Reviews
![2023-02-15 18:18:10]()
Reviews
![2023-02-15 14:28:48]()
Ventura Cruise N302 January 10th 2023, 28 nights.
No complimentary water supplied in Cabin anymore.
Hot chocolate has changed and is absolutely disgusting.
Food in the evening only just warm. After raising the matter with the Head Waiter things did improve.
Found Cabin pretty small considering it was a balcony.
Captains Welcome Party was an absolute shambles. Only one waitress serving our side of the Red Bar during the 1st half hour, which is how long it took for us to get a drink. But saw 5 Waiters & waitresses when it came to clearing empty glasses away.
Sit down Breakfast service in the Saffron was terrible. Taking between 1hr 30mins and 2hrs to complete a service. On one occasion my cooked breakfast arrived cold and had to be re cooked. We changed to the Bay Tree restaurant where we received excellent service throughout the rest of the cruise.
On Formal & Casual evenings saw many walking around the ship in just shorts & T shirt. Once again these people are never challenged by members of staff. So as the cruise went on more & more ignored the minimum dress code.
Finding more & more as we cruise with P&O that all the rules laid down are being ignored & no one is policing them. Not much point in having rules in the first place. (Or maybe this is the direction P&O is taking things).
Entertainment was generally OK . However, keep getting Buskers onboard, which are OK occasionally but rather boring after a few gigs. Also having a Busker doing a Sailaway just does not work.
Restaurant food is getting worse. Choice is reducing. Food that is delivered is generally packed with cheap fillings. Quality of food is not as good as it used to be. More and more items being removed from the menus.
I have to say the food served on this cruise is by far the WORST we have been served. I certainly would NOT describe it as "Fine Dining" as P&O profess it to be in there brochures etc.
Sirloin steaks were of very poor quality, very chewy & dry. Even when they were replaced they were no better.
Food that we did receive was invariably over salted, especially the soups.
Keep delivering food to the table with vegetables that are not shown on the menu (especially green beans).. Please stick to plating up only what has been shown on the menu.
Peninsular Club Party has to be the worst organised by Loyalty in our 23 years of cruising with P&O. We booked a link with two other cabins for 1st sitting in Club Dining
Our Party invite was sent for 7:30pm & not 5:30pm as should have been the case. The same time was sent to our fellow travellers. But we were given a different date to our fellow travellers. Loyalty could not have got it any more wrong than they did. However, to top it all one of our party went and queued for 2 hours to try and resolve the problem. Loyalty only had one person at the desk. Also the majority of those waiting were there to resolve the same problem. Yet after numerous complaints no-one had the common sense to put a notice up to clarify the situation. Thus many more had the misery of sitting in the queue waiting, instead of getting on with there holiday.
So much for being "Valued Guests".
In the past we have had dress codes for "British Night, Caribbean Night & Black & White Night" P&O seem to have stopped doing these as they have not appeared on our last three Cruises.
Black-tie night fine dining meal was the worst ever. I selected the Beef & Lamb dish. I asked the Waiter if I could have the beef medium rare & the lamb pink. He said there was no choice. When it came the whole dish was cold. The beef and lamb were over cooked. Chewy & dry. If Marco Pierre White was to have seen what had been dished up, like me he would have been disgusted.
On a better note, the crew were excellent especially considering there was a shortage.
We had an outbreak of Norovirus, but thanks to the measures quickly put in place by the CaptaIn, it was cleared within 10 days. Also a big thank you to all the staff who had to endure additional cleaning activities during this period.
Once again the CaptaIn had to instruct passengers to carry out good hygiene procedures. Having witnessed the disgusting habits of some passengers this did not surprise me.
The itinery was good, visiting a lot of lovely islands. Weather, as you would expect was great. Even the Atlantic crossings were very kind to us.
As I always say a holiday is what you make of what's available and overall we enjoyed it.
