Our family of 5 left Port Canaveral for a 4 night cruise on July 6, 2014, going to Freeport and Nassau Bahamas. We previously sailed on the Sensation's sister ship, the Carnival Elation so we kind of knew what to expect. We live 9 hours from the port so we drove down the day before and stayed at the 4 Points Sheraton in Cocoa Beach. This place was amazing! We were able to leave our car parked at the hotel during the cruise. For $40, the hotel took our family of 5 to the cruise terminal, allowed us to park our car in their covered deck and picked us up from the terminal at the end of the cruise and brought us back to our car. I would definitely recommend this.

We boarded the ship around 12:30 pm. The boarding was easy and we were on the ship within 20 minutes. Our cabin was ready upon boarding. The day we arrived was also my birthday so my husband had made prior arrangements for our cabin to be decorated and a cake was in our cabin waiting on me. This was really nice. We were able to put our carry on luggage in our cabin and hit the buffet up. Let me say that this was the first 4 day cruise we have taken. Our previous cruises have been 7 days. There is definitely a difference in the way Carnival treats their guests on a 4 day cruise versus a 7 day cruise. I found this very disheartening. It shouldn't matter if you take a 3 day cruise or a 10 day cruise, you deserve the same exceptional treatment. On our previous cruises, we were treated like Royalty and it was nice. This one, not so much. I will say that our room steward was absolutely amazing!!!!

Our children are ages 20, 17 and 10. Our 17 year old had an amazing time at Club O2. Our 10 year old tried several times to go to Camp Carnival but every time we took him, we were told they were closed. We took him at times ranging from 10am, 2pm and 9pm. We were very discouraged at this. Read more