I had read just the day before we departed about the "cruise from hell" as one gentleman had described his cruise on the Ventura. Well all I will say is that either he was on a different ship or is living on a different planet. The overall cruise experince was fantastic, our first time to the Caribbean and we could not have wished for a better introduction to this amazing area. To concentrate on the ship, the facilities were very good, food and restaurants very good, service impeccable and ports of call varied and in one case amazing.

When one considers that the company are running a floating hotel for 3600 passengers and 1200 crew then yes things will go wrong from time to time and it is a technical marvel that Ventura floats let alone moves and provides you with a home from home as well. We had two problems, a very minor outbreak of Norvo Virus which the crew addressed very promptly and contained very effectively allowing normal service to resume a few days later and a couple of very small problems relating to the ships running neither of which caused us any delay or inconvience.

Our flight from Gatwick left exactly on time and arrived just an hour late due to head winds, however there were problems on other flights and some of those problems could be better addressed with forward planning however that is for P&O and Thompsom to talk about.

The freedom dining arrangement worked very well for us and I would certainly choose that option again as we had the chance to talk to different people every night and we did not encounter any problems with the guests we were placed with. We tried all of the alternative eating places onboard going back to Ramblas and East twice. East was I think our favourite as the food and service was just an amazing experience. The White Room also did not fail to live to its reputation and it provided a wonderful end of cruise experience for us.

Entertainment well here I think a little improvement could be made, some of the shows were good and the Arena theatre was packed out. However some were not quite as captivating. However all in all there was something for everyone and some was good and some not so good. The cruise director certainly did his best.

Many of the blogs do cast a lot of doubt about the "standard" of the passengers and also the "dressing down" of the casual nights. On the first point we did not find one person onboard who was rude or a problem passenger. As for the children, yes there were some onboard and the 4 young boys that joined us in the jacuzi pool one day were a credit to themselves, it was they who started the conversation and wanted to know if we were having a good time. The dressing standard well I never saw any one who did not obey the few rules and in most cases everyone made a real effort to appear smart.

Overall Ventura far outweighed the negative comments that had been made and if you will cruise in the maiden season then I think you have to expect some problems, the ones we experinced were very minor indeed and the only regret we had was that we had to come home and back to work - roll on the next one!