|
We travelled down to Southampton and stayed the night before at the DeVere hotel right on the front. We booked a stay with breakfast, transfer and park package that cost only slightly more than paying for just parking at the dock. The hotel was excellent, lovely room, breakfast and well organised transfers to and from the ship by taxi.
After a leisurely walk along the quay to take pictures of Eclipse, which was also in port we checked out of the hotel and arrived at the new Ocean Terminal at about 11.45. We were given a card with a letter on and had to wait until about 12.30 before our letter was called as boarding did not start until 12.00, we were efficiently checked in and boarded the ship.
We had lovely lunch from the buffet sitting in the sunshine on the Terrace until our cabin was ready at 1.30. We had a cabin on C deck with an extra wide balcony and it was perfect, part under cover and part exposed. This was our second cruise on Ventura and the cabin itself was identical to our previous cabin on B deck. A well designed cabin with all the facilities and storage you need
We had a table for 8 in the Saffron restaurant, though in the end there were 6 of us plus one of the ships senior officers who joined us for the whole cruise. It was a very enjoyable experience. The food was generally excellent, I returned one meal, very British style food. We ate one night in The White Room as a celebration and that meal was outstanding, a perfect evening, a lovely table in front of the picture windows. We had breakfast either in the Saffron or the buffet, and enjoyed both, an excellent selection. For lunch we went to either the buffet or Frankies grill. We ate very well indeed, though at times it was busy we always found a seat, and dishes were promptly cleared from tables. We never had to queue. We noticed that people were arriving for dinner more than 15 minutes before the club dining time and then complained that they had to queue, strange, of course they had to wait!
We went to all the shows in the theatre and thought they were very professional. We easily found seats at the 7pm performance and then went on to dinner. We did not go to any of the other shows or entertainment.
Our favourite bar was Metropolis where we could sit looking out at the beautiful scenery as we passed through the fjord still light at midnight. Drinks were reasonably priced and very well presented and served. We though the wine list limited, though again good value, we did not buy a wine package as we were only on a short cruise, but they were available.
Disembarkation was very efficient and civilised very unlike our experience on US ships. Times varied from 7.30am to 11am depending on your form of onward travel. The evening before we were given a card with our departure time, an got off the ship promptly at 8.30 rung the prearranged taxi number and were back with our car by 9am.
A perfect cruise, we look forward to our next on Azura in October
|