Whilst I understand and appreciate times are difficult and purse strings need to be tightened to stop the company going bust. By continuing on this course they will drive there customers away and it will go bust anyway. P&O need to come up with a better strategy if they are to survive and become prosperous again.
We have been travelling with P&O for 23 years now but are finding very difficult to justify booking future cruises with them.
Reviews
![2023-01-24 13:17:18]()
First of all let me say I love cruising. It's about 7 years since I last sailed on P and O.
A combination of them scrapping Oriana and a drop in quality of entertainment being the push I needed to try out other lines.
I booked the 5 night jaunt on Ventura as an early birthday present for my partner - he too likes cruises but hadn't tried out P And O before. The price we paid for a midship balcony cabin was extremely good value. I do feel sorry for those who had paid full price! I certainly would not have been happy.
Interestingly every day all day saw a long queue at reception.!
I read various reviews and watched various videos pre cruise.
I knew the ship needs refurbishment.
I knew some people would defend Ventura to the end regardless.!
It was a short re charge of batteries after a busy Christmas.!
First the positives
Easy embarkation.
The cabin and general state of the ship was much better than I expected.
Metal tea spoons instead of nasty wooden stirrers in cafeteria.
Cravendale semi skimmed milk instead of Uht..
I must point out I've never undertaken such a short cruise before, which might have accounted for 'proper' milk lol.
Staff were lovely although sadly in very short supply.
So negatives
Very few staff to customer ratio
Poorly trained restaurant staff seemingly unaware of how to serve.?
Food I'd describe as basic pub grub standard nicely presented.
No wonder all the speciality restaurants were fully booked!
Formal night food was simply nothing special at all.
The app thing for booking was confusing but once understood it worked OK for us.
Entertainment was adequate.
I only met the cabin steward twice, first time I spotted him and mentioned one of the bedside lights wasn't working I had already ascertained the bulb had blown. He checked it.. muttered something and disappeared.
It wasn't fixed so the following evening I popped to reception advising it was a duff bulb.
I appreciate the staff are extra busy, but on changeover surely things like that are checked.. Likewise the fridge was dirty and
used sleep ear plugs left in bedside drawer Urgh!
Second time I was Steward was the last day.!
I appreciate Covid and Brexit have contributed to problems.
The cruise companies lost a lot of money however pre Covid for years they were coining it in.!
Overall the break was fine.
Would we hurry back to P&O again?
No.
There are plenty of other cruise lines to choose from.
I'd rather pay more and get a better experience. A cruise to me should be something special and this cruise simply wasn't!
Reviews
![2023-01-22 20:00:05]()
This was a 5 week Christmas & new year cruise, nobody can control the weather it was bad crossing the Atlantic in December it took 12 days to get to our first Caribbean island Barbados apart from one stop in Madeira and the same inward bound . Food was repetitive after 2 weeks. Only 1 prawn cocktail in 5 weeks, Food in the buffet kept running out, food portions was very small .Entertainment was very poor day & night. Films very poor, Drinks have gone up greatly, missed 1 port of call in the Caribbean due to a strong under currant, Very dangerous when we was disembarking back at Southampton in the baggage reclaim hall health & safety did not come into it it was packed you just could not move people trying to push bye you with trollies bumping into everybody .P&O standards have dropped dramatically many many cut backs we have done 36 cruises and we have noticed the cut backs one by one over the last few years. we had covid onboard colds & flu lots of passengers were very ill including 3 of my party.we will have to think long & hard if we will cruise with P&O again.
Reviews
![2023-01-22 16:35:23]()
Reviews
![2023-01-22 16:13:56]()
Reviews
![2023-01-22 14:50:45]()
Overall not bad given so close to results of covid but ship ‘tired’, calibre of some passengers left an awful lot to be desired, far too many mobility scooters with no code of safety for all but we did enjoy it.
