Very disappointed with the quality of the Senses Spa experience. We booked the couples choice with a couple hours of a massage and some time in the "couples villa", which is a veranda with a hot tub, shower area, and a couple of deck lounge chairs. Looked forward to this for 5 months! Started with a short but nice foot massage. One of the massage therapists was "earning her ears" and did a terrible job for my wife's massage. She had more neck tension after the experience. The information we received was not good. There is no privacy screen for the veranda area so basically they expected us to "get naked" and provide a show for the folks on the Carnival Sensation which was alongside. It was not relaxing in the least and it was like getting a view of a parking lot from a hotel balcony. Not worth the 500 we paid for this experience. Very loud noises from the adjacent cruise ship. Even if we were at sea, the hot tub was at 104 degrees --way too hot for the summer weather. Spa manager basically told me that they can't control what ship is along side the boat. I was stunned. Did she think I was a kindergartener? I was polite with her and told her that they should inform guests of this situation before booking and then let them decide. Anyway, if I did this cruise again I would stay away from the Senses Spa. Way overpriced. I found the spa on our recent NCL cruise to be far superior. Rainforest area just didn't have enough areas to relax like the NCL spa did. Consider yourself warned. Spend your hard earned dollars somewhere else. Way, way below Disney standards and ruined the cruise for us. It takes many people a long time to earn 500 bucks and they shouldn't let guests throw away their money like this.

Stateroom on deck 9 was clean and the bed was very comfortable. Room host was excellent and we way over-tipped him--he was so friendly and although we had zero special requests or problems in the room, he was always asking us if there was anything he could do to improve things. Fantastic, Kirk!

Dining experiences were ok. You really need to remember that this cruise ship is all about the kids, no matter what the cruise director or marketing information states. Simply having that many hundreds of children on a boat leads to sheer chaos. The Animator's Palate was a restaurant to behold, very interesting. However, it was as loud as a theme park and we had to yell to have a conversation. We ate at Cabana's for breakfast as well as lunch and they had a wide variety of food but we stuck to the standards. The pool side grill was very good. Read more