mrsgoggins

A brief update on last night’s meal in Epicurean which was really good again, with the exception of the potatoes (or chips for that matter, as selected on last visit). I had already decided to mention them, when, lo and behold @Selbourne mentioned them first. Everything else tasted freshly prepared, but the potatoes and chips have a reheated taste, one piece of boiled potato was firm to the bite. It was no matter since there is more than enough food without potatoes. My starter is obvious from the photo, but DH had a cheese mousse (menu B). We both had the lamb next which we both enjoyed but DH thought the lamb cooked two ways on menu A had the edge, so I’ll be trying that next week. I didn’t photograph my dessert, which was a pleasant, if unremarkable panna cotta accompanied by a tasty black charcoal coconut ice cream. DH had the cheese plate, which is huge and I reckon that must contain in the region of 1000+ calories alone! We brought the fruit cake back with us to have with afternoon coffee. The evening was rounded off nicely with a visit to the theatre to see the MacDonald brothers, who had apparently done very well on the X Factor 18 or so years ago. Again, by 8.10 pm it was standing room only so I remain puzzled as to why they do not bring the timing of both shows forward by one hour so that a 9.30 pm performance would be more appealing to most, than the current 10.30 pm performance! They were excellent by the way, and rounded off their show with a great Audience participation rendition of ‘I’m gonna be (500 miles)’ although in my head I was singing ‘Bobby Davro’ as in the Peter Kay version done for Children in Need 😁

What an excellent and detailed account of yet another challenging day for you both, so my hearty thanks for doing it 💐. We have previously enjoyed a stay in New Orleans under our own steam, and it looks so very different in the sun of course. Glad to hear you enjoyed the beignets, as no visit would be complete without. We also tried our first Po' boys there. On the subject of food, I completely agree about P&O and potatoes! I'll be touching on that topic on my next write-up. I'm not a prayer, but I really hope it's not too long before you are able to refer to your cruise as one of two halves, with Miami being the exception in the first half, and with the second half being a dream 🤞

That looks miserable. It must start to improve soon.

Anthem now leaving St Kitts, whilst a Marella (stopped predictive text from changing to Marbella in time this time!) ship is still in port ….. smirking 😉

I look on @Selbourne's post of the menu each day to see what we will have here on Ventura. However tonight is (another) Epicurean night 🎉 Thanks again for the lesson on inserting photos, by jove I think I've got it ☺️

See the Captain’s explanation in my long post.

Thursday 25th January, bobbing around off the coast of St Kitts as a previous post explained. We’ve heard guest speaker David Bennett’s fill-in talk this morning about how he came to be a ship’s guest speaker - his subject is graphology (handwriting) - along with some interesting anecdotes that filled 45 minutes pleasantly. Otherwise we have spent time on the balcony reading and snoozing. Along with additional fit steps classes etc, they also, by request, put on another showing of the film Oppenheimer, which we would both like to see, but as it’s 3 hours long, are minded to await its TV debut when we can watch it over 2 days. I’ll do a brief, cough cough (I’ll try!), run down of the last few days. Tuesday, 23rd, Guadeloupe As previously posted, I had already cancelled my eagerly anticipated Death in Paradise tour largely because of my fear of the amount of walking (1.5 hours) they cautioned in the blurb. I had wrestled with this decision however, but the final push to cancelling came by the BBC’s weather service forecasting rain for much of the day in Guadeloupe - and they proved to be so very right! It rained for most of the day with just a few brief let-ups and many passengers on tours got soaked. However, about 10 am, it had stopped for a while and so we went out to explore the port, about which we had heard not one good thing. Mrgoggins found it fascinating 😀, whilst I thought it merely lived down to expectations. He said ‘it’s just like the back streets of so many scruffy parts of some French towns’ and asked if I didn’t think it resembled the back streets of Calais for instance, where (thanks to his job) we spent much time back in the day. Anyhow, we found a good supermarket, purchased some pear juice, a packet of palmiers biscuits and a supermarket cool bag with Guadeloupe writ large on it, which DH will look after. He asked if he resembled Roy from Coronation Street as we made our way back to the ship. He did. When we got back to the immediate area by the ship, the tour group we should have been with approached, and judging by the passengers with walking sticks and walkers going for the bus, others obviously didn’t worry about it the walking as much as me. Had it not been for the forecast weather, we would have taken private transport (modern looking vehicles) to do the Death in Paradise tour, for which the going rate seemed to be 40 euros per person - one hour to get there, an hour’s stay and an hour back to the ship. For anyone considering this in the future, I have been told that independent travellers must pay to enter the police station/jail, but not on the ship’s tour. Here’s hoping I make it in January 2026 🤞. Wednesday, 24th January I’m failing to be brief again so I’ll try with Antigua, where we have visited 3 times previously and done tours, so we had nothing planned, it supposedly being the day after a trip and a ‘chill day’. Enchanted Princess was already docked in pole position when we arrived and so we had a long walk in blistering heat, with no shade or seating along the way from our berth to the port’s shopping area. For fit people, probably little more than a 5 minute walk, but as you may have gathered, that’s not me so by the time we returned to the ship after a walk around said retail area, I was ready for a snooze after lunch; something I very rarely do back in real life. Up to date again now, and I’ll go quiet again for a few days, especially since tomorrow is a sea day en route to Tortola. Captain James Brown (no singing that song as you read) has just been over the tannoy to announce that he is now preparing to lift anchor and set sail and he did a recap of why we were not able to make it into port when 2 others did - they proportionally had more power; Anthem of the Seas has 50 knot capability and she made it in. The combined wind and current was 40 knots and this ship only has 30 knots capability so even with the aid of a tug, was unable to make it. It will please a few people from breakfast who weren’t getting off anyway, and have ‘missed port’ insurance cover. I’ll attempt to add a photo of Guadeloupe now, but for balance I must say that those I have spoken with who did tours, say it’s an island with much beauty.

