Avoid Cabins E728 and E730!!!!!

Overall the holiday was enjoyable but we did find the ship disappointing on a number of issues. There were some good points but also some very bad, details below.

Cabin E728 Superior deluxe with balcony:
Our first impression was that the cabin was smaller than we were expecting. We were a family of 4, 2 adults and 18 month old twins and with the 2 travel cots in position we found we had no choice but to put a chair and coffee table from inside the room out on the balcony as there simply was no space in the cabin. The cabin steward said he had nowhere to put them either!! Other than that the cabin was very well equipped with excellent service from our steward. The major downside was the huge amount of noise that came through the floor every night from the Havana Night Club directly below us. The bass noise could not only be clearly heard but felt very strongly through the floor and often would cause the furniture and glasses etc to rattle. This would often go on until after 3 am. We complained (as did a number of our neighbours) most nights and while the night manager was able to reduce this noise slightly it could still be described as unacceptable and certain music tracks would still wake the children. Unfortunately they did not have an alternative cabin for us so we had to suffer this problem for the entire 17 nights. After 7 nights of complaining we were offered some compensation but this was not enough considering the affect it had on our holiday.

Restaurants:
We were on ƒ??Freedomƒ?? dining so ate in the Cinnamon restaurant and found it very good. Some times we thought the menu was a little limited but we were never disappointed with what we were served. Due to having the children with us we often found ourselves eating in the 2 buffet restaurants, this experience was a little disappointing with the food quality and variety being quite limited. The experience could be compared to that of a truck stop!! Breakfast on port days would be extremely busy and we would often have to wait significant periods for a table. One plus was the daily ƒ??Noddyƒ??s Teaƒ?? which was a buffet especially for children. This was a godsend and the waiting staff were excellent.

Swimming Pools:
Overall the pools on board were good with something for everyone, one serious problem is that all of the main pools were very deep which meant they could only be used by confident swimmers as even the ƒ??shallow endsƒ?? were 6 feet deep. We also experienced another issue. The ship only allowed children in Swim nappies to use 2 very small pools at the back of the ship on deck 16. These pools started off very cold which made them unusable for the first 4 days but the major problem was that if you had a buggy you could only access these pools by coming through the complete kids club which was very awkward. Also space around these pools was very limited which meant we never actually got use of a sun bed during the entire holiday. This rule on the pools added a further problem for other families that had one small child but other bigger children as the bigger kids wanted to go in the pools where the babies were not allowed, most frustrating and disappointing considering it is meant to be a ƒ??familyƒ?? ship!!

Conclusion:
The number of passengers on board often made the ship feel cramped with some of the public areas being unbelievably busy on a sea day. This also impacted on the time it took to disembark when in Port and created large queues when tenders were in use. Also due to the number of decks the lifts were in constant use by all passengers which meant on a daily basis we had to wait significant periods of time for a lift with enough space for our double buggy. The Entertainment was of a very good standard and all of the staff were excellent. We would give particular praise to the staff of the kids clubs and the night nursery as they did a fantastic job and they are the main reason that we have booked another cruise on Ventura in Summer 2013. Ventura is more of a ƒ??Butlins at seaƒ?? rather than a luxury cruise and if Luxury is what you are looking for then I would suggest trying Oceana which is our favourite ship by far.