Ventura cruise June 2016

Cruised from Southampton for the first time. One day going out from Southampton and 2 days returning were not good weather-wise, too cold to go out on deck. However, there were quite a few activities on board but a lot of these were geared towards getting you to spend money – eg talks on anti-wrinkle treatments and other facilities the Spa offered, jewellery talks, etc.
Enjoyed the dancing classes most with Ian and Penny.
The staff were exceptional and the food excellent. Just a couple of niggles regarding the buffet – the toast at breakfast and the scones/teacakes for afternoon tea were left under lamps and were very hard. The only exception to the excellent staff rating was when we visited the excursion desk – had to queue for about 10-15 minutes to get to the desk and asked for some advice on the local area around Civitavecchia as we didn’t want to visit Rome. The lady we spoke to was unwilling to give us any information and we were told to read the leaflets in our cabin (which only gave information about Rome) – disgraceful!!! It was a different attitude when we booked trips.
Embarkation was smooth although we didn’t get onto the ship until 3.45 pm (travelled with the P&O coach transfer Intercruises). Disembarkation was chaos, we had to leave the ship at 8.45 am for the return transfer and the queue was halfway around the ship and did not move at all for 30 minutes – we were just left standing in the queue for this time until they started letting passengers off.
Did not feel that there was enough time at most of the stops, especially Gibraltar which was even more disappointing as it was Sunday and the shops were closed.
We had an outside cabin with unrestricted view which was very comfortable and had lots of hanging space (full length as well, for those evening dresses). Plenty of storage space.
The tea and coffee making facilities were very useful.
We opted for second sitting dinner but found that by the time we came out of the restaurant at about 10.15pm, we could not get seats at the shows. The people on early sitting could actually see 2 shows if they wished. The Havana theatre’s seating is completely useless as a theatre, which is set up mainly with 4 chairs placed around a table with several high partitions which you can just see over.
The ship itself is really nice although we were still trying to find out way around after 2 weeks, we found it too big.
The launderettes were another plus point, which were free to use.
Really didn’t like the idea of the Retreat area at the front of the ship where guests could spend the day in an upgraded area of the sun deck with their own butler, better sunbeds and bathrobes – all (of course) for ?œ20/day per person. It made us feel like second class guests and really wasn’t at all busy so we were struggling to find sunbeds (which were always reserved even though they say towels will be removed but never are!!!) when there were ample sunbeds taking up valuable space just lying empty unless you wanted to be ripped off.
Overall we did enjoy the cruise but would prefer to stick with a fly/cruise in future. Just have to accept that you’re going to get ripped off on board.