P&O Cruises, Ventura, Caribbean Review

Ventura, Caribbean

Ventura Cruise N302 January 10th 2023, 28 nights.

No complimentary water supplied in Cabin anymore.

Hot chocolate has changed and is absolutely disgusting.

Food in the evening only just warm. After raising the matter with the Head Waiter things did improve.

Found Cabin pretty small considering it was a balcony.


Captains Welcome Party was an absolute shambles. Only one waitress serving our side of the Red Bar during the 1st half hour, which is how long it took for us to get a drink. But saw 5 Waiters & waitresses when it came to clearing empty glasses away.

Sit down Breakfast service in the Saffron was terrible. Taking between 1hr 30mins and 2hrs to complete a service. On one occasion my cooked breakfast arrived cold and had to be re cooked. We changed to the Bay Tree restaurant where we received excellent service throughout the rest of the cruise.

On Formal & Casual evenings saw many walking around the ship in just shorts & T shirt. Once again these people are never challenged by members of staff. So as the cruise went on more & more ignored the minimum dress code.

Finding more & more as we cruise with P&O that all the rules laid down are being ignored & no one is policing them. Not much point in having rules in the first place. (Or maybe this is the direction P&O is taking things).

Entertainment was generally OK . However, keep getting Buskers onboard, which are OK occasionally but rather boring after a few gigs. Also having a Busker doing a Sailaway just does not work.

Restaurant food is getting worse. Choice is reducing. Food that is delivered is generally packed with cheap fillings. Quality of food is not as good as it used to be. More and more items being removed from the menus.
I have to say the food served on this cruise is by far the WORST we have been served. I certainly would NOT describe it as "Fine Dining" as P&O profess it to be in there brochures etc.
Sirloin steaks were of very poor quality, very chewy & dry. Even when they were replaced they were no better.

Food that we did receive was invariably over salted, especially the soups.

Keep delivering food to the table with vegetables that are not shown on the menu (especially green beans).. Please stick to plating up only what has been shown on the menu.

Peninsular Club Party has to be the worst organised by Loyalty in our 23 years of cruising with P&O. We booked a link with two other cabins for 1st sitting in Club Dining
Our Party invite was sent for 7:30pm & not 5:30pm as should have been the case. The same time was sent to our fellow travellers. But we were given a different date to our fellow travellers. Loyalty could not have got it any more wrong than they did. However, to top it all one of our party went and queued for 2 hours to try and resolve the problem. Loyalty only had one person at the desk. Also the majority of those waiting were there to resolve the same problem. Yet after numerous complaints no-one had the common sense to put a notice up to clarify the situation. Thus many more had the misery of sitting in the queue waiting, instead of getting on with there holiday.
So much for being "Valued Guests".

In the past we have had dress codes for "British Night, Caribbean Night & Black & White Night" P&O seem to have stopped doing these as they have not appeared on our last three Cruises.

Black-tie night fine dining meal was the worst ever. I selected the Beef & Lamb dish. I asked the Waiter if I could have the beef medium rare & the lamb pink. He said there was no choice. When it came the whole dish was cold. The beef and lamb were over cooked. Chewy & dry. If Marco Pierre White was to have seen what had been dished up, like me he would have been disgusted.

On a better note, the crew were excellent especially considering there was a shortage.

We had an outbreak of Norovirus, but thanks to the measures quickly put in place by the CaptaIn, it was cleared within 10 days. Also a big thank you to all the staff who had to endure additional cleaning activities during this period.

Once again the CaptaIn had to instruct passengers to carry out good hygiene procedures. Having witnessed the disgusting habits of some passengers this did not surprise me.

The itinery was good, visiting a lot of lovely islands. Weather, as you would expect was great. Even the Atlantic crossings were very kind to us.

As I always say a holiday is what you make of what's available and overall we enjoyed it.

Whilst I understand and appreciate times are difficult and purse strings need to be tightened to stop the company going bust. By continuing on this course they will drive there customers away and it will go bust anyway. P&O need to come up with a better strategy if they are to survive and become prosperous again.

We have been travelling with P&O for 23 years now but are finding very difficult to justify booking future cruises with them.