From elderly couples and families with kids to the odd singleton and a woman whose husband had died on-board, you meet all sorts on a cruise, writes ROSITA BOLAND
CRUISE SHIPS are many things, but subtle vessels they are not. Venturais one of the largest ships in Europe, owned by PO, with accommodation for 3,092 passengers. You know when Ventura is in port, because when you see it for the first time, as I did on arrival in Southampton, it resembles a giant floating apartment block. I was boarding for what's called a "blue water" cruise of the western Mediterranean, stopping at five ports.
Fellow passengers
Cruises are like arks: people come in twos. It appeared all my fellow passengers were British, which made me exceedingly exotic. The age profile in general is definitely older, with lots of retired people, and almost everyone travels in couples or groups, so you’re not going to meet very many other single people if you’re travelling alone.
I did meet one man travelling alone, who told me he lived in London. What was the atmosphere like there after the riots? I inquired. He looked at me blankly. “I live in Kensington. There weren’t any riots there.” Right so, Ted.
During school holidays, Venturais extremely popular with families. There are programmes of activities for all ages, a circus school and a range of designated family pools and play spaces. A most unusual family service is a dormitory creche with cots, where dining parents can leave their babies and toddlers.
The cabins
As Venturais so big, many of the cabins have balconies as well as windows. Our cabin had sliding glass doors to a balcony, where it was a real pleasure to sit, read and chat. For me, the balcony was the best thing about the cruise. You always wake up to a view, and a permanent private outside space.
None of the cabins are very big, but they are all cleverly designed, comfortable, and spotless, with attentive stewards for each one. They also have extensive wardrobe space, reflecting the fact that most people take a lotof luggage on a cruise that features four black-tie evenings.
Finding your way
It takes a couple of days to orientate yourself on a ship of this size, which is really a self-contained community. There are 14 public decks, eight restaurants – including The White Room, where Marco Pierre White created the menu – five pools, three show lounges, a circus school, tennis courts, a spa, hair salon, library, medical centre, art gallery and several shops. I never did count the number of bars, but the fact that I discovered yet another one, the Red Room, the day before I disembarked, means there are many.
The entertainment
Every day, the Horizonnewsletter arrives crammed with details of the next day's activities, which start at 7.30am and end after midnight. They range from dance classes to circus workshops, yoga, quizzes, craft, deck games, classical music recitals, films, talks, jazz, comedy, and many, many concerts.
Highlights included Halida Dinova's beautiful classical music concerts; Woody Allen's intriguing new film, Midnight in Paris; singer Jayne Curry's terrific concerts; the passenger and crew talent show, which was a hoot (I did not perform); and various shows by resident dance troupe, The Headliners, who perform slick extracts from West End shows.
But I also spent a lot of time on my balcony, simply reading. You can do as much or as little as you like on a cruise, that’s really the point of it. And people-watching on black-tie evenings is fun: cruise passengers take the dress code very seriously.
Many of the women, for instance, wore full-length ballgowns and queued up to have their pictures taken as they swept down the central staircase each black-tie evening.
Art gallery
The on-board gallery is Whitewall Galleries, where Rolf Harris was the featured artist of the cruise. The pieces were mostly prints, but there was also an original Harris oil of two elephants. Yours for the staggering price of £55,000 (€63,215). I kept checking back on it. It remained unsold.
Afternoon tea
You’ll never go hungry on a cruise. There is food available around the clock, and three formal meals a day, should you wish to have waiter service at all of them. That’s in addition to the buffets you can help yourself to at breakfast, lunch and dinner, not to mention room service in your cabin.
So it would seem that a formal afternoon tea, served at 4pm each day, is completely extraneous. It was a week before I finally went to afternoon tea. I instantly became a fan of the ritual. Perhaps the charm lies in the fact it is such an unnecessary indulgence, particularly at that time of day, and that your vista is of the open blue sea.
But I loved the white tablecloth, the napkins being shaken out for you, the tiers of tiny crustless cucumber sandwiches, the miniature eclairs, and strawberry shortcake, the proffering of just-toasted teacakes, muffins and scones, and the selection of leaf teas that included my favourite, Lapsang.
You are directed to round tables that seat eight, so you share the experience with whoever else happens to sit next to you. I never met the same people twice, so every day, the stories were different.
Sometimes I only had tea, and didn’t eat anything, just because I didn’t want to miss it. It was the one of the most relaxed and unexpectedly enjoyable experiences of the cruise.
Wash your hands
Food poisoning is the big health threat at sea, where thousands of people mix in a confined space.
There are anti-bacterial hand-washes at the entrance everywhere that food is served.
Behind the scenes
There’s an opportunity during the cruise for passengers to have a fascinating walk-through of the galley (the kitchens). More than 13,000 meals a day are prepared here. Every day, 16,000 rolls and 700 loaves of bread are baked. On a two-week cruise, passengers and staff will consume on average 40 tons of meat, 80 tons of fruit and vegetables, and 2,850 bottles of wine.
In the bad old days, waste of all kinds was disposed of overboard. There is now a strict recycling policy, and compacted and sorted rubbish is taken off in port. Careful ordering keeps food waste to a minimum.
- Rosita Boland travelled on Venturafor a 12-night Western Mediterranean cruise in September. A similar cruise on Ventura departs from Southampton on May 20th next year and calls at Cadiz, Barcelona, Villefranche, Florence/Pisa (from Livorno), Rome (from Civitavecchia), Alicante and Gibraltar. Cabins from £1,439 (€1,653) per person sharing. Bookings before November 30th include free return flights between Belfast and Southampton. See pocruises.co.uk.
Most memorable conversation
I sat down one day for afternoon tea at a table with an elderly woman who was sitting alone. “But I didn’t arrive on the cruise on my own,” she volunteered.
We were four days into the cruise, and were sailing from Barcelona, which was our first port of call.
“Husband died, didn’t he? she continued. I looked at my cucumber sandwich, transfixed.
Her husband had had a heart attack two days out to sea, and died. PO had offered to fly her home and repatriate the body at Barcelona, but she had decided to remain on board. “We’d never been cruising,” she explained. “And what is there to go home to?”
They had no children, and it appeared from her story, no neighbours that she knew well. Just a former colleague she saw once a fortnight for coffee that she frankly admitted she didn’t much like.
She remained on board until the end of the cruise. Her husband’s body occupied one of the three morgue spaces aboard the ship.
I am unlikely to ever forget that conversation.
Get there
FlyBe (flybe.com) flies from Dublin and Belfast to Southampton. The local bus link from airport to port costs £2 (€2.30) , and takes about 45 minutes. Taxis are £30 (€35).
Ships to shore ports of call
On this cruise, the ports of call were Barcelona, Villefranche, Civitavecchia for Rome, Ajaccio (Corsica) and Gibraltar. Free shuttle buses to the centre are available at most ports.
At Ajaccio and Gibraltar, you can walk directly into the centre from the ship’s dock. Villefranche is a tender port, where you transfer to a smaller boat. Villefranche itself is a pretty old seaside town, and Monaco and Monte Carlo are less than half an hour away by train, on a beautiful journey that traces the Cote d’Azur; €5 return.
Functional Civitavecchia port is 80km north of Rome, but there is a train link for €9 return with frequent services, if you travel independently, as we did.
Picturesque Ajaccio’s most famous attraction is the atmospheric Maison Bonaparte, where Napoleon was born. We were there the morning of an excellent food market with local produce.
Gibraltar, a destination apparently popular for its duty-free bargains, was frankly dull, charmless, badly-kept, and the only disappointing port of call.
There are also a large number of organised – if expensive – excursions from the ship at every port.