We recently returned from our two day trip on Ventura and thought we would try out a ship which we hadn't cruised on before. We now mostly sail with Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises. We didn't expect the same experience as Royal as we appreciated the fact that P&O is a lower star rating.

First impressions - The ship was your typical P&O cruise vessel dominated by brass, wood, beige coloured staterooms. P&O obviously likes to stick to the classics! Our stateroom was clean and functional yet it had the smallest TV we have had on a cruise ship but it did offer a good selection of free films via a basic but very slow and tedious aged interactive system. The air conditioning did not function correctly and despite being turned down to the lowest setting it still made for quite an uncomfortable nights sleep despite keeping the patio door ajar to allow some air to circulate around the cabin. Other passengers also stated air con problems. The fridge equally had cooling problems. Other aspects of the stateroom were o.k. and I was expecting the bathroom to be on the petite size - unlike our grand suite we had a few months back on Harmony of the Seas. There were no surprises here coming back to P&O and nothing changes! Still only water offered throughout the day with no squash drinks for example.

The ship in general was o.k. but we noticed parts of the ship looked scuffed and the paneling along the corridors were marked through age and usage and what was clearly a lack of care and maintenance. e.g. one lift door was badly scratched and had some dents along the leading trim. The ship itself is typical P&O which exhibits a much cheaper look to its finish than its competitors particularly the classic gaudy brass, plastic looking metal and fablon sticky backed plastic wood looking interior. We did like the the enclosed glass roof in the solarium and this was a nice touch and like Arcadia it was good to see that P&O had decided to make use of this feature unlike Britannia last year where we found this missing and the whole area exposed to the elements - both harsh sun and then on other days to be completely unusable due to bad weather. Read more