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“It was nice to read so many complimentary reviews...”

written by on 08/02/2010

It was nice to read so many complimentary reviews regarding the P&O Ventura Caribbean cruise, many of which I agree with, but not all. Unfortunately, my wife and I were two of 250 souls who had to remain an additional 27 hours in Barbados due to aircraft failure for our Thomson flight back to London, Gatwick.



The arrangements during this very long period were left to P&O as agents and with responsibility for our well being. Rather surprisingly, this was a first time experience for P&O and the lack of planning became very obvious as interminable hours passed without any updates. Many of us resorted to telephoning the UK where there appeared to be more detail then from the staff on board who were more concerned with the new passengers boarding.



The latter point became more of a problem for P&O when it became known there would be no flight on the 30th. In short the object of the exercise was to get us off the ship as quickly as possible, with representations of a 5 star hotel for the evening with food and drink, as it was all-inclusive.



We left the ship only to find a 3 star hotel with no food and some fruit juice....water had to be purchased at a shop 5 mins walk from the hotel, at night!



So beware of the 'Pontius Pilate' treatment if everything does not go according to plan on these cruises. One poor old lady actually fainted from the stress and it took until the next day via calls to London to reach the ship and demand P&O staff come to the hotel and explain what was going to happen and when....nothing short of a disgrace.



Coming back to the cruise, compared to a cruise taken on the Arcadia 5 years ago the Ventura was good but far from excellent and unfortunately the final 26 hours did not help matters.