My Ventura family holiday – the ship……

I have just returned off our first family cruise – the Ventura.  Even though I have cruised many times  (most of this was pre children)  I have never taken the children.  This year we decided to take a cruise on the Ventura for 2 weeks.  The itinerary was fantastic but I have to admit I did have some concerns about the ship, especially when I read a blog from someone who had not long returned who works here at cruise.co.uk who didn’t review the ship very well. We joined the ship in Venice, but to be able to fly from Birmingham we had to fly the day before which meant we needed an overnight stay in Venice, we decided to stay in the Mestre area which is about 15 minutes from Venice on public transport.  It was an ideal location and will  write a separate blog about this.  After breakfast, with two very excited children we took a taxi from the hotel and within 30 minutes we were on board the ship. What a great way to start your holiday, no waiting around.  We were met by staff who directed us to where we needed to drop our suitcases and then straight through to check in, through security and straight onto the ship!  I was expecting to be waiting in the terminal until at least 12 before we would even be able to check in.  We were told straightaway that our cabins would not be avalable until at least 1pm so to maybe go and get a bite to eat.  So we made our way up to the waterside restaurant and had our first taste of the food on the Ventura.  The buffet was lovely,  enough choice and the children loved being able to have what they wanted.  After lunch we then had a look around the ship.  I have to say there is no wow factor but there was also nothing I could really fault.  The children couldn’t wait to go and see the pools, so we made our way to the Laguna pool, which is the larger pool in the middle of the ship on deck 15.  Now this is where I have to say I didn’t really like.  It was very loud, and extremely busy with lots of children, of course it being the main summer period and with children of my own what more should I expect.  My husband knew I wouldn’t like to spend much time around here so we carried on walking and found the Beachcomber pool.  Much better, no loud music, but it was too warm to stay around here as they had the roof closed as the weather hadn’t been too good the previous week.  We then decided to see if there was another pool, I remember someone telling me about the Terrace pool so we walked through the waterside restaurant and out to the Terrace bar and there I found my place for the next 2 weeks.  It was perfect, no loud music or silly games, peace and quiet, pools perfect for the children, close to a bar and close to the children club.

At around 12.30 we then had the announcement that all cabins were now available, but not to worry if your suitcase hadn’t yet been delivered as this can take another couple of hours.  We headed straight to the cabin, suitcases already there, so with a quick change the children and husband went off to go swimming and I was left to unpack.  We had a 4 berth inside cabin and I was amazed how spacious the cabin was.  When you walked in you had the bathroom to the left, then the wardrobe with a little dressing area, you then walked into the bedding area where there was enough room for the 4 of us, I must admit though after 2 weeks it was nice to get home and have our own space!!

We found that we had been allocated late dining and a table for 8, so our first evening we met the people we would be joining each evening, always a nervous time, but we were not disappointed, they were a lovely family, lots in common and we really enjoyed their company.  They had 2 older children, one we actually only saw once as he met lots of other kids his age and would eat with them, in fact my son only dined on the evening in the restaurant with us once as he absolutely loved the kids club.  We would take Kurtis to the waterside at 5pm to have the family dinner, he would then go and get changed and would want to be in the kids club at 7pm.

So our first day and evening on board the Ventura was a massive success and this continued throughout the cruise.  We all had a fantastic holiday, the children met some lovely friends and it was nice for my daughter who is 11 to be able to have a little bit of freedom knowing she is in a safe environment , it was lovely to see her build up her confidence. If you ask my son what his favourite part of the cruise and he would say it was “The Reef” (his kids club), you ask my daughter and she would say ordering room service in the cabin with her friend!!

What we did find on the cruise was how friendly the passengers were, everyone just seemed to be very relaxed and happy. I am not saying that everything was perfect, for example the waiters were not the friendliest ( the Philippines are the best staff to have), there were times when the tables hadn’t been cleaned from the people before in the Waterside restaurant, and there were times where people had ordered room service in their cabins and had left the trays outside for collection, but had taken a while to be picked up, but this never effected our enjoyment of the cruise but we did point these out on the customer questionnaire at the end of the cruise.  On our cruise there were 600 children, never once did I ever feel that the ship was overrun by children.  The ship is big enough to be able to suit all types of passengers, if you want music and games in the day by the pool then you can have it, if you want peace and quiet again you can have it.  On the evening before dinner we would go to either the Metropolis bar and have a cocktail or out to Breakers Bar and watch the sun set, again it never ever too busy to get a seat.  So I do feel that the people who say it’s like Butlins at sea really haven’t given the ship a chance.

We  had a fantastic itinerary and went to some lovely ports, but I will do a separate blog on this with some tips of getting to some places without paying a small fortune.