Ventura Med Cruise June 2016

This was our first time with P & O and was a holiday to celebrate a significant birthday for my father who was over the moon with the balloons and happy birthday song presented by the “Saffron waiter choir”. Overall we were really happy with our trip and would travel with P& O again and on the Ventura too. Well managed and organised from start to finish with some really great shore excursions that measured up to our expectations. If we wanted to be a little picky the Vigo excursion to the garden and house was a little disappointing. The brochure could have made it clear that the footpaths for walking were uneven and could be a little difficult for passengers in a manual wheelchair or walk with the aid of sticks it can be exhausting in the heat not really worth the money. The service and comfort of the accommodation was excellent they could not have been more helpful to us. The mobility assistance on embarkation was excellent too although a little better organisation on disembarkation would be useful one person managing this can be a lot to cope with particularly when there are a high percentage of passengers needing this form of assistance. Some of the passengers reverted to getting themselves off the ship and we would suggest that passengers requiring this form of assistance be advised that whilst every effort would be made to adhere to the times allocated that this is only approximate as it may take longer due to the numbers of passengers requiring this service.

The ship was clean but is showing signs of wear with stained carpets and damaged walls which detracts from the overall feel of our time on the ship. We consider ourselves as ordinary no fuss folks but the buffet was certainly not for us – this I hasten to add was not due to the cruise operator, the food nor service but more down to some of the passengers who frankly were very rude and at times very inconsiderate – what a shame maybe they will need help with getting their food one day and will learn that theres more than enough to go around so just don’t push…. We sampled the cocktails on a couple of days – they were inconsistent the same cocktail looking and tasting totally different – perhaps more time should be spent on the training for this.