Ventura 35-night cruises

[tring]

On 5/2/2023 at 8:50 PM, Happy afloat said:

We returned from our Aurora cruise last Friday, where the food was probably the best we've had with P&O. Consistently good portions, hot food was hot and so were the plates. Shared different tables every night and heard nothing but praise.

 

We were on Aurora for 28 nights in November and everything was absolutely fine then, so sounds very different to the rest of the fleet.  Hope it keeps up as we have another 37 nights her for a b2b in late August/September.

 

We have 16 nights on Arcadia in June so will.perhaps find her quite different, but we sail for the itineraries, rather than fancy dining or entertainment.  A good, calm environment and well run ship, does add a lot to the holiday experience though. 

 

Edited May 4, 2023 by tring

[zap99]

1 hour ago, Eglesbrech said:

Yes people will have different tastes to an extent but there is too much of difference being reported for it all to be down to customers. 

It confuses me a bit. Several thousand passengers sail on P&O ships every week, the queues are quite long at the desks to book their next cruise and folk on here tell of their future bookings, yet a few complain about the food. We have taken 8 cruises since lockdown and haven't noticed much difference between lines, or post v pre lockdown. It could be me, but the booking levels don'tseem to drop much. We prefer to remember the folk we meet, places we gave been to, entertainment and are not too bothered about the temperature of the plates.

[Eglesbrech]

2 hours ago, zap99 said:

It confuses me a bit. Several thousand passengers sail on P&O ships every week, the queues are quite long at the desks to book their next cruise and folk on here tell of their future bookings, yet a few complain about the food. We have taken 8 cruises since lockdown and haven't noticed much difference between lines, or post v pre lockdown. It could be me, but the booking levels don'tseem to drop much. We prefer to remember the folk we meet, places we gave been to, entertainment and are not too bothered about the temperature of the plates.

They might be like me Zap. I would never say never for a P&O cruise however I would go prepared to pay for the speciality restaurants if the food was not to my taste. That is what I did in February this year as some of the food on offer was in my opinion so poor.

 

We really enjoyed Epicurian, Sindhu etc. the speciality restaurants as ever more popular and there are many more of them on the newer ships. I wonder why?

[Harry Peterson]

2 hours ago, zap99 said:

It confuses me a bit. Several thousand passengers sail on P&O ships every week, the queues are quite long at the desks to book their next cruise and folk on here tell of their future bookings, yet a few complain about the food. We have taken 8 cruises since lockdown and haven't noticed much difference between lines, or post v pre lockdown. It could be me, but the booking levels don'tseem to drop much. We prefer to remember the folk we meet, places we gave been to, entertainment and are not too bothered about the temperature of the plates.

 

2 minutes ago, Eglesbrech said:

They might be like me Zap. I would never say never for a P&O cruise however I would go prepared to pay for the speciality restaurants if the food was not to my taste. That is what I did in February this year as some of the food on offer was in my opinion so poor.

 

We really enjoyed Epicurian, Sindhu etc. the speciality restaurants as ever more popular and there are many more of them on the newer ships. I wonder why?

Both well respected posters, whose opinions carry some weight here. Neither given to hyperbole. It’s puzzling, isn’t it.

[Ardennais]

I don’t know about puzzling, but we speak as we find. 
 

Level of service on Iona on February was low, but the food was very very good,

 

Level of service on Britannia last week was very very good, but the food was lacklustre. 
 

It’s all very well saying that passengers can use speciality dining if the food isn’t to their liking, but that means incurring additional charges which we don’t mind doing now and then, but would definitely not have done when the 3 children cruised with us.

 

We’re not fussy eaters, but cold or lukewarm food is simply not good enough and should be easy to rectify. 
 

[bobstheboy]

28 minutes ago, Ardennais said:

I don’t know about puzzling, but we speak as we find. 
 

Level of service on Iona on February was low, but the food was very very good,

 

Level of service on Britannia last week was very very good, but the food was lacklustre. 
 

It’s all very well saying that passengers can use speciality dining if the food isn’t to their liking, but that means incurring additional charges which we don’t mind doing now and then, but would definitely not have done when the 3 children cruised with us.

 

We’re not fussy eaters, but cold or lukewarm food is simply not good enough and should be easy to rectify. 
 

It is very puzzling.We were on Iona in January and the service was very good. Food wasn't outstanding but no complaints

[Ardennais]

28 minutes ago, bobstheboy said:

It is very puzzling.We were on Iona in January and the service was very good. Food wasn't outstanding but no complaints

Well we were on the jam packed half term cruise so that might account for the service situation! We thought that the food on Iona compared well with our previous cruises. Our last pre-Covid cruise was Ventura 35 nights Jan 2020 and we had lovely food on that. 
 

We might just have been unlucky with cold food in the MDR last week, but the buffet was definitely disappointing, 
 

 

[Catz24031]

Booked this cruise, never sailed more than 17 nights.

What type of daily activities on sea days might I expect, eg talks, art classes, quizzes, etc.

 

Thanks

 

Caroline

[Ardennais]

4 hours ago, Catz24031 said:

Booked this cruise, never sailed more than 17 nights.

What type of daily activities on sea days might I expect, eg talks, art classes, quizzes, etc.

 

Thanks

 

Caroline

There were craft classes on our Ventura 35 nighter and they were varied and very enjoyable. Cost peanuts too. We learnt some techniques such as Zentangle, bead making, ink blending, etc. They were held on the sea days, morning and afternoon, with the afternoon lesson being a repeat of the morning one. Some projects extended over 3 lessons. 

[Megabear2]

19 hours ago, Ardennais said:

We might just have been unlucky with cold food in the MDR last week, but the buffet was definitely disappointing, 

Identical to problems we had over Christmas.  I had hoped it would have been sorted by now.