I'm not one to praise P&O unless they deserve it but I have to say that, with a few exceptions, they are doing their best to help prevent the spread of Norovirus on the Ventura. My wife and I returned on Saturday 29th June from cruise N414 without catching Norovirus but with Covid! We didn't see that one coming!
There are glaring holes in P&O's protocols in my opinion especially where Cruise Cards are concerned as, despite the cards being NFC (Contactless) enabled, waiters, shop staff and many others insist on taking the card, handling it to read the data, and handing it back. I challenged one waiter in a bar as to why he needed to handle my card and he stated that it was the best way to ensure the card was read. I said "isn't there a risk that my card could become infected?" and he said "The crew do not have the virus, it is only the passengers that have it". So, if the previous card he handled had been infected he risked passing the infection on to me!
I was told by one reception staff member that all the tablets used on the ship were NFC capable but almost every waiter insisted on handling the card and using the tablet's camera to read the bar code. Surely the point of NFC is to negate the need for anyone else to handle one's card?
Cleaning of tables and chairs in bars, the coffee shop and buffet restaurant was hit and miss. The staff appointed to do the cleaning were clearly not happy with their lot and their approach was lacklustre at best. The deck bars such as Breakers Bar on deck 16 were the worst.
The MDR room was far better with tables being stripped, new table cloths applied and full cleaning of the chairs etc. The worst was the Costa coffee shop on deck 5. If one's table had been cleaned when one sat down, it was cause for celebration! My wife and I carried our own anti-viral wipes and often had to clean surfaces ourselves. The fact is that the ubiquitous hand gells are useless against the Norovirus family of viruses and despite what some other cruisers seem to think, it is very difficult to build up immunity against Norovirus family because it mutates so rapidly and includes so many strains. Only regular hand washing and the use of bleach based cleaning fluids will have any effect. That said, hand gells are very effective against Covid yet, we still caught it. Considering the number of other passengers coughing and sneezing around the ship, it's not surprising that we caught it.
We were surprised at the obvious reduction in the number of crew carrying out general cleaning of handrails, lifts and doors etc. compared to our last fully locked down Ventura cruise. Thankfully we had a cabin steward that cleaned extremely thoroughly and took every precaution to ensure our safety. His name was Austan and he received a well earned tip at the end of the cruise.
The hygiene and manners of a lot of the passengers were appalling which forced us to avoid the buffet restaurant except for a few breakfasts, tiny eggs, uncooked bacon and very strange sausages on occasions and only 3 lunches but the latter was mainly due to the appalling food being served. Out of 3 lunches attempted, only 1 was eaten, the others were barely edible due to the poor quality ingredients, Sweet & Sour pork with bone pieces and gristle and a Lamb Stew with so much unrendered fat that it tasted disgusting. The MDR food was much better but, even here, the poor quality ingredients were evident. MDR staff, as usual, wonderful.
This was our 20th cruise on the Ventura so we know how it has changed over the years.
