5th November 24 13 night cruise to Canary Islands.
Overall a very good cruise.
The food in all venues was very good.
The Main dining room portions have gotten smaller than they used to be but you can always ask for more and to be honest I never did and still left at the end of the meal feeling pretty full, (helps keep the overall cruise weight increase down a bit, which is a good thing).
The service in the MDR was very good, our waiters, Freddy and Martin, were very efficient and never got anything wrong all cruise.
Our drink orders always arrived within a few minutes of ordering.
We ate in both the Beach House and Sindhu.
Food in both was excellent and the staff were very good but it did feel very rushed, not quite the “special” experience it used to be.
We also ate in the Epicurean and this was first class, from service to food and to the fact that it was not rushed at all.
Huge amounts of delicious food so could only go there once or it would have ruined all the good work of the MDR portion control.
The ship itself was perfectly clean, no signs of any of the illness that seems to have blighted Ventura for the last 12 months or so.
There were plenty of hand sanitising stations.
You could help yourself at the buffet which is very grown up and much better than having to ask for everything.
We had breakfast and lunch in the buffet, the food was good and not once did we struggle to find a table, even at peak hours.
(We did hear the ship was about 300 passengers short of capacity so this may have helped).
Our cabin was clean and kept that way very well by Aris, our cabin steward.
The Glass House was always mobbed even though they were not doing food.
This was a surprise as in past cruises we would say the food in the Glass House was the best on the ship but on this cruise you could only drink there.
Seemed like most people did just that as it could be difficult to get a seat in this venue.
Not sure if this is a permanent thing or just for this cruise, would be a shame if they stopped doing food.
As we have cruised many times with P&O it does mean we have seen the same Headliners Theatre company shows many times as they only seem to change every few years so we didn’t go the the theatre very often.
We did go and see a group called The Bluejays and they were very good.
Communication from the bridge was very good and we got lucky with the weather.
There were a few things that were not perfect but overall this ship and crew fully deserve our five star rating.