Weather in June could be very good. From Southampton you will be heading south for 36 hours and it will get warmer. We were on a similar cruise in late Septmber last year. 15 degrees in Southampton, 36 hours later it was 22, by Lisbon it was 28.

With the Ventura cruise the downsides are La Rochelle may get changed to Le Verdon (it did for most of the cruises last year - buses take you to a small seaside town with a huge beach) and Brest isn't the most attractive place to visit. On the plus side it's a huge modern ship with plenty to do and if it isn't very warm outside it has an indoor swimming pool.

£459 for this cruise is a good price.

Thanks Dave,

Sounds like an interesting cruise and definitely one to consider, but not sure about spending that amount of money and having rough seas/cold weather?
It may be because the previous cruises ive been on have been Thomson ones and very very hot!

Was thinking more of the Island Escape, western med kind of area, so it is constantly hot?

The Ventura on 5th June is available at £399. There are a number of agents offering this, including CruiseKings.co.uk and also cruiseclubuk.com and iglucruise.com

The Island Escape is an extremely "old bird" and personally would not pay £620 for two people!! We have been on both the Island Escape and Ventura. Many people who have sailed Thomson (we have, on Spirit) say that the biggest mistake Thomson ever made was to buy the Island Escape, as it does not come close to the standard of the other Thomson cruises.

hamrag wrote:

The Ventura on 5th June is available at £399. There are a number of agents offering this, including CruiseKings.co.uk and also cruiseclubuk.com and iglucruise.com

The Island Escape is an extremely "old bird" and personally would not pay £620 for two people!! We have been on both the Island Escape and Ventura. Many people who have sailed Thomson (we have, on Spirit) say that the biggest mistake Thomson ever made was to buy the Island Escape, as it does not come close to the standard of the other Thomson cruises.

To be fair they inherited it as part of the First Choice takeover, Island Cruises was a small part of that deal.

Both Islands were a 50:50 venture by First Choice and RCI as part of Sunshine Cruises
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Cruises

The rest of Sunshine cruises remains with RCI, cruise1st being the significant bit which looks like it was what Text Abroad(fantastic deals) ended up becoming after getting bought by Island.

adventure of th seas (royal caribbean) out of barcelona on 3rd June.

We're on it!!

Booked via thecruisestore for cruise only 2 adults 2 kids - 1300 for balcony cabin.

Booked flights with easyjet, although we did this within a few days of the schedule release so only cost 280 for the 4 of us.

Ryan air are doing cheap flights at the mo, but airports for barcelona are some distance from the city.

Hope this is of some help

rob.