This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
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After an absolutely fabulous week in Grenada and St Vincent & the Grenadines, it was time to head home
. I thought I would include some blurb about the holiday itself, especially as it was quite an unconventional one in that we chartered a catamaran for the whole week!
If anyone is interested in more details, do feel free to drop me a PM. First of all, it is not as extravagant as it sound. In fact, we started off looking at hotels, and b&bs, before coming across the option to stay on a catamaran, which appears to be a good value option. Yes, overall it did cost a bit more than a b&b, but as all food and soft drinks are included, not to mention a mode of transportation (which is very handy indeed for that part of the world), it worked out pretty well in terms of value for money.
Now we've got that over with, it really was a wonderful choice, and we don't regret it one bit. We were able to get up to Tobago Cays, which must be one of the most special places I've ever been to! There are 5 uninhabited islands surrounding a marine park, where deserted beaches, beautiful fishes, many turtles and interesting corals are aplenty. What's more, we're not around lots of other tourists - there are some day trippers, but only for a few hours during the day. We snorkelled lots (my swimming skills improved so much - I went from wearing an inflatable snorkelling vest to snorkelling in deep water directly from the dinghy without the vest for over an hour!), relaxed (and burned slightly - factor 50 sunscreen can only do so much it seems!) on the white sandy beaches (often by ourselves), and even enjoyed a lobster bbq on the beach!
We stayed in the Cays for 2 days and 2 nights, before heading back to Grenada itself via Sandy Island - another paradise on earth! It certainly softened the blow of leaving the Cays.
This is really the huge positive of chartering the boat -- we got to go to where we wanted, when we wanted, without having to rush back to nearby accommodation.
There is a less glamorous side, too. Sailing time was quite long on some days, and probably longer than we expected - if you enjoy sailing and sunbathing, great, but if you get motion sickness, then it's less good! I am prone to motion sickness so went prepared with some strong Dramamine tablets (and actually felt a bit high a couple of times... I think
), but this was the first (and thankfully only) time Mr W ever experienced sea sickness 
And there's really not much anyone can do other than watching him throw up when we were at sea, still with 3 hours to go! But it was all worth it when we got to such beautiful places. Easy for me to say 
I also never really considered the practicalities of living on a boat - the constantly rockiness, the limited batteries (and hence fridge space, etc etc), limited space and supplies. Thankfully the couple running the boat had lots of experience in it, and all we had to do was sitting tight and being fed and pampered, but it was interesting to see the ins and outs of living on a catamaran.
We spent the last day on Grenada itself, and went inland to Grand Etang, which is a volcanic crater park. As we didn't have too much time, we did the 1.5 hour long "shoreline trail", which was the muddiest hike I have ever been on! We both had hiking boots on, and by the end mine were completely covered in mud. We also walked past quite a few abandoned flipflops along the way!!
I dread to think how these people got back/got to the end, as the trail is a round loop, without any real turning off points 
The locals in both countries were great, though I was disappointed that I only saw one lady with a huge fruit basket on her head! For some reason (and I think the VS Destination Guide for Grenada was probably to blame - bizarrely it wasn't actually available on Vera this time) I was expecting almost everyone to have those
Anyway, the holiday was fabulous. I uploaded a few pictures onto Flickr, in case anyone wanted a nosy. https://www.flickr.com/photos/94449415@N02/sets/72157650265952010/
Now the flight! I was really pleased to see that Miss Sunshine is here to return us to LGW
As it was an overnighter, we decided to go in PE. Did OLCI the night before (using shaky wifi on board!) and noticed that we had been moved from 20H&K to 22H&K. Not a huge problem (we didnt' feel particularly emotionally attached to the original seats anyway)but I did wonder why the move. Both sets of CC were excellent. Before take-off, with bubbly in hand, I realised that my IFE screen was not on. As the seat belt sign was on, I rang the bell
I didn't want to be stuck in a seat with no IFE whilst watching someone enjoying their IFE in the seat I originally requested 2 rows in front! The FSM came without much delay (given that he was pretty busy sorting out pre-flight stuff), and when OH mentioned "we were bumped from row 20 to row 22" in passing, the FSM said "Ah you didn't really mean "bumped", did you, as the people who really got "bumped" are now in economy class!" As it turned out, they managed to overbook PE, and some poor souls had been downgraded to EC. Shortly before we did see the CC carrying some bubbly over the EC, and we gathered this was probably why. Out of interest though, does anyone know what compensation is due for an involuntary downgrade under the EU regs? I recall that it wasn't quite as generous as the delay/cancellation compensation is compared to the cost of the tickets, but I could be wrong.
Oh my IFE - after turning it off and back on remotely, it worked a treat. What I did appreciate was the FSM coming back later on to follow-up and see whether it worked
Not much to ask, I know, but it doesn't always happen!Mr W and I did our new thing of watching the same films simultaneously, with our matching travel headphones of course
We watched Paddington, and Gone Girl, with the former being excellent and the latter being pretty decent, too. Then again, I've always got time for Ben Affleck 
Having the IFE on the ground whilst waiting for the pax and crew to board at UVF was great. The only issue was that after we watched the safety video again, all the IFE was reset and we lost where we were at in the middle of the film. The new glass of bubbly was a timely distraction, though
I am ashamed to admit that when the new CC came round with the welcome drinks again at St Lucia (and I wasn't really expecting to be offered), I may have attempted to hide my empty glass in the seat pocket in front in a moment of panic! Of course I didn't actually manage (those pockets are tight!) which made it even more embarrassing! 
I blame the first drink... The CC were on top form. The two ladies in PE were excellent - they were bubbly, engaging, worked very well together and nothing was too much trouble.
I liked them even more when they didn't blink an eyelid when the salt and pepper shakers weren't on the dinner tray to be returned 
Speaking of salt and pepper shakers, the dinner was ok, but not great. The beef casserole main was pretty tasty, but the salad was half frozen, and the dessert too sweet for my taste.
After dinner and the films finished, we both settled in for some sleep. It took me a while to get to sleep (I think my brain was slightly disturbed after watching Gone Girl), but to my great surprise the hubby fell asleep pretty much straight away!
![][|)](./images/smilies/icon_smile_sleepy.gif "Sleepy"){kind=icon}
This was when I had given up on the idea that he might be able to sleep on a plane at all! It looks like we might have to go for PE on a red eye flight in future I was woken up by a smiley CC handing out breakfast. I went for the omelette in my half-asleep state, which to my shock did not have cheese
And more surprisingly it didn't taste too horrendous! Unfortunately OH's choice of frittata looked absolutely disgusting -- it looked dry and greasy at the same time! During my sleep the PE toilet on our side stopped working, so everyone on this side was using the UC loo. I checked with CC to see whether we were really ok to use it (rather than going to the A/C side to use the PE loo there), and they were shocked that I'd even ask, implying that it was the done thing. I'm not complaining - it's always nice to use the Cowshed handwash and hand cream on-board
Before long it was time to land. As soon as we emerged from the clouds, a snow-covered Crawley welcomed us back
Let me try to upload a few pictures from the plane:
Will upload a couple more as posts as I can't figure out how to do it otherwise!
And I'm very happy that this wonderful trip was my 500th post
