The Honeymoon
The morning after @ShayWade and I got married, we set off for Port Canaveral to board the Carnival Sensation, bound for Freeport and Nassau. Although I am a big fan of traveling, this was my first cruise.
My first impressions: even though it is smallish compared to the other boats in Carnival’s 21 boat fleet, it is an enormous floating city. There are 14 decks in total, including the main deck, sleeping quarters, restaurants, a swimming pool, hot tubs–you name it, the Sensation has it.
If you only have a few days, want to supremely relax and eat good food, and visit a few islands briefly, a cruise is a good bet. We stopped in Freeport for 7 hours, and Nassau for 24 hours, so for those that want Carnival’s Excursion desk to take care of your port activities, then you’ll be well served. The food is excellent, and for those who want photo memories of your trip, as long as you don’t mind Carnival branding on your photos, there are many, many opportunities for professional pictures to be taken throughout the cruise. Here we are on the gangway leading to Nassau:
Also, Carnival does some smart things with customer relations. They give you comment cards the last night of the cruise, on which they ask you to rate your head waiter and maid, amongst others. To entice you to actually fill them out, your comment card is entered into a raffle and the winner gets a free cruise. Also, Carnival employees are rated largely on the comment cards, and promotions are given out to those who are singled out by customers–therefore, your trip is virtually guaranteed to have genuine, excellent service. Having been on a cruise now, I can attest that this strategy absolutely works and creates a friendly atmosphere for all.
We did an “Island Bus Tour” in Freeport, which was OK. We were the last ones on the bus, so got the extremely bumpy back row of the bus. We stopped 3 times, twice for shopping and once at Taino Beach, and we were pretty much on the clock each time. 15-20 minutes is not a lot of time to spend at a stop. The beach was nice, but Freeport as a whole feels more like an industrial power plant than a resort city.
Nassau, on the other hand, was gorgeous all around. We did a bit of shopping in the morning, followed by a visit to the Trump monstrosity, called Atlantis. I heard that it was previously owned by Merv Griffin, under the name Paradise Island Resort. Maybe in Merv’s day, you didn’t have to pay $60 just to walk on the private beach just for pictures.
After a siesta, we headed to Señor Frog’s, a restaurant and bar located a stone’s throw from the port. We drank and were merry until the early morning [pictures redacted].
Back aboard the boat, we spent a nice day at sea, and before we knew it, we were off the boat, headed back to cooler New York. Overall it was a great time. I didn’t know if I would like a cruise vacation, since I’m more of an off the beaten path kind of traveler. It turned out that I liked the cruise a lot. A word to the wise: Don’t attempt to hold to a diet while on a cruise. 
And I can’t forget to thank my Mom and Dad for staying in our house and watching KidWonder. Thank you guys–you let us be kids for a few days, and we really appreciate it! Love you Mom and Dad!
