News

Ventura Maiden Voyage April 2008

24th April 2008, Travel

I was lucky enough to be on the maiden voyage of P&O's new supercruiser Ventura calling at Western Med ports in Spain, France and Italy with the usual stop at Gibralter on the way

home. It's a huge ship (115,000 tons) and is the biggest in P&O's fleet. As well as three huge normal dining rooms there are speciality Pacific Rim (East) and Italian (The White Room) Restaurants the latter inspired by Michelin Starred Marco Pierre White (see right, I dined Al Fresco)!

The top photo is of my cabin which is very spacious by cruise ship standards and includes a balcony. Ports so far have included Barcelona where I enjoyed

visits to two wineries including the world famous Cava Cordoniu, Villefranche where I enjoyed oysters and roasted lobster in a marina restaurant and Livorno (the port for Florence and Pisa) and Civitavecchia (for RomE) in Italy.

Being such a huge ship has its problems; at Villefranche passengers were landed by tenders but the operation took an age; it did however seem a lot better at Santa Margherita. Restaurants are crowded at peak times especially the self-service ones which are popular for breakfast and afternoon tea. One design fault is that, where on other P&O ships there is a forward looking observation bar, on Ventura it's a gym which only caters for a minority of the passengers.

However I've found the Red Bar serves cocktails and this has become my pre-prandial watering hole. The East

(see below for very friendly staff)

and White Room restaurants have produced world class meals with very different menus from the main dining rooms where the food has been consistently above average.

The Gold Tier Loyalty passengers were invited to an excellent presentation by Michael Portillo who recounted his political life (ups and downs) and his latter broadcasting career.

Overall it's a good ship and has some nice features including Wifi, spacious atrium with the Tazzine coffee bar

where you can get light snacks for breakfast and lunch as well as pre dinner drinks (Mario, one of the friendly staff is seen on the right). Another feature is the Ramblas Bar offering Tapas, St Miguel and a range of spanish wines amongst other drinks. Final call was the statutory duty free visit to Gibraltar, I very much enjoyed the cruise even though the crossing across the Bay of Biscay was a little rough!