7 night cruise from Southampton

We have recently returned from a 7 night cruise on Ventura, from Southampton to Guernsey, Spain and Portugal. We travelled with our daughter and our two grandchildren. Ventura is a ship that we have used several times before as a family. A well run, clean and tidy ship with excellent staff and good food. I booked two balcony cabins, our daughter’s was allocated on deck 12, and ours, an upgrade we were told, was on deck 14 Riviera. I was also told that it was partially shaded!! As soon as we entered it felt chilly. On getting into bed that night, my husband said “this bed feels damp” It did, we just thought it was because there had been no sun in the cabin all day. The mattress was also much too hard for us and we asked if a topper could be provided, a duvet was placed on the mattress, which helped a little, it also made the bed feel a little less damp!! As the days passed we realized that the only sun that entered the cabin was as the sun was setting, very late evening, we didn’t consider this to be a partially shaded cabin, but a 98% shaded one!! We are Caribbean members of P&O loyalty club, having done several world sector cruises with them on Aurora. Thank goodness we didn’t have this cabin on one of the long cruises. Nevertheless we had a lovely week with out daughter and grandchildren.

P&O must know that these cabins are almost completely in the shade, and for this cabin to be given as an upgrade at our level of support, we felt it to be a little bit of an insult.