Lovely Relaxing Cruise

We travelled to Spain & Portugal on 12th November. This was the first time we had cruised so late in the year and the first time we have booked an inside cabin, both experiences were excellent.

Ventura was the first ship we cruised on and it was lovely to be back on this beautiful lady, who was looking lovelier than ever after her refit. We were surprised to see that the cruise was fully booked but it never felt that there were over 3,000 passengers on board, we could always find somewhere quiet to sit and read or watch the world go by on sea days. The weather was a bit mixed with cloud most days but around 18 degrees, but because Ventura has the covered roof over one of the pools you could still swim as the water was not too cold. As always the staff was excellent and couldn’t do enough for you.

The inside cabin took a couple of days to get used to but I would definitely book another if we were to do another cruise at this time of the year. Our only disappointment was that we got 2nd sitting for dinner (we booked a saver fare) which was 8.30 which is far too late for use and you only got to see one show. We did the MDR for two of the formal nights and the food was excellent but most of the time we eat at the buffet which had an excellent choice most evenings. Overall this was an excellent cruise with a good mix of people, excellent value for money and had definitely made us think about cruising outside of the main summer months. One of the highlights for us travelling so late was that we left the ship in Gibraltar at 10 am only to return later in the day and the ship had transformed into a Christmas wonderland with all the decoration and trees up.