CruiseLink
Ventura wifi and staying in touch onboard
Ventura is about 116,000 gross tonnes and roughly 289 metres — noticeably smaller than the other P&O ships on this site. Around 3,200 guests, about 14 guest decks, and a sister ship in Azura. The wifi arrangement is the same as the rest of the fleet, but the ship being smaller makes the practical problem gentler in a way you can feel.
What the ship gives you
Same as everywhere in the fleet: the onboard network is free and runs My Holiday for the daily programme, dining bookings, virtual queues and your account. It works in airplane mode, which is where your phone should be at sea.
Internet through it is paid, in tiers, per device. What P&O charges, and what each tier covers.
My Holiday has no guest messaging — not on Ventura, not on any ship in the fleet. Reaching the people you are travelling with is left to you.
Why the size helps
Ventura is about two thirds the tonnage of Arvia and carries 2,000 fewer passengers. That is not an abstract statistic:
- You can check a place quickly. The walk from one end to the other is shorter, and there are fewer decks to choose between.
- There are fewer duplicated venues. “The pool” is nearer to being one place rather than several on different decks.
- Fewer people share the connection. Evening wifi on Ventura is still shared satellite internet, but three thousand people is better than five thousand.
- Phones are more likely to be nearby. Less ship means less distance for anything that works directly between phones.
It helps. It does not make the problem disappear. Three thousand people is still a small town, a phone on silent in a pocket still cannot be reached, and a teenager who has wandered off has wandered off regardless of tonnage.
One package, not four
The common mistake is the same on every ship: a family buying one package each, mostly to message each other. One package for whoever might genuinely need to reach home, plus something that works locally for reaching each other, covers nearly everyone better and costs a fraction of the price. The reasoning, laid out.
What CruiseLink does here
CruiseLink passes messages between your group’s phones over Bluetooth and the ship’s local network — no package, no account, free, every phone in airplane mode.
On Ventura the limits bite less than on the larger ships: a message reaches the next phone sooner because there is less ship between them. Everyone still needs the app before you sail, it reaches only your own group, and a message still travels when phones come near enough rather than instantly. But on a ship this size, near enough is more often than not.
Keep a meeting point agreed all the same. Naming the deck is the trick.
Get CruiseLink
Free, no account, nothing to set up beyond your group. On iPhone and Android, and the two work together.
Not affiliated with P&O Cruises. Ship figures are approximate and from sources including Wikipedia, CruiseMapper and Fincantieri. Checked October 2026.