P & O VENTURA –NEVER AGAIN! Caribbean and USA cruise 2018
The Ventura is arguably an overcrowded, currently very dilapidated, nautical selling machine designed to milk every last penny from its on-board, captive, customer group. At base, the Ventura is a giant floating shopping mall. Ventura’s design, indeed its whole purpose, is to act as a selling and up-selling operation. That’s why this ship has three decks of retail outlets. Of course, P & O’s nonstop selling spreads well beyond the shops. Apart from the toilets, everywhere else, (public or private), that passengers go on the Ventura is exploited as a market place.
If you like to queue, then the Ventura is the ship for you. You queue to get on board and you queue to get off. In the buffet you queue to get plates, bowls, and cutlery and then you queue to get to the service stations and the tea and coffee dispensers. The queues for the restaurants begin up to 45 minutes before they open. You queue to book a shore excursion. That queue actually starts weeks before the cruise departs. Some trips are fully booked before any passengers have even boarded. If you do get a place on an excursion then P & O likes to get you into multiple queues well before they let you board the bus. You even have to queue to get the ship’s newspaper and the daily crossword.
Old, tatty, faded. Stained toilet, dilapidated furniture. Fixe position shower over a micro-bath. Incredibly noisy - croaned and creaked all night