We arrived late at Southampton due to being held by a road traffic accident in Southampton.
Our boarding time was 3.45.
We arrived 30 minutes late.They were still trying to deal with passengers who should have boarded at 2pm.
CPS were their usual polite and efficient service.
It was after that that things went down hill.
We finally managed to get on board at just after 5.30.
Ventura is a lovely ship.
The balcony cabin was clean and comfortable.
The steward was efficient and friendly and extremely helpful in providing extra stuff for us.
Food in the MDR was good, but food for vegetarians or vegans was on many occasions very poor quality and extremely small portions.
The buffet was good but advertised food was often not available, this was a major problem for vegetarians or vegans.
How many times are passengers expected to eat salads as that was the only option available.
Some of the acts in the theatre we were sure would not have survived one appearance on any of the talent shows now appearing on British TV.
Other acts were brilliant.
One annoying factor in the theatre and all the other venues that provided music was the extremely poor quality of the sound.
It was always too loud and the over reliance on both echo effects and the sound relied to much on treble noise.
The crew were amazing they were either painting something on deck or wiping down handrails in the stairs and for ever cleaning the public toilets on the decks.
The cabin we had was affected by the cabin next to ours suffering a major flood.
The passengers in that cabin were immediately moved to another cabin.
However it took to 6pm the same day for any decision to be made as to where we would be heading to on board, as the carpet in our cabin was soaked and they had large industrial equipment in the cabin trying to dry out the carpet.
Eventually we were offered another cabin.
The staff who dealt with the flood in the heavily damaged cabin were super efficient, which makes me think that flooding appears to be a regular problem.
However despite this problem we still managed to have a wonderful time so much so that we booked again for the same cruise but not the same cabin.