Yes, that’s a bit of a negative title there, and I will go into the details of what we saw related to it, but let me start and continue throughout this summary update of the cruise we disembarked mere hours ago by saying that the cruise was hugely enjoyable, had lots of big positives both ashore and on the cruise ship, and those positives more than outweighed any negatives. I’d go so far as to say that it was one of the best P&O cruises we’ve had to date.
Ventura
The cruise was aboard Ventura and she’s a ship we’re familiar with, and a class of ship we love. Ventura’s also quite old now – as are we – but she was in great condition – I’m saying nothing here – with just the usual spots of rust on exterior metal that only a moron would complain about. We don’t attend much of the entertainment on board any cruise ship but we thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the various lounges while the windows out onto the promenade were being hosed down from outside every night. We’re simple people in many ways.
P&O Cruises have garnered a bit of a reputation with cruise bloggers over the years of having rather standoffish staff; perfunctory service with a stony face. But we didn’t encounter that at all. The staff were happy, chatty, and the service was great. Even when we thought the number of staff in any venue seemed too low for the number of passengers this didn’t seem to affect speedy attention. On one evening at dinner I ordered a vegetarian starter and mains and didn’t want a drink – don’t look so surprised; I don’t always – which excited a waiter enough (who thought I didn’t eat meat or drink alcohol (er, no)) to trigger a long chat about parts of India where that’s the norm, then a long talk about cricket. Good stuff.
Sticking with the food theme, though, we hit the first problem on this Ventura cruise: the food was very poor. Breakfast was basic, more-or-less unchanging, but okay for it. Starters for main meals tended to be the highlights of any meal while the desserts were unimaginative in their variety to the extent we began simply sticking to ice cream for me and a cheese plate for my wife. The main meals were simply not very good at all. Food was bland, often overcooked, or with vegetables of questionable quality. Vegetables of Questionable Quality is my band name and you’re not to use it. We ate at the Beach House and my starter was lovely, but nothing else we ate was. We had a dinner and the afternoon tea at the Epicurean and both underwhelmed in terms of taste and texture given that we’d paid extra for these.
But what about the Glass House? you ask. And here we hit the second problem: there was no food served at all in the Glass House on Ventura. This was an immense disappointment as it’s been a fabulous location and one of our favourites on P&O cruise ships. This had apparently been the case on Ventura since two cruises prior to our one “for operational reasons” but the waiters didn’t know any more than that. So, food may return. It may not. Who knows?
We talked to a fair number of fellow cruise passengers on this Ventura cruise and every single one of them was on their first cruise. This surprised us a lot. They all seemed happy, talked about booking another one, and it was interesting that so many of them were mainly hitting the buffet for the main meal each day with only one couple mentioning booking a speciality venue. We also hit the buffet for dinner on a few occasions because we couldn’t face what the main dining room menu promised (or threatened), and the buffet was rammed with people. The food wasn’t particularly good but there was more variety and more opportunities to create a half-decent meal. We worry what this means about the future of P&O Cruises if a new generation of cruisers are being driven to a more casual style of dining and the bigger ships are further encouraging this move away from what’s hitherto been a good standard of food and service that can now be provided at an additional cost.
Two more indications of what we saw as penny-pinching, cost-cutting, recouping the losses from the pandemic, increasing the profits for the shareholders at the customers’ expense, an uncommunicated temporary logistics issue, or whatever you want to describe it as.
Firstly, you needed to bring your own bag to pick up alcohol purchases on the last sea day. It’s bad enough that P&O Cruises have a completely barmy system of making people queue up for ten minutes through the atrium and blocking access to the shops to pick up bottles when they could simply deliver them to the cabin (as Princess do), but to compound that with everyone holding various plastic bags, backpacks, even empty boxes, just made it all look so cheap and tacky. Talking to a member of staff in the shop we learnt that the supply of bags for passengers stopped without warning two cruises prior to our boarding and they were as much in the dark as us.
Secondly, and most heinously, and you might want to be sitting down to read this: one packet of galette biscuits per couple per day. That’s one thin biscuit per person per day. I hope you’re as horrified and shocked by this monstrosity as we were.
Penny-pinching or poor management, or maybe a bit of both. Ah, maybe we’ll never know for sure.
But, remember, we really enjoyed this cruise. Those gripes aside – and hopefully they were temporary problems, supply issues, and not a sign of things to come – we loved our time aboard, and we also loved our time ashore.
