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Ventura! Our first but not our last!! |
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Reviewed By: dawson, linford, essex on 28th Jun 2009
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| Cruise Line: P&O Cruises |
Times cruised before: 0 |
| Cruise Ship: Ventura |
Sailed:
June,
2009 |
| Destination: Mediterranean |
Age: 56-65 |
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This was our first cruise but will certainly not be our last. My husband and I had a brilliant time. It amazes me how so many people can be on the same ship and have such different views. Well here goes:
We drove to Southampton the day before we were due to sail and stayed at the Express Holiday Inn where we were able to leave our car for the two weeks we were away. Very convenient. A taxi picked us up at 12 noon. On arrival at Southampton Dock a porter came and explained that we would find our luggage in our cabin once we had boarded. Such efficiency was not expected. We didn't touch our luggage from the time we left the hotel. It really did beat dragging it round the airports. We were on board by 13.30 and directed up to the 15th deck where we had lunch at the Waterside. After having a roam around the decks we found the way to our cabin quite easily (thanks to tips from this site). We had an inside cabin which was spacious enough, after all you're only sleeping in it! There was plenty of hanging space and our very efficient and hardworking steward, Elmira, brought some extra hangers on request. She worked very hard and kept our cabin clean and tidy. The only thing I found fault with was in the cabin corridor where there always seemed to be trolleys of towels, sheets and cleaning equipment no matter what time of day.
It was announced on our arrival that the Noravirus had been on board on the last voyage and we were pleased that the captain asked everyone to use the hand sanitisers outside all the venues. The staff were at the door of the restaurant to make sure everyone adhered to this and, for the first week, the food was served to you even in the Waterside. I was not aware of anyone who contacted the virus on our voyage. Thankfully!
The Waterside Restaurant is a self-serve buffet restaurant which did, on accasion, become quite busy but at no time was there any pushing or shoving that I noticed. The various dishes were replenished efficiently and there was plenty of choice in the selection of dishes. It's a choice you make when you are on board whether you wish to eat here or not. There are silver service restaurants that are available to every passenger. We booked club dining and chose to eat at 6.30. Our allocated restaurant was the Saffron. Our waiters were Jessel and Derrick who worked endlessly to make our meal an enjoyable occasion, in which they succeeded. We are quite sociable people and chose to be on a table of 8. We were actually seated on a table of 10 which was fine and a good time was had by all (maybe not all, but most of us). The food was excellent and so was the atmosphere. We both enjoyed the formal evenings very much. I can't understand why people choose to sail on ships where there are formal evenings but choose not join in on them. I did see quite a few people who chose not to participate but that's their loss. It's not very often the occasion arises to put your posh frock on and we enjoyed it immensely. I think, with foresight, we should have booked an 8.30 sitting as it was very rushed trying to dress for dinner having returned from an excursion at 5.30. But that's something we'll bear in mind next time. We also dined at East which made a refreshing change for an evening. The staff were pleasant and the food was really tasty! Well worth the £15 subsidy charge.
We only did one excursion to Rome. Managed to lose the Tour Guide who decided to put her red parasol down half way round the Collaseum but eventually rejoined them with the help of another tour guide doing the same tour. Phew!! The other ports we decided to explore on our and joined another couple we met and shared a taxi to Herculaneum. A very enjoyable day until the husband of the couple we were with sprained his ankle really badly on the cobbled stones. He was adamant he didn't want an ambulance and plodded on courageously. His ankle was still swollen when he left the ship and we hope it heals ok Jack.
The entertainment we felt was pretty poor. Very early on a duo called The Citrus Brothers were shown off the ship after a very poor balancing and conjuring act. After that the entertainment did gradually improve but overall wasn't nearly as good as we expected.
I have heard people refer to the Ventura as 'Butlins'. I think this is very unfair. If there was nothing to do on board, no trivia games, no dance lessons, no talks on various subjects, everyone would be complaining because management did not try to keep passengers entertained when there were days when we could be at sea for 2-3 days at a time. If you choose to be boring and sit around and complain then more fool you. As we walked around the ship at various different times of day nearly all the venues had something going on and they were all well attended. So I think this speaks for itself!
On the subject of sun beds. The blue towel brigade were out in full force. This shouldn't be allowed. On occasion we did leave our belongings and towel on our bed while we went for something to eat at lunch time, but if the beds have not been used for more than an hour, the towels should be discarded by crew who must have some idea how long people have been gone. On the whole, whether it is morning, around 10.30 or after lunch we always managed to find a sunbed without too much trouble. There was never a time when we didn't find one. We tended to go up to the 19th deck where there was nearly always spaces. The beds are very close together but I don't see how you can expect anything else with 3000 people on board. You know this when you book and if they were to cut down the amount of beds to give more space then even more people are going to be moaning!
We found the children on board to be really well behaved. We didn't see any playing in the lifts. We were in the lift one day with another couple we didn't know and the lift stopped and the doors opened but there was no-one there. The lady automatically deduced that it was children mucking about with the buttons but it could also quite easily have been an adult passenger who had got fed up waiting for the lift and walked. I think it's a bit unfair to automatically blame children. Our children are grown up and, I hope, know how to behave in public places and otherwise. I have no objections to hearing or seeing children, of all ages, having a good time on holiday. If you don't want to be with children, then why book a holiday on ventura. The only time I heard them making an almighty racket was when the STAFF were chanting as they walked the children through the decks and were encouraging the children to repeat their chants. You can't blame the children for being noisy when its the staff who are organising the activities.
We chose a cruise for our holiday this year because so many people have had positive experiences and we were not disappointed. It can be as relaxing or as hectic as you want it to be. You can join in everything or nothing and that's the beauty of it. We certainly enjoyed our first cruise on Ventura and have already been looking through the P&O Brochure to get an idea of where and what ship we would go on next time.
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