Too high winds. Even with the aid of a tug, unable to stop sideways motion. Ship anchored off St Kitts because refuelling here and expecting tanker.

No, it's an infinite veranda stateroom and yes, the top window comes down (push button). Essentially what is your 'balcony' becomes part of your room, but can also be closed off if that makes sense. They are lovely rooms but I missed a traditional balcony. I believe the suites at the back of the ship have 'proper' balconies.

We are doing it with 2 android phones and an iPad on Ventura.

I you are on a shared table with 5 others there's barely enough room for everyone's food, juices, toast etc as it is. Nice idea though.

My take on Celebrity v P&O - I appreciate that this will only be of interest to a few, so a warning, it’s wordy so don’t even start it if easily bored 😉 As I have declared that we are taking at least 2 more P&O cruises, I hope you would take it that I have no intention of talking P&O down! This cruise is our fourth time on Ventura and we have also been on Azura and Iona once each - less keen on the latter but have enjoyed our time on them all. However we are Elite plus with Celebrity, and find the loyalty perks very useful. We are happy with either international passengers or mostly British, but the things we do value about Celebrity are: 1. Hardly ever needing to share a table - tables for 2 can be close together but there are no banquettes as far as I can recall. Even if your preferred table is occupied, they like to keep you with the same servers even on Anytime dining unless you request otherwise. My DH is quite deaf and so in a noisy MDR sharing a table can be difficult as I’ve previously said. 2. The morning breakfast service is usually very slick with someone constantly going around with tea and coffee, another with juices and another with a tray of pastries, in addition to your own table wait staff, who take care of the items you order from the menu. It’s also the same on Princess btw. On P&O trying to get refills at breakfast is a bugbear of ours, as I do believe I have already mentioned! 3. I’m not a fan of buffets ever, but the Celebrity buffet before it get crowded can be a thing of beauty whereas the P&O ones on this class of ship have a poor layout in my opinion. I’ve heard others speak well of the Iona buffet, but we were not impressed when we tried it - the fish and chip counter being the exception. 4. Being able to wander into the theatre 10 minutes before start time and get a good seat. On this Ventura cruise especially, it’s common to stake your claim to a seat 40 minutes before a performance with hardly any left 10/15 minutes before the show. I do put this down largely to the timing of the theatre shows, which are 8.30 pm and 10.30 pm on Ventura with the vast majority of us wanting the 8.30 show, unsurprisingly. Both shows would be much earlier on Celebrity (and Princess). 5. I like the Celebrity cabins and bigger bathrooms (no shower curtains) but miss the wardrobe/dressing area of P&O. I like that Celebrity does not have fiddly theft-proof hangers (but Princess does 🙄). Celebrity still offer a nightly room service with a chocolate on your pillow. I would prefer not to have this so a win for P&O. Photos are from Celebrity Apex, which will be berthed in Southampton this coming season. The 2 things that most often come up in comparisons are food and price of the cruise. Our take is that meals are going to be better presented on Celebrity and geared more to American taste, but we are happy with both. Over on the Celebrity boards they complain of it not being what it was with regard to food, much the same as some do on P&O! Price is an interesting one. I have a spreadsheet of every cruise we have taken, price, what is/is not included etc and I would say it’s not always as clear cut as it might seem. I have posted a few times before that one of my Celebrity AI Caribbean cruises last year cost less per night than my 2 week Canaries cruise on Iona, booked on opening and with little OBC but with parking! I accept that Celebrity is usually more costly than P&O for similar itineraries once you have added in gratuities if not on AI, but not always. As elite plus on Celebrity we get free drinks (from a menu) between 5 and 7 pm, 125 free high speed internet minutes each, 2 x free bags of laundry each, and the perk I value most of all, free specialty teas and coffees. We also get diamond status on Royal Caribbean (Celebrity parent company), so good loyalty perks I think. There are no laundry rooms for personal use on Celebrity but I’m not sure they have many cruises of more than 12-14 nights. A P&O laundry room is a big bonus. Celebrity ships IMO are quite classy with art works on display throughout the ships. We have sailed on the Millennium class, Solstice class (favourites) and the newest Edge class. Different classes of cabins can have different dining rooms, with the majority using the MDRs, but Aqua class guests dine in Blu restaurant (a favourite with DH, not so much me) and suite guests in Luminae restaurant (we’d never see the value in a suite for us). The speciality restaurant prices can bring a tear to the eye, but that was not always so before the pound ‘tanked’ against the dollar (🤐 @Harry Peterson) and we have dined in them all, but would not pay the prices now. Epicurean on P&O however, would be good value in my book even without generous OBS, and certainly Sindhu and the Beach House if you care for them. I’ll stop now and try to add a photo of a Celebrity stateroom/cabin (who do they all think they are kidding with the ‘stateroom’ nonsense?) If anyone is still with me and wishes to ask anything specific, please feel free. Thanks to those who lasted to the bitter end 👏😉

