Alaina Vickrey

Age: 24
Occupation: Accounting
Number of Cruises: 1
Cruise Line: Carnival Cruise Lines
Ship: Sensation
Sailing Date: June 18th, 2005
Itinerary: Western Caribbean

This was my husband and I first cruise experience and it was not what we expected. Just to give you some information about us. My husband and I are 23-year-old newlyweds. This was the first out of the country experience that we had. We are very disappointed that we wasted our vacation time and money on this trip. We contacted Carnival Cruise concerning our complaint. The only thing they cared to do was give us a small discount on our next Carnival Cruise, which I tried to tell them there will not be a next cruise for us with Carnival. Therefore, I decided that I could at least let others know about our experience.

Food:
We did not care for the buffet dining, it was often bland and not that great. I ended up eating 6 tuna sandwiches in 5 days because I could not find anything else that I liked. We normally love pizza but we did not like the pizza buffet either. Also, the icemakers were broke so everyone had to scoop ice from coolers! Do not expect good tea or juice either. The tea is instant and the juice taste awful. The dining room food was unpredictable. I could not tell from night to night if I was going to be disappointed that I wasted my time going to dinner. Our dining room was the Ecstasy and it is hidden at the back of the ship, so one night we were 30 minutes late to dinner.
Staff:

All the staff members on board the ship were friendly. We had great room staff and fast room service. It was nice to go back to our cabin in the evening to find mints on the pillow and the bed turned down. They also made cute animal figures out of towels. I forgot to pack my hair conditioner. This ended up being a problem because the staff at the front desk and room staff said they did not have any extra sample packs on the whole ship. They also did not sell any on the ship.

Entertainment:
The Vegas style show was great. The comedy and magic show was also very entertaining. All the shows that we attended were wonderful.

The main pool was always crowded. The other smaller adult pool looked dirty because it needed to be repainted.

Room:
The room was HOT. Our air conditioner was not working properly the whole trip. They attempted to fix the problem several times but with no avail. After three nights we were finally offered a fan.

The room was small but would have been bearable if we were able to breath.
We had an ocean view on the Empress deck. Compared to an inside cabin the room is the same size just has a window.

Ports:
The first port was the beautiful Grand Cayman Islands. When we arrived at port I was a little disappointed because I thought the island was going to be breath taking. No one ever mention that the ports look like construction sites. I understand that this is not Carnivals problem but it just added to my disappointment, although the island and the water are beautiful. We were only there from 8:00 to 1:00. There were long lines down halls to get off the boat. Since we were not experience travelers and knew we had to be back on the ship soon we did not feel comfortable taking a taxi. Therefore, we stayed in walking distances from the port. The shops were nothing special.

Conclusion:
They main headache we had with our trip was the air conditioning problems and the poor food quality. If you do not like to stay on a schedule I do not recommend taking any cruises. I prefer to come and go at my own pace. Everything on a cruise revolves around a schedule from breakfast, entertainment, porting, etc.