Wiz201

yeah really good. Went there twice.

I watched a film in the arena on ventura and the quality wasn't good as they had just stretched it out onto a bigger screen.

Tbh I was thinking a smaller ship would be a good idea. I found ventura was very crowded in the evenings.

I've had my first cruise with P&O and we're saving up for my step dad's 60th next year. Fancying a Fjord cruise and Fred Olsen seems quite competitive with pricing compared to P&O. Been on Ventura which is obviously their largest ship, but are their ships smaller? Would we get a better experience?

I had no sea sickness on Ventura through the bay of biscay and it was quite rough but we were all fine.

P&O do the muster as the ship is ready to sail, so they like everyone to be on board an hour before sailing.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81S0QY0smYL._SX425_.jpg

my sister's goat, takes him on every single holiday with her.

They did heat the pools on Ventura when we went in April

30 year old woman; if I can lift my suitcase, I think it'll be okay. 20 kilos is really heavy. You can always take more than one suitcase though.

Feel free to read my review, my first cruise was on Ventura. She's a brilliant ship and very easy to get around.

http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=502742&et_cid=2091656&et_rid=150646013&et_referrer=Boards&sr=2&sd=1

I'd also like to hear about doing mini cruises as I may do them myself in the future. Four nighter minimum as I'm a good 5 hour drive from Southampton, so two nights are too short.

yes pools were heated on our cruise end of April, I still wasn't brave enough to get undressed though.

I abandoned pepsi on the cruise when I discovered Elderflower fizz on Ventura. I'm now wanting to get back on just to drink more!

I wore my old comfy pair of black leather shoes for casual night if I didn't want to wear my smart sandals.

yep more and more people across the age groups now seem to be cruising, gone are the days where it was seen as a holiday for old people.

Glad to hear you made it ok....and that you set off at 8.30..

Hope you had a good time. The sky looks a bit grey in the photos..?

it was grey skies through the bay of biscay, even Vigo was cloudy. But Lisbon and Oporto gave us sunshine. Couldn't get off to go to Guernsey, too choppy.

Yep, we set off to the ship on the sailing day at nearly half past eight and got there with no mishaps. Southampton was the slowest bit; we got there at 2pm so still plenty of time to check in and get on the ship.

Cathedral near Vigo port

Lisbon Port approach

Oh I see

Um I've just been on the Ventura and there isn't an Epicurian restaurant on board :confused: do you mean the East?

Is it a charge of £5 per person ?

6.96 but well worth it

We're on Ventura in July and have selected Freedom dining, has anyone had experience of this on Ventura?

We've always have Anytime dining on RCI and Celebrity but with those you can pre book a time and table requirements.

We are happier with a table for two, not because we are anti-social but because we both have hearing problems and it gets embarrassing keep asking people to repeat themselves.

Has anyone had experience of requesting a table for two with freedom dining? or should we go to Club dining and chance that we will be allocated a table for two?

You'll have no problems I'd say getting a table for two. Ventura's dining rooms Saffron and Cinnamon had mostly two and 6 or 8 tables with a few four person tables.

Freedom dining is much better, you can basically turn up to the dining rooms whatever time you want.

I've had chicken pox as a kid, it just means that you are less likely to get it as an adult, not impossible. But its a very low chance unless you are unlucky.

not this particular excursion but we managed to get onto another excursion at Vigo as P&O managed to get another coach from the operators so it can happen.

The "new" Mayflower terminal opened last weekend (25th) and it would be really good if someone who has checked in to it in the last few days could post their experiences.

The previous Mayflower experience ie before the revamp, was pretty dire IMHO! Hopefully the new one is much better.

was at the mayflower last week, drop off is literally meters to walk from the terminal entrance, but like people say they take the luggage off you anyway so you'll only have hand luggage to carry.

We arrived at approx 2pm and it took two hours before we were checked in and getting onto Ventura. They give you a letter card and every quarter of an hour or so they called the letters in alphabetical order and those people with that letter would go to check in. We arrived when they were still calling the end of the red cards so it took them two hours to get from R (red cards) to L (blue cards) which was our letter.

My dad was having his car parked by CPS and apart from being nearly taken out by one of their vans crossing the access road to get to the car park that was plain sailing; didn't take him long to collect the car and he came back to pick us up with the luggage.

There was seating but unfortunately at the time we arrived there was no seating available, so we sat on the window sill for a while until more seats got clear as passengers were called on.

You could buy some cards which are 16 megabytes, 32 etc which should mean that you can take loads of photos without running out of space.

I've just been on Ventura and the only time I saw children was when we got off the ship at the ports, most of them were young under 5 so I imagine the parents used the kids clubs although I questioned the minds of one or two parents when they decided to bring their toddlers to the theatre one or two nights despite the fact they're so young they wouldn't really appreciate it.