Ventura with young children

Hi everyone,

We have been on a number of cruises but this will be the first one with our two children (aged 4 at time of travel) and we have a few questions.

We are going on a fourteen nighter on ventura in March. We haven't been on ventura before.

1) Do the balcony doors have deadlocks high up?

2) Does anyone have experience of using the night nursery?

3) Any idea what time the kids clubs finish for that age group?

4) Has anyone stayed in a deluxe balcony and know if we could put up an extendable curtian pole to hang a light curtain up to divide the sofabed area to the rest of the room? Concerned about light when the children are trying to sleep. This was highest category we could afford.

5) Any other tips or ideas for cruising with children?

Really hoping we all have a fantastic cruise and don't come across too many anti-children cruisers on this child friendly ship.

Many thanks in advance.

Jenny

We were on Ventura back in 2011 with out 18 month old and our 3 year old. I can't remember the locks being high up, I am sure it was just a door handle but others may be able to help there.

We used the night nursery, they have to be asleep or nearly asleep to go in, so they don't disturb the other children. We would walk our youngest around the prom deck in her buggy and leave her asleep in her buggy in night nursery while there saves transferring her. The other one was in kids club and they would watch a film later on and could fall asleep there until we picked her up, it wasn't worth going up to transfer her to night nursery.

At that time we could pick her up upto either midnight or 1am, although I think it depends on how many children are onboard and if it is term time etc.

Yes the Ventura has a little dead bolt that you can use on the balcony door

should you have kids in the cabin . (Set at top right hand corner of the door)

1 There is a bolt high up; technically not a lock as you do not need a key, just be able to reach it. It is too high for children to operate.

2 The Night Nursery operates 6pm to 2am with final admission at 11pm. You need to deliver a sleeping or sleepy child or remain in attendance until this is the case. You get a pager so the staff can contact you during the evening. The cots and roll out floor mattresses are available on a first come first served basis until it is full. My experience is that you will usually get in.

3 My understanding is that "Splashers" for 2 - 4 year olds finishes at 11pm but you need to get there by 10.45pm if you want to transfer to Night Nursery or simply collect youngster. Collection must be done 15 minutes before any finish time to allow staff to complete their duties by closing time.

Dependent on how many of each age range is on the cruise and also on the night "Amalgamation" might take place where it makes the clubs work better. This probably wont affect the "Splashers" so much but could do if there is a cartoon available. Certainly "Surfers" (5 to 8) and "scubas" (9 to 12) often join together towards the end of the evening after programmed organised activities have finished. Typically late a dvd is put on; the lights are dimmed and an impromptu grandstand of beanbags and cushions forms in front of the telly whilst many in the audience fall asleep.

Regards John

Hi there,

Not really a huge amount to add re the Night Nursery and Children's Clubs, other than they are an excellent resource and I'm sure your children will love them. The staff in the night nursery will try and settle your child(ren) back to sleep if they wake up and are upset (they did persevere with my son on a couple of occasions) and we only had a call to come back once in a two week cruise (he went in the night nursery every night).

We did get a few 'looks' from other passengers when we picked up the kids at 11pm and wheeled them back to their rooms (they were both in pushchairs and fast asleep). My husband overheard one woman say something like 'I don't agree with kids being moved around like that' . I was really angry about this (I didn't hear her and if I had I would have said something) - at the end of the day our kids had the best holiday to date, but you sometimes get the odd one person who think that they know best (when in reality they absolutely don't, because if they didn't want to see kids being quietly taken back to their cabins, they should have booked an adult only cruise!!). Anyway would she have preferred my kids to have stayed up late screaming and crying in the main restaurant ?! Doubt it!

Re the Superior Deluxe balcony - I think you could probably try and fix up a temporary line or something and then drape a towel over it, but I'm not sure you'd need to. With any luck the children will be so shattered from their fun days they'll probably sleep through anything! There are ceiling lights by the bathroom which you can have on, which don't really affect the darkness of the area with the sofa bed in. We used to have the bedside tables on and this didn't affect our daughter at all - the area with the sofa bed remained very dim.

One other thing re children - do make use of the Children's Tea (5pm every night at the Buffet) - it's brilliant for kids, and it means that afterwards they are ready for the children's club's evening activities (from memory I think they start at 6 or 6.30).

Have a great cruise, we have found that land based holidays can't beat the night nursery/kids club activities set up on the P&O family ships - we had our evenings back to have date nights, enjoy the shows and go to the casino.