Tuesday, 23 January continued We dined in Epicurean for the third time this cruise and again it was a good experience with excellent food and great service. DH had the miso-glazed rack and slow cooked lamb belly, which he said had the best lamb chops he had ever had! I had the Australian Black Angus sirloin, which was perfectly cooked for me (medium rare) followed by Crepes Suzette, prepared tableside of course. The Entertainments manager, Leon, made an early evening announcement regretting that tonight’s theatre performance by Harrison Treble, a piano vocalist, had been unable to make it to the ship due to the weather in the UK. The theatre substitute was the film Avatar, which I quickly googled and just as quickly discounted! I keep reminding myself that the reasons we are on this cruise begins and ends at January weather! And so …… drum roll …… not only are we booked on next year’s 35 night cruise which takes in New Orleans and Miami, but also the Caribbean cruise for January 2026! So, despite the thread’s title, I’ve obviously decided that I can cope well with 5 weeks away 😄. I know that the weather could be very different on next year’s cruise, because like @Megabear2 we have spent time in Florida each January for the last 15 years (with the single exception of 2021 of course) and have seen frozen fountains (only once but never to be forgotten) to temperatures in the mid 20s and everything in between. Which is why we have also taken at least one Caribbean cruise each visit. I believe I have mentioned earlier that I intend to avoid flying home overnight from the USA ever again. With that in mind, we are sailing back (with Celebrity) in April of this year and next 🤞. Back later with some observations about P&O v Celebrity, as it was mentioned in another thread. Meanwhile, here’s the other end of the rainbow 🌈 as we were leaving Dominica - the supermarket is the large illuminated building to the left of the picture.

I'm so sorry to read this despite understanding the reasons it was necessary. Key West is one of my favourite ports and as your wife has never been, I'm not surprised she was disappointed. You have definitely had a few challenges and poor weather on your cruise and I do hope you continue to be able to tell us that you are still enjoying it overall. And no, it's not just you who would not enter a theatre late whilst at the same time disturbing others! We are now 3 weeks into our 5 week cruise and I'll still be following yours long after I'm home, so thank you for the time you put in to allow us to share, I especially enjoyed the Miami photos, which were fabulous 👍

Monday, 22 January in Dominica We only went for a walk around at this port. There were many stalls right in front of the ship, along with very many trying to persuade you to take one of their excursions in a variety of open-topped and small bus type vehicles - $20 appeared to be the going rate for each of them. They all seemed to be good natured and were not pushy after a 'no thanks'. There is also a supermarket within 100 yards. It was doing a good trade with passengers during our visit. I was surprised to see some Waitrose branded items on the shelves. Who knew? At departure time we were treated to a magnificent rainbow 🌈 where we could see the full arc vividly. I know my phone's camera won't do it justice, but here goes

For those interested in activities mid cruise, here is yesterday’s Horizon. It was a sea day.

