Ventura Review

4.0 / 5.0
851 reviews

Ventura - Canary Islands

Review for Canary Islands Cruise on Ventura

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Sail Date: Mar 2010
Cabin: Junior Mini Suite with Balcony and Bath/Shower
Traveled with children

My Son George (age 12) and I are veterans of many cruises! We have been on Princess many times (we are both big fans, my son especially of the foods. The pancakes at breakfast live on in his imagination), Holland America once(but I am sure that will be repeated as they were excellent)and once on Cunard (which we found a bit stuffy, frankly). So this past Easter we decided to try cruising British style from Southampton. I should explain we are both English and resident in Sussex so getting to the Port in 3 hours was a dream start, compared with the delights of Terminal 5 and a 10 hour flight! We arrived early, about midday, and had a super fast check in. In about 15 minutes we were on board, which was wonderful. Our cabin was lovely: a deluxe balcony, with a proper bath room and full size bath. That made a nice change from some American ship bathrooms,which have been so small that I have had to rest my leg on the basin, whilst still in the shower, in order to do my legs! The toiletries on board were Temple Spa and very high end indeed. Of course, George was far more impressed with the TV system that had a channel showing Top Gear and Jonathan Creek 24/7. The ship is large, but the design was virtually identical to the Crown Princess that we had cruised on recently, so we instinctively knew our way around. The Positives: sounds silly, but I hate a build up of dirty laundry, so I was very pleased with plentiful and free (!) washing machines and tumble dryers. As I had brought my own detergent and softener (I told you I need to get out more...) I was in laundry heaven. The speciality restaurants were outstanding and worth the price of admission alone. My son and I ate at The White Room 5 times! It was amazing: service, food and location, although at the top of the ship (deck 17) it did tend to sway a bit in high wind. Not that this put my son off his steak... The pools were really well designed, but on sunny days they were very crowded. The Pizza and Burger restaurants on Lido deck were very good. The kids club was very lively and my son discovered class mate on the same cruise! What are the odds of that! The Port excursions were good value and cheaper than we had paid on some American lines. There was a speciality coffee shop called Tazzine that served fab coffee and had great staff, so we became regulars there. The Negatives: some staff had a real attitude problem, especially the Lido deck bar staff. They could be quite rude and off hand. Other staff, like our steward, were just lovely. The food was quite variable: other than the speciality restaurants, we found the food not much better than acceptable and breakfasts in particular were ordinary. The entertainment was a bit too "Butlins" for our tastes. Sounds so snobby, which we are not, but I suppose George and I really prefer spending evenings in our cabin, where we play poker for chocolates (he always wins, I swear he cheats) The weather was pretty lousy: high winds and not a lot of sun, so we were very disappointed in that, but not P & O's fault. Excursions and Ports: We loved Gran Canaria and enjoyed a trip on a submarine. Good value and great for kids. Lisbon was excellent, and coming in to dock under the bridge and past the great statute of Christ the King when the sun was coming up, was just breathtaking. The weather in Tenerife was dreadful so we stayed on board. Madeira was cold. We had arranged a dolphin watching trip which was good and we saw plenty of dolphins, but the cold wind was a little too brisk. In the other ports, like Vigo and Cadiz, we just wandered around under our own steam. Conclusion: we enjoyed the cruise, but will probably not choose P & O again, simply because the trip made us yearn for turquoise blue Caribbean seas.

Cabin Review

Junior Mini Suite with Balcony and Bath/Shower

Cabin CA

Lovely cabin BUT right above a very noisy lounge and for the first few nights the booming disco took some getting used to. The bathroom was lovely and there was tons of space for the two of us, even including my son's electronic play devices!

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