Four flights , over 1000 passengers , all arriving in Genoa Airport at a similar time of day, herded together like cattle with no clear direction as they made their way, taking over two and a half hours to Genoa Port. Welcome On Board Ventura!!!!
The coach transfer from Genoa airport to the port is a 15 minute transfer and great that your luggage is taken from the airport to your cabin. Unfortunately for some passengers that is where the stress free experience ended.
Once at the port terminal building , and already with a huge build up of passengers from the coaches into the port area, groups of people with no clear direction were taken from one area to another, then to another and finally what can only be described as reaching the end of a conga line headed towards check in. With only around 20 counters checking in hundreds of passengers you can imagine this was a very long line. After what seemed like a lifetime and before customers were directed by No P&O representative I might add and only security customers were met by a Photographer saying ‘Happy Holidays’ or such like , well I can imagine at this point you would possibly have thoughts about this photographer that weren’t to be repeated . So the herding of the passengers continued through many more security checks before finally embarking the Ventura a mere two hours fifteen minutes later. I think maybe a sorry for the delay from a P&O representative would have been good at this point. I guess from the feedback from customers is maybe to change the timings of the aircraft’s so they don’t all arrive at once hence causing unnecessary queues.
The majority of feedback from the Ventura has been great, apart from maybe more wine waiters at dinner, I can’t disagree with that and a little more organisation is needed when customers are disembarking at ports of call as again , customers seemed to be queuing for hours to get of the ship.
Unfortunately though if the experience at the start of the holiday wasn’t enough to distress many passengers then it sure was on the return. As my picture shows, all Thomson flights leaving Venice to head back to the Uk were all within minutes of each other so you can imagine over 1000 people is a very small space, waiting over an hour with nothing but the odd Vending Machine to buy a drink from and not enough chairs for even the elderley or families with young children to sit down on , the experience left a sour taste for many customers who on this experience may not travel with P&O again.
Maybe we are going to have to start employing sheep dogs at the airport to cope with all the passengers crammed into a small space .
This has all come about because of the flight situation, and I genuinely think something can be learned from P&O when organising there flight schedule, if not then definitely more P&O representatives need to be on hand guiding customers through with refreshments available to make the transition from airport to port and back again alot more pleasurable.
Have you been on the Ventura and what was your experience from airport to ship and back, also any feedback on your cruise would be great.