Reviews
![2023-01-22 14:22:22]()
From being warmly welcomed at embarkation, getting on to the ship in record time. The welcome continued on the ship, and we were directed to our cabin. Our steward came and introduced himself, Xavier, a lovely friendly and very helpful young man. Nothing was too much trouble for him. Dining around the ship was was really good, and we could not fault the quality of the food. Through the day and evening entertainment was of a high quality. All staff were very helpful and attentive. We were a little disappointed with our shore excursion to Santorini, as they took us to the far side of the island, and not where the towns were, with the blue roofs, which Santorini is famous for. But as we had used OBC to pay for the trip it wasn’t a financial loss to us. I can’t think of anything on the ship that did not meet the quality we expect from P&O. Trips to shore by tenders were very well organised, and we felt safe at all times. Disembarking was so organised , we were soon on our way to Malta airport. I would definitely recommend and travel again on Ventura. From booking the cruise through our local travel agent to returning home, we felt we had been pampered, and respected as travellers.
Reviews
![2023-01-13 19:43:52]()
Overall, taking into account Covid, it was good value. Some people appear to be writing terrible reviews so I’ve no idea what they expected for the price. Our deluxe balcony cabin was clean but maybe in need of updating especially the TVs and its systems otherwise it had more space than we expected and I loved the open wardrobes. It was obvious that P&O have had problems recruiting chefs as the first few weeks it was good food poorly cooked and presented and sometimes very small portions and not hot enough, having said that when we voiced our opinions they were quickly rectified. One woman told me, she hadn’t paid to be on a training ship and the beds were only changed once a week! I asked her how often she changed her’s at home??? The entertainment was adequate. It is apparent that COVID is still present and more could be done for people to use the sanitizers. I’ve never seen so many mobility scooters with some reckless drivers - a safety code should be introduced. As everywhere in the general public there were some very rude and ignorant passengers, we were surprised how they could afford the cruise and travel insurance. Lots of room for improvement which I am sure will happen over the coming months.
Reviews
![2022-12-10 10:50:49]()
For our second cruise we chose Ventura to the Canaries. Our first cruise for our Golden Wedding was supposed to be a one off but cruising is like a superb glass of wine, one is not enough. Ventura is like a slightly shrunken version of Britannia so we were familiar with many of its elements. We were lucky and were allocated a cabin with a double sized balcony. The food was faultless and with enough dining choices to suit everybody. The staff gave everything to provide excellent service despite the obvious lack of numbers. The Covid precautions were still evident but not intrusive. The entertainment was a match for anywhere land or sea and the drinks better priced than local hotels. The ship felt like it was on a lake rather than the ocean.
All in all, cruising is wonderful, Ventura is a decent ship and P&O have fulfilled or 50 year dreams of cruising.
Reviews
![2022-12-09 19:52:51]()
Reviews
![2022-12-09 17:28:46]()
Reviews
![2022-12-09 16:23:37]()
Service were very good , our toilet was blocked got it fit in no time, ship may need a little update but still very good value, will go again.
Reviews
![2022-12-09 15:01:25]()
Great time a few little problems,
But the staff
handled them very effectively.
Reviews
![2022-12-09 14:32:40]()
A fabulous 5 night Christmas Markets trip to Hamburg and Brugges.
Cabin was roomy, food in buffet and dining room very good, although not fussed on the flexible dining.
Didn't use ships excursions, only their shuttle buses.
Reviews
![2022-11-09 19:40:59]()
We thoroughly enjoyed this cruise. Although the ship isn’t new it is cosy and we found it easy to find our way around it. Our cabin was fine with everything we needed. Meals in the restaurant were excellent and the staff superb and so professional. Our cabin steward was friendly and again extremely professional. He kept our cabin immaculately clean. The entertainment in the theatre as well as the lectures we found to be very enjoyable. We didn’t take part in any quizzes or any other organises entertainment.
We took just one of the ship’s excursions and that was to Bayeux to view the tapestry. Our guide gave us lots of information about it’s history as well as telling us about the area. She took us round Bayeux itself including the beautiful cathedral and proved to be a really excellent guide.
We explored all the other ports independently and found them all interesting. We were fortunate to have lovely weather too.
