning and for that I appologize.

 

It just takes an amazing amount of time to do these reviews, and to have someone question it or suggest changes gets under your skin after devoting so much time to it. So all I ask is that next time you critique a review think about that for a moment.

 

Don't worry about being "snarky". This is your post, you started it, write whatever you want. Them 'rousters' can click the X and leave at anytime.

[cruisercassidy]

Don't let people get you down! You're review is great and very informative. It's more like a story than a standard review, which most will appreciate. As they say, "You can't please all of the people all of the time."

 

I can't imagine putting this much time into a review! You must have a very good memory, unlike myself!

 

Keep doing what you're doing! :)

[arucruzn]

:DKeep the posts coming. I am enjoying the review very much. Hilarious and very informative.

[jleiwig]

After dinner it was still about 20 minutes until show time, so I went to the Fantasia lounge to grab some seats. Everyone else returned to their stateroom to either change or get something warm for the newly renamed “iceberg” lounge (and not in the Titanic way either). It was a constant battle to save the four seats in the third row, and as show time got more near I got more and more annoyed. Does anyone seriously think they can come in 5 minutes before any type of show and expect that those seats next to me were open when darn near the whole theater was filled?

I did scoot over a bit so an elderly gentleman and his wife could sit down, but that was it. I wasn’t making any more concessions nor making apologies for saving seats for the rest of my family. I was also getting annoyed that none of my party had shown up yet as we were seriously just a minute or two away from show time. My wife and in-laws finally entered the theater just as the cruise director came over the speakers and the fun team closed the curtains at the doors. They were seated in just enough time to order drinks for the show.

The show this night was “Curves” which was an interesting show. Lots of thong outfits from the girl dancers, and way too tight outfits from the male singer as I’ve said before. It was ok if you like big revue type shows. I will say it was entertaining for about the first 10 minutes, but after that it’s just a blur of thongs, buttcheeks, and feathers for me. However the cruise director did warn people multiple times that it was pg-13, so no one can say they didn’t know what they were getting into. There was a curious bit with the male dancers in baseball uniforms in a locker room, singing a song from Anne I think. It was rather effeminate if you ask me, but what do I know right?

After the show was over we all filed out and headed to our staterooms. My wife had to finish packing her things, and we had to get our overnight bag ready for Gatlinburg. We all decided that we would go to breakfast at the lido buffet since it opened a half an hour before we were to dock back in Port Canaveral. With everything packed up and ready to, we set the alarm for 6:15 am and sadly climbed into our bed for the last time.

We woke up to the alarm and looked out the window for the last time, and saw we were already docked back in Port Canaveral. We went to the in-laws stateroom, and we all headed up to the lido buffet. It wasn’t very busy, so we were quickly able to eat and head back down to our stateroom to pick up our luggage for the self-assist debarkation.

[jleiwig]

When we got back down to the Empress deck it was a complete and total madhouse. Self-assist debarkation was supposed to start at 7:15, but at 7:30 they hadn’t opened the doors yet, and people were starting to get testy. Combine that with the fact that some of them were trying to get to the guest services desk to clear up some things and it made for a bad area to be in around the atrium bar. We waited back a bit from the madness near the stairs, and when they finally opened the doors, we were boinged out one last time and were off through the cruise terminal.

We got down the first escalator when my mother-in-law realized that my father-in-law had left their customs declaration form in their stateroom. She tried to go back to the ship but they would not let her back. I told her to just fill out a new one and everything would be fine. She was again flipping out because she said she didn’t have the receipts and she needed the receipt numbers and such. I told her that they wouldn’t even glance at the form and she continued to fret while the father-in-law filled out the new form.

By the time they were done a back up was now forming, and we had to wait for a good ten minutes before we could even proceed to the next escalator, and then another ten minutes before we snaked our way through the lines to the “customs” guy. I use this term loosely because all he did was compare the address on my customs form to the address on my passport. He didn’t even look up at me to see if I was the person on my passport.

I’m not worried about terrorists sneaking in the country through a cruise ship terminal, but a little more personal attention would have been nice from someone who is “securing” our borders. Maybe a look in the eye to let me know that he saw me. They did pull random passengers to check their bags I guess. They went behind a white curtain, so maybe it was a body cavity search? We were quickly back out the front of the terminal, standing back where we started just four short days ago.

[jleiwig]

Well that ends my cruise review. I will continue the rest of my trip with the bit on Gatlinburg in the next couple days. In the mean time here is a link to the pictures. I haven't edited them or anything yet, so there are probably some bad mixed in with the good. I have no intentions of upgrading to a PRO account, so once bandwith is exceeded it's exceeded.

 

http://s9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/leiwig/Cruise%202010/?albumview=slideshow

[Cruz4Days]

Thanks for taking the time to write such a great review!! I now feel as if I've been on vacation. :)

[lprime60]

I suppose I should mention that around this time the seas started to get quite a bit choppy. It did not bother me all that much, but it really bothered my wife. The in-laws weren’t bothered at all. I never got physically ill, but when I stood up I would feel a little bit dizzy. It quickly passed thankfully though so I was able to keep moving about.