Sunday, a sea day and time to catch up. First off my huge thanks to @TigerB for your patience and laughter (don’t make me have to fly out …… I chuckled at the thought 😄). Now I must follow up with apologies since I have cancelled my Death in Paradise tour in Guadeloupe and as expected, was told that the places would go to people at the top of the list. I had hoped to take many photos and assess suitability for you and your lass, but in the end, events made me decide to cancel, after wrestling with the decision. More later. On Friday, 19th January we were on the Dutch island of Bonaire, where we had pre-ordered a golf buggy, something I first saw mentioned on these boards, so thanks to whoever it was. The tent where we first checked in was easy to find from the instructions given. From there, we and another couple, were directed to the office and storage place for the buggies, a 5 minute walk or so away. By the time we had reached this place we had probably been walking for 15/20 minutes or so from leaving the ship in 29C temperatures, and that’s when I realised that I would find the Death in Paradise tour too much from the description given of the 1.5 hours of walking necessary. (I had been to Shorex to see if they could shed some light on the tour, but they merely read out the printed tour description back to me). My disability is hidden (no walking stick or aid but I do stay close to mrgoggins when walking on uneven ground) and there is hope of improvement so, if we visit Guadeloupe again, you never know! The 2.5 hours it took to drive around the island - some of it one-way - had many places where it was easy to stop and take in the glorious scenery. On our return, we took the golf buggy through the main colourful shopping street and went back via the waterfront (Silver Dawn was docked in front of Ventura). Mrgoggins offered to drop me off close to the ship but I declined and we strolled back together. We would do this again if we return (likely), but may just pay on the day to allow for the chance of wet weather. As it was my right arm is now a different colour to my left, as is DH’s left leg 🤭. This was my favourite day of the cruise so far and my pleasure extended into the evening when we dined outside at the Beach House where we enjoyed a scenic, if windy, departure from Bonaire. The tablecloths had to be removed it was so windy. I had the lava rock steak and himself had chicken tenders. All good, but such a lot of food following on from filled potato skins and boneless spicy chicken wings (too spicy for me). We shared a dessert, but only had a spoonful each just to taste it, and I don’t even recall what it was! A photo from our pool view table; it felt very atmospheric. The evening was rounded off by another excellent performance by the Bluejays, this time playing 60s rock music. Again, theatre pretty full half an hour prior, and standing room only by the time the show began. Now with fingers crossed, I am going to press send, in the hope that the photos are not enormous. If it works, thanks again @TigerB and if it doesn’t, our next port of call is Dominica tomorrow 😉.

We had the lamb dopiaza at lunchtime and I'll definitely have it if it appears again. Not too spicy for me - DH says I'm a wuss! Edited to add that I posted this just moments after you without having seen your latest post, which is an interesting and fair assessment. Add me to the list of those who think that given your circumstances, your issues should have been handled a lot better.

Yes they are 😊

Now I was imagining you to have supernatural powers as my good friends all know I love a good cat photo - and on my birthday my cards are all either cakes or cat themed 😄

Apologies, that should have been prices from £2449, a good deal for those who don’t mind/like inside cabins.

You have given me a little glow of happiness! Thank you, I love the photo 😍

The same/very similar cruise for January 2026 shows prices starting at £2499 per person. Currently, if you book on board you can get 10% off that price. As to how much it has gone up; no idea. We didn’t book early and so could book for around £1K per person less, for the same mid-ship balcony by booking now - 2 years in advance! Many on this cruise are booking their long cruises for 2026 on board and Future cruises desk is always busy. No excuses necessary for ‘butting in’ by the way 😉.

My elderly neighbour, with whom I keep in touch when away, likes to tell me her meals for the day and asks about ours, and so I send her the occasional photo and I'll be sending her the ones below for her approval (she will approve 😄). Tonight's meal doesn't pretend to be fine dining but we both agreed that it was all very tasty indeed - it was liver, onions and bacon followed by apple streusel and custard. Our excellent waiter took it upon himself to bring a side order of ice cream 😋. I'll be resembling today's statue even more by the time we disembark!

Sorry @daiB, I don't seem to be able to delete the above 🥴 Thursday, 18th continued Lest I give the impression that we are not enjoying ourselves, well, we are! But another gripe will follow. A daily early morning swim is what DH looks forward to most of all on our cruises. This is the first ship we have been on where pool opening hours have not been published, or displayed by the pool - and it's normally 7 am. This morning he returned at 7.20 am and no one could tell him when it would open. He did manage a swim after breakfast along with a trip to reception to find out what time it should open. If he had a time he'd work with it. I wasn't with him so I'm second hand reporting that the guy on reception looked everywhere for the information, made an unsuccessful phone call and when asking for an appointment with a relevant manager, was told that he would get back to him. Not happened yet, so guess we'll have to be a squeaky wheel. Anyone know the job title of the person responsible? On to the positives. Today we decided on a late short walk into Curacao as we were only here last year and did a ship's tour of the island. However, we ended up doing a local bus tour after we had asked about the leg room and were invited aboard to take a look. Eventually deciding it was okay, we joined 2 other Ventura passengers and later more came from Carnival Magic, which was docked next to us. The tour was $25 per person and included a couple of stops and a visit to the same Curacao liquor factory as last year. The guide, fellow passengers and driver were all friendly and it had a jolly feel to it. Sorry @TigerB I can already see that I've failed to insert the spaces I wanted beneath - I tried! The first photo is the liquor distillery, the second is a sculpture I felt an affinity with, and the third a scene from the colourful street market taken from inside the bus.