Playing hide and seek with a Great White is probably not the kind of experience to be expected when taking a family friendly cruise.

Thankfully, however, in this case the ‘White’ in question was the self-proclaimed godfather of British cooking, Marco Pierre, and the game my two children were indulging in was ‘find the celebrity chef’.

Elusive as Marco may be, even he discovered that there’s no hiding place on board Ventura, the biggest and newest ship in the P&O Cruises’ fleet.

My son and daughter adored tracking down their prey up and down the 18 decks, in and out of the restaurants, shops and cafe areas.

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• It might be big, but is P&O’s Ventura any good?

I’m not entirely convinced that Marco saw the funny side of his celebrity appeal to under-sevens, but he manfully played the game, much to the constant amusement of Tilly (six) and Hal (three). And we were comfortable that they would be safe as, unlike a resort on land, there’s nowhere for little ones to wander off to.

The star chef happened to be on board with his two teenage sons for our two week voyage as part of his commitment to the cruise line, which involves overseeing a fine dining restaurant on Ventura as well as developing others on two more ships.

Packed to the gunwales with more than 3,200 passengers – including 800 children – Ventura was finding its sea legs in its first summer operating from Southampton to the Mediterranean.

We were on our first cruise as a family, wanting to see whether the concept worked for adults and young children alike and if taking a holiday at sea is a good value option at a time when disposable income is under pressure from the credit crunch.

First impressions were good. Ventura, although massive, is pretty easy to navigate once you get your bearings from your cabin. The design of the 290 metre-long ship is such that it is broken down into separate areas, so as to give the impression of sailing on a more intimate vessel.

Confused faces of passengers on day one soon disappeared by day two as they became acclimatized to their surroundings and started looking forward to ports of call which included Alicante, three locations in Italy, Cannes and Barcelona.

Sailing from Southampton has the bonus of enabling us to pack everyone and everything in the car to drive to the port and avoid peak school summer holiday airport chaos and the fear of lost bags.

The downside is that it takes two days at sea, including crossing the Bay of Biscay, before Ventura actually made its first port of call, in this case Gibraltar. The return leg to Southampton involved three sea days from Barcelona.

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