Our second cruise onboard the Ventura and wasn’t as good as our first one.
The staff were very friendly and our cabin steward Manguel was amazing .
He was very helpful and friendly.
Unfortunately norovirus was already a problem before we boarded and continued to be so during our cruise.
My husband started with it after only 3 days but thought he just had seasickness so didn’t report it but we stayed in our cabin.
I then started with it and had to isolate for 5 full days in our cabin .
We missed Madeira ( husband poorly) then Tenerife , Gran Canaria, lanzarote and Cadiz through isolating.
We struggled when we were well to get seats in either the cinnamon or the Safron for breakfast or dinner so had to mostly resort to the buffet but struggled here for seats .
Due to the norovirus , staff served all your food which is quite daunting being unable to just take a small amount to try and come back for more .
We had to queue to get in with staff only letting in so many at a time into the food area and spraying everyone’s hands each time , even if you popped back in for forgotten cutlery !!
We ate a couple of times in the Glass House , which is chargeable and also The Beach House where the food was really good , one complaint about this is we had to cancel at short notice due to illness and was charged £10 each cancellation fee..
We visited the Arena theatre only twice and both shows were really good , sadly the theatre smelt of vomit and at the end the entertainment manager asked us to leave by certain exits as someone had been ill .
We visited a couple of other venues to see the entertainment but wasn’t as good as we expected .
The resident band in the Tamarind was woeful with lots of out of tune singing.
The quizzes all seemed to start at varying times but mostly were group quizzes.
The signs requesting people not to reserve sun beds was totally ignored and families reserving 7/8 beds everyday quite early.
The terrace pool had no lifeguard so therefore the rules asking for babies in nappies not to use the pool or no acrobatics or jumping about was totally ignored so saw a toddler in a nappy have an accident .
I would also warn people about purchasing drinks package aboard this ship if the gastrointestinal issues are not sorted .
We purchased and only used very minimally due to being isolated for so long and then still feeling poorly on release so didn’t drink alcohol much whilst aboard and looks like no chance of refunding us any pro rata unused .
All in all I think we wasted 4.5K on a cruise with a company that has no duty of care for their customers when they knew before we left they had a virus on board.
My advice is not to sail on the Ventura unless they guarantee it’s germ free.