Santander, Spain
The first port and the first of two excursions we took saw us visiting a couple of towns in the Cantabrian region. In Comillas we took a look at one of Gaudí‘s early architectural designs, and one of only a few buildings outside Barcelona. El Capricho was a fantastic building both outside and inside.
Santillana del Mar had more of a medieval feel to its buildings and steep roads, and while it didn’t have a huge amount of interest for us to enjoy we did like the contrast with the town we’d visited before.
Vigo, Spain
We’d been to Vigo several years before (also on a cruise aboard Ventura) but had headed off on an excursion that time so used this occasion to explore on foot. We hit an art gallery, took a look at another architectural marvel, then made a slow and somewhat arduous trek up to a fortress overlooking the city before rewarding ourselves with a beer in the sunshine. Because of course we did.
Lisbon, Portugal
Portugal’s capital was another place we’d visited on that previous Ventura cruise, and another place we’d previously taken an excursion at. That’s our preferred way of travelling; a trip on the first visit, then perhaps something a little more casual on a follow-up once we’ve got more of a feel for a place. For this visit to Lisbon, which was an overnight stay, we bought a two-day Hop On, Hop Off bus ticket each, figuring this would be the best use of our time. Hmm. Not so much. What we’d not really appreciated was how far apart things of interest in Lisbon were, how snarled up the traffic could get, how long it took to get to anywhere, and how the buses stopped running at six in the evening. Our wish list once we were on the bus on the first day eventually turned into just one stop at the Ajuda Palace which was absolutely fantastic. We popped next door after that to look at the Royal treasures and some of them were stunning. We thought we might have enough time to see the Belem Tower after that but the queue outside it had other ideas so we jumped on one of the last HOHO buses to get us closer to the port then walked along the shoreline until we parked our backsides at a great little waterfront bar as the evening drew in.
On day two we took the bus to near the city centre then walked back, heading towards the National Pantheon which I’d wanted to look around. A great building with great views but perhaps in need of some customer service training for its staff. We did consider the castle too but not when we saw how much hill-climbing would be involved, but we passed through some lovely little areas of Lisbon. We followed up our exertions with beers in the sunshine. Because of course we did.
Douro Valley, Portugal
The port of Leixões serves Oporto but we took our second excursion of this cruise to the Douro Valley via the city of Amarente. We didn’t have the best of weather for the city stop but on our drive through the valley and over the river to the vineyard that was our destination the sun came out and was blazing hot. We were at the vineyard in time for harvest so got to see some grape-squishing by foot before being treated to some wine samples, a cracking buffet lunch that put everything on the ship to shame, and some tawny port. And we had to buy some. Because of course we did.
When we got back on Ventura there was an announcement to state there was an itinerary change following the forecast of not-ideal weather conditions for the planned port stop in Guernsey after a sea day, and that instead we’d finish with a sea day after a bonus stop at…
A Coruña, Spain
Yet another port we’d visited before, yet again taking an excursion on that occasion, so yet again somewhere to walk around and explore for this trip. We decided to walk a rough circuit of the headland on which the city lies, making our way over to the large beach then around to the aquarium. We were there for the seals’ health check and feeding, which was lovely to see, and the rest of the aquarium was very good too, with our most enjoyable sighting that of two cuttlefish who were clearly inquisitive of us peering at them. They didn’t have the most stimulating of tank environments to live in, though, so that would’ve made us appear far more interesting than we actually are.
We’d considered visiting the nearby UNESCO lighthouse, the Tower of Hercules, but it looked like a sizeable chunk of this part of Spain were doing the same thing so we simply continued our walk in the roasting sun and eventually ended up sipping sangrias in the sunshine. Because of course we did.
Conclusion
Food quality varies from ship to ship and cruise to cruise because nobody knows who the chefs are and what menus they’re going to prefer, but the problems we saw that included the speciality dining venues suggested to us something more widespread on the ship as being the problem, and the complete removal of any food from the Glass House without an explanation supported that. The issues we saw with a lack of basic items – bags for alcohol, enough biscuits; these are small things but they suggest bigger problems – probably wouldn’t even have registered with the new cruisers we talked to and that’s a worry because P&O might keep them in place long-term. I might be being simply unnecessarily pessimistic here, though.
But we thoroughly enjoyed the cruise even if it looks like my wife has picked up a nasty stomach bug from somewhere on the back of it. Great ports, great sights seen, great places visited, and it’s always nice to take a break from work.