Dawn Steele

Age: 25
Occupation: Student/mother
Number of Cruises: 2
Cruise Line: Carnival
Ship: Sensation
Sailing Date: March 17th, 2005
Itinerary: Western Caribbean

On this cruise, we got what we paid for. This cruise was far under par for our family. Our group included: My husband (30), myself (25), our son (5) my mother-in-law (52), and my grandmother-in-law (76). We have all cruised before.

The cruise starts out in New Orleans, a wonderful city. We arrived two days early so we could visit the city and avoid any travel delays that would cause us to miss our debarkation. We stayed at the Midtown Inn on Tulane Ave. It is a 7 minute drive from the French Quarter. I would not recommend this hotel unless you are the non discriminate spring breaker type. It is in a seedy neighborhood, things are falling apart and broken, the hotel is filthy, and there is no parking area for your car. You must park it on a side street in this seedy neighborhood. The price is outrageous, a whopping $75.00 a night for this junky hotel. We did visit the French Quarter and there are many things to do there besides drink. We visited Jackson Square, took a carriage ride through the quarter, and ate at a fabulous little place called Rita's. The restaurant was recommended by our carriage driver. She drove us there after our tour and dropped us off at the restaurant. She also told the doorman to give us free dessert, and he did. The food was fantastic! We also toured the Garden District and the Lafayette Cemetary # 1. Our guide was brilliant and new everything you could ever want to know about New Orleans.

We begin the first day of our cruise by navigating our way to the cruise terminal which is a little confusing, but manageable. My husband drops us off at the port terminal and goes to find the long term parking garage. The port is very busy! The porters took our luggage and were very courteous and helpful, we tipped them $10.00. We are waiting inside the terminal for my husband to join us after parking the car. He calls to tell me that all the parking lots are full and that he is going to try to park under the freeway. I wasn't all that convinced that was such a great idea, but before I could tell him, the security guard snaps at me about my cell phone usage. I apologize and hang up. I really expected her to be more courteous about it. My husband arrives about ten minutes later to inform me that he found an empty parking place in a lot about a mile away. It is $10.00 a day to park there. Now the fun begins! We stand in line for about 30 minutes and receive our sail and sign cards, then we are led to the waiting area. We waited for an hour in those chairs. I still don't know why. Although the "phone police" were in full force. They were really snapping at people to turn off their phones. I am really starting to feel like this is a cattle call. There is no sense of courtesy at this point. It was worse than being delayed at the airport. I wasn't even allowed to sit by my husband because of their seating arrangement. He had to sit on a different row on the other side of the room. After waiting, we are finally called to start heading for the ship. We go through security and board the ship. It is about 3pm, so we head to our stateroom, E141. Most of our luggage has arrived, so we settle into our room. My mother and grandmother-in-law are in the cabin next to us. The room is decent. The linens are clean and the bathroom is clean. We chose an inside cabin, so they have a curtain hanging up for a mock window. We decide to walk around and take in the sites of the ship. We were definately not impressed. The decor was very bright and busy. It was cheap and had a tawdry Vegas-style look to it. There are mirrors everywhere and bright purple walls. The waiters assault you immediately to purchase drinks. It is quite annoying and they do not let up. I don't know if they get a commission if they sell a certain number of them or what, but they are very pushy.

Most of the shops, pool, hot tub, casino, and Camp Carnival (the children's play area), are all closed because we are still in port. We did eat at the Sea view Bar and Grill on the Lido deck. The food is set up buffet style and is comparable to Golden Corral, Luby's, or Barnhill's. The food quality is poor. The pizza is bland and overcooked, the meat is dry, and they hard. lt have any vegetables at all. The fruit was fresh though, and quite good. My husband went back to the room and took a nap. I took my son the register him in the children's Camp Carnival program. This children's program is a nightmare! Beware! You are not allowed to have your children grouped together unless they are the same age. They are really aggressive about this. The 5 year olds are grouped with the babies, so needless to say my son hated it. It did manage to get him into the 6-8 year old group for about and hour. He had fun there, but before I could even return from dinner, they had already checked him out of that room and moved him back to baby room. This completely took me by surprise because their rule is: The parent who signs the child in, is the only one who can sign the child out. No exceptions. Well, I guess they made an exception with him. When I went to pick him up, they did not know where he was. Each counselor pointed me to a different room. The children's camp counselors have the worst attitudes on the ship. They are unfriendly and quite aggressive. We did not return to the kid's camp. My son refused to go back. He is not unruly or a hard to handle child. He's pretty quiet and mild mannered, so it wasn't a behavior issue. I did say we went to dinner. The dinner was alright. The service was fantastic. Our waiter, Denis, was super! The was the best service we had during the entire cruise. The food was comparable to Olive Garden. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't gourmet level either. Here, again, the bar staff comes around and presses you to buy shots, at dinner!! They are betting on you being an alcoholic or turning you into one. The sommelier also came around to offer wine, but we declined. After dinner, (we selected the early seating) we discover that we are just now leaving the port. We are 4 hours late from our original departure date. It doesn't sound so bad, but this means that the captain will have to make up this time by, as you might have guessed, going faster! This poses a larger problem because the speed is regulated along the Mississippi River, so it is going to be well into the wee hours of the morning before he can get it to Gulf of Mexico and speed up the ship. We definately felt this during the night. The ship rocked continuously well into the next day.