 

After dinner we had a little bit of time to kill before trivia, bingo and the welcome aboard show, so naturally we headed to the casino. My wife had been talking about gambling in the casino on the ship pretty much since the day we booked the cruise. I’m not a huge gambler, because I feel I work too hard for my money to piss it away. We each transferred $10 from our sail and sign account to our casino bank. She played penny slots and I played quarter slots.

 

Naturally I went through my $10 much quicker than she did hers, so I decided to go to the formalities shop while no one was looking to see if I could order the cake for mother-in-laws birthday. The formalities shop keeps fairly strange hours in my opinion, and I had hit upon it at a time when I guess the girl was at dinner for the evening. I headed back to the casino and sat at bench in the back corner looking out a window.

 

I guess at this point I should say that I’m allergic to cigarette smoke, so the smell from the casino was strong on that first evening, and got much worse as the cruise went along. Anyway…I digress.

 

We headed to the Fantasia lounge to play the first trivia game of the evening. This trivia was ran by one of the “fun team” guys who thought he was Rico Suave(his name was Keith I think), and too cool to be running lame trivia. I think it was called famous faces or something along the line. Basically a bunch of famous people were projected on the screen and we had to guess their name. I came in second, so close to winning a coveted solid gold plastic ship on a stick! Darn it! Maybe next time.

 

Next up was the $500 jackpot bingo. This was run by the assistant cruise director. I can’t remember his name off the top of my head, Eric I think, from Tennessee. I’ll have to check the fun times and report back on that one. One card was $10 and three cards were $20, plus you got a ticket for the win a cruise drawing held on the last day at sea. I must have gotten the worst bingo card in the world because I only had two holes poked when someone called bingo.

his name is Shawn

[GRAMMYTAN]

Great review. I read the entire review (so far) over my early monring coffee and really enjoyed it, loved the "story-telling" way you post and all the details. Don't worry about the nay-sayers; they lurk around just to put people down on every thread. Tell 'em o walk the plank. :D When you posted the part about "Hoppy Bursday Two Shoes" I nearly rolled out of my chair. I can vividly hear that exact version in my head from past experience and the last night song about Our bags are packed its time to go.... well it may seem sappy, but I almost cry everytime I hear it ...even after 17 cruises.

As a true "GRITS" (girl raised in the south), I have to appreciate your remark about Southerners and our "Bless her heart" saying. You are a great guy taking your in-laws on your very first cruise and while you playfully throw out the remarks about their senior moments and snoring in the back seat, your love for them shines through.

Can't wait for the rest of the story.

[afcj1]

Great job on the review:) I'll be on the Sensation in 2 weeks for some R&R.

 

Thanks again!

[donaldsc]

The alarm went off way too early as it seemed as if I had just fallen asleep. We ate breakfast at the hotel, which had a hot breakfast nook. The breakfast area of the hotel was way too small for all the hotel guests to use efficiently, especially a traveling little league baseball team! The food was decent, but compared to a recent stay at a Hampton Inn in southern Indiana, it paled in comparison.

We quickly checked out, loaded the car and again were on our way with my wife riding shotgun and the in-laws again snoring in the back seat. Instead of continuing down I-75 towards Orlando, we cut across on the I-10. While not the most scenic route through the Osceola National Forest, the drive was uneventful all the way to Jacksonville. In Jacksonville we saw our first glimpse of water, which brightened everyone’s moods considerably.

In Jacksonville, we picked up the I-95 which we would take all the way down to the port. Apparently the whole Florida State Patrol decided that I-95 would be a great place to be, because it seemed that every other mile there was a trooper in the middle of the highway with his radar gun out. This caused for some slow going for a while, but once we got past Daytona Beach it was smooth sailing all the way to the 528 A1A exit for Port Canaveral. A short while later I caught my first glimpse of a ship! It was the RC Freedom of the Seas. Next to her was docked the Disney Wonder, and last but certainly not least was our home away from home for the next four days, the Carnival Sensation!

We arrived at the terminal at approximately 11 am, where we offloaded our bags. The extremely nice porter who helped us told us that if and only if we were extremely satisfied with his service donations were always gladly accepted. I laughed and tipped him 5 bucks even though we only offloaded three bags. The girls got in line while the father-in-law and I took the car to the parking lot, paid our $60, and found a spot to park. There weren’t many people there yet since it was early. A quick walk back to the terminal from our parking spot and we found the girls waiting in line.

 

This is the 3'd part of your "review" and I have not seen anything about your cruise yet.

 

DON

[erinmarie424]

This is the 3'd part of your "review" and I have not seen anything about your cruise yet.

 

DON

 

 

:rolleyes: