I went on a cruise with several other divas to the Bahamas recently.I have been on other cruise lines, Royal Caribbean (2), Holland America(1), The Big Red Boat (1), and even an old defunct cruise line I can't name. I had also been on two prior Carnival Cruises; One was nice and one was crappy. Well the score is now 1-2.Parking. Parking was somewhat convenient. This was Carnival and there was no valet, but the parking lot is a short walk from the boat. As we parked the car and walked toward the pier, it started to rain. The pier seemed a lot farther away in the rain than in sunshine.Two aspects of the cruise were great. Embarkation and disembarkation. We were in a VIP cabin, so we did not have to wait in the miles-long line for general passengers to get onto the boat. Or the hours-long wait in the crowded common areas with the other thousands of folks to get off the boat. Embarkation and disembarkation in Nassau was also painless.After we had our non-complementary welcome drinks, we were rushed from the deck for the safety drill. In trying to get to our cabins for our lifevests, we encountered several rude members of the crew. That would be our introduction to Sensation life. It turned out that we did not need our vests for the safety drill. This must be some new rule, as before, on Carnival and other Cruise lines, we were always required to have our lifevests for safety drills.Room Service. Not so great. We arrived in our stateroom at 3pm to find that our cake which was supposed to be delivered at 5pm for our Bon Voyage party was already there. However, it had arrived sans plates, cake knife, or forks. I called room service to let them know that when they brought the other appetizers at 5pm, they should bring enough plates and forks for the cake also. On a great note, the Bon Vogage decorations were fantastic! Loved it.At 4pm, we met our cabin steward, Antonina. She quickly informed me that we would use a roll-away bed instead of the sofa bed in our cabin. We had already placed the questionably clean roll away in the hallway because we did not request it, it was in the way, and nobody would have slept on it—even if it were disinfected right in front of us. When I told Antonina we were not going to use the rollaway, we wanted her to dress the sofabed in the evenings; she flat refused to do it. She said the sofabed was difficult to pull out and that she was not going to pull it out and night and then put it back in the mornings--too much work. When I told her that we would pull it out ourselves, she refused to put it away in the mornings. My girlfriend slept on the couch for the entire cruise without pulling it out... I also asked for an extra bucket of ice. She told me to call room service. When I called room service, they said I should ask my cabin steward. I told them that Antonina said they should bring it and that I did not plan to be sent back and forth between room service and my cabin steward for a bucket of ice. At 5:30 when my 5pm order arrived, they did bring an extra large bucket of ice, but no plates, and no cake knife.We enjoyed our little Bon Voyage party sans cake. The canapEs were enjoyed by a few of our guests. Most of us found them pretty bad, though. We had a great view of the pilot boat from our balcony and watched the pilot climbing down from the ship and stepping onto the expertly driven pilot boat. The plates showed up toward the end of the festivities. The cake was pretty good.Dining on board. After our little party broke-up, we ventured out. Dinner was decent. The salad was fresh. However, to the strong consternation of the table waiter, I had to order two entrEes before finding an edible one. The lasagna did not resemble any I've had anywhere. This was not a good thing. The spare ribs were tender and seasoned well. The apple pie ala mode was room temperature and the ice cream (in a separate little cup) was just about melted when it reached the table. We roamed the boat. We went to the alcohol tasting. They had two varieties of Baileys and a coffee liqueur to taste. The other two days and nights, food was pretty mediocre. We patronized the pizza and sandwich bar multiple times. I don't eat sandwiches too much, but I was told they were very good. I mostly ate pizza. At one point, there were two stale pieces of pizza left. We asked for hot pizza. The server said no. So we had to wait for other passengers to take the two stale pieces, then ask for pizza again...I lost about 5 pounds on the trip, so there was an up-side to the food not being great.Shopping. We did some shopping. I always love the $10 accessories on these boats, similar to the $10 chain at airports. I told my friends we'd better buy them the first night. On other Carnival Cruises, the good merchandise disappeared almost immediately—as if this would entice us to buy the crappy merchandise that was left over. Carnival was true to form. I did find two great purses on the first night. I thought they might put out new or different merchandise later, but the cute merchandise was gone and the ugly ones remained plentiful.The "Gold by the Inch" guy was ill-tempered and bossy. He told me that the length of bracelet I wanted was "ridiculous" and that he didn't want to waste his time cutting it at the length I requested because it would make more work for him when he had to shorten it at my request later. I started to walk away, but wanted the jewelry. I had to argue with him for quite some time to get him to let me pay for what I wanted. After I finished, he started arguing with the next customer. It was pretty good entertainment. I could never obtain any documentation regarding the gold content of the jewelry, though the salesman repeatedly claimed that it is18k gold—but warned us not to put the "gold" in liquid jewelry cleaner.Entertainment. We saw the adult comedian preview on the television and decided to skip it. We went to the piano bar, but they were playing some weird game in which the passengers around the bar told jokes. From our vantage, it appeared that the longer one sat at the bar, the funnier the jokes seemed. We left before the jokes were funny to us.Karaoke was a BLAST. We had a FANTASTIC time! We stayed most of the evening. As this was pretty much the only viable entertainment on the boat, it was packed. We eventually got a decent seat in the back of the room. The nightclub next door also seemed pretty enjoyable. After Karaoke, about 1am, we searched in vain for something interesting to do. This is not the ship that never sleeps. We went and got some pizza and retired to our cabin.Our Cabin: Grand Suite U114. The balcony is large enough for five or six people to have a conversation while leaning on the rails, having drinks. There are two chairs and a side table. The cabin was roomy, but aged. You could definitely tell you were on an older ship. There was rust on the ceiling in the shower, but overall the bathroom was clean. We had a walk-in closet and a Jacuzzi tub. None of us trusted the filters in the older tub, but the shower water pressure and temperature were great. There was no fan for circulation. The bathroom got really steamy.On the second day of the cruise, we thought we would remind Antonina to take out the over-flowing trash. One of my diva friends is "the most understanding diva in the world." She found herself arguing with the person on the phone regarding the person on the other end's disbelief that nobody had dumped our bathroom trash for two days. We hadn't seen any glasses after our Bon Voyage party. We brought in disposable cups in from the outside buffet for most of the cruise.That evening, Antonina again seemed to stalk us before we left for dinner. She handed me our towels, and chocolates and said goodnight. When she saw my reaction, she added, "You can call me if you need me." Divas in other cabins had told us about their towel animals and cabins being cleaned after they left for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Our cabins were hardly ever touched except after breakfast. We never saw an animal until the last night—the night after we reversed the automatic cabin gratuity from our sign and sail accounts. That's when we figured it out--Antonina probably did not want to make animals because she was awful at it.Sign and Sail. Unlike on other cruises, I thought I liked Carnival's policy of not requiring a credit card or minimum dollar amount for the sign and sail account. This was until the second night of the cruise I found my account to be negative. When I went to guest services to ask why my account was negative, the "Service Agent" on duty let me have it! She told me that if I had read my cruise documentation, I would have known that they were going to charge gratuities to my account. I then told her that other cruise lines charge the gratuities the last night of the cruise. Then I repeated my request for her to remove the tip. As she typed into the computer, she gave me a piece of very important unsolicited information. She told me between clenched teeth that my service staff would be able to see that I had removed my gratuity and that I "had better" "tip as you go" for services. I am not sure what else she had planned on saying because I cut her off and told her that I did not ask for her advice and she should just give me a receipt after she finished doing as I asked. I told her that we meant for our cabin steward to know we reversed the tip. Whew. Bar Service. Most of the bartenders were friendly and service was had in a reasonable amount of time. 15% gratuities are added to each drink. Most drinks are about $7. It would seem that bar service should be consistent throughout the boat. You can drink Bailey's® at the Lido Bar, but at the Empress bar, there is a brand of Irish cream called Brogan's. You can get a morning special drink at the Lido Bar, but at the same time, the same drink at the Empress Bar is $2.50 more than upstairs. WHY? Nobody knows. I enjoyed bar service, for the most part. The drinks were of standard proportion, not watered down.