This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
I won’t say much about my actual stay in Barbados, will save this for another thread!
I had booked a taxi driver whom I knew to pick us up from the Turtle Beach at 3:15, and as