It is now our first day at sea. The ship is really rocking, and I am not talking about a band. I feel queasy. We decide to eat breakfast at the Sea view Bar and Grill. I ate some fruit and two stale croissants. We decide to try out the pool. This is not a good idea! The pool is about half the size of a public, neighborhood pool. The water slide is open, although I don't know how they justify having it in such a small pool. There a two hot tubs nearby and there are about 30 kids crammed into each one. I am not kidding! It is ridicules looking and not safe. There are so many kids in there, that you couldn't tell if one went under. There are no lifeguards except for the one at the top of the slide, regulating how many kids can go down the slide. So, he's not watching anyone in the hot tubs or pool. They is now way that water was clean in the hot tubs after that. I refused to get in. There was plenty of room to lay out, but the waiters hounded you about drinks again. They are expensive too! It's an amazing $6.00 a drink, but I get to keep the tacky cup it came in. We decided to go to the Fantasia Lounge, which is where we spent most of our time. The had a game of Bingo starting. That was fun. We stayed to watch a funny couples show that took volunteers and made their husbands more adventurous looking. It was a riot! Afterwards, we went back out to the pool deck for line dancing and we watched their skit of Fear Factor. I left for that part. I can handle watching that stuff. My husband liked it though. We went back to the room after that and watched some television. There wasn't much else to do. We all took naps and then got ready for dinner. Dinner was so-so again. After dinner we went to the Fantasia Lounge for the show. It was a Vegas style show and we enjoyed it. The was also a comedian later on and he wasn't very good. We decided to try out his late night activities. We visited the Plaza Lounge where the comedian performed his adult act, but I got tired and went to bed. My husband stayed and then went to the midnight buffet. He said it was alright.

Our third day begins in Cozumel! We did not book any excursions through Carnival because they are very pricey. We navigated our own way through town and enjoyed it. We meandered through the shops. Be careful here! The shops are geared toward tourists, so there are not many bargains on many items. We decided to catch a cab to the beach and do some snorkeling. Be sure and arrange your cab fare before you get in the cab. They regularly charge you higher prices if you do not. The driver recommended Playa de San Francisco. It was great! The place was beautiful and clean. The water was crystal clear and the cabanas were all set up. It was not overly crowded. They even had a water trampoline and an inflatable climbing wall that was shaped like an iceberg. We had a lot of fun here! This was the best part of the trip. We snapped some great underwater pictures from snorkeling. We stayed until it was time to board the ship at 4pm. We boarded the ship after waiting quite a while in a very long line. We went back to our room and proceeded to get ready for dinner. I am taking my shower and Bam!! We lose power, water, everything. I am standing in the shower in pitch black, our room is an inside cabin. There was no emergency lighting at all. We stood there for about 15 minutes before the power came back on. There was still no water. Have to finish my shower later. Our stewardess informs us that the water will be on soon and that we should not worry. By the way, she has no personality to speak of. She does her job and that is it. We feel like we are on the S.S. Minnow rather than a cruise ship. We ate dinner. We went to more shows in the Fantasia Lounge. We decided to try out the casino. They did have a variety of games to choose from, but it was so smokey in there, that I could not spend more than 15 minutes. My eyes were starting to burn from the smoke. I went to bed.

Day four, thank God we are almost home!! The seas are really rough and we are in the middle of thunderstorms. They captain closes off the pool deck because of rain and high winds. That didn't bother me, but the ship was really swaying a lot! We joined another Bingo game and stayed for some trivia games too. I took my son to the video arcade and he had fun there. We ate lunch and then went back to the room and watched some movies. We ate dinner. We watched the Mambo show. It was great. The performers were having a hard time staying up because they ship was rocking so much. There was a magic act and a comedian that were alright. We went to bed afterward.

Our final day! We are ready to debark! We decide to do the early debarkation at 7:45am. Everyone else decided to do the same thing. We stood in the hallway for an hour before the line started to move. There has to be a better way. People from all decks were crammed onto the Empress deck at the same time. It was a mass of people and no organization. We finally get out of there and my husband goes to get the car. He comes back and we hop in and leave! We will never go on Carnival again. I tipped everyone as recommended, but I know I could have spent our vacation money on a different vacation and have had a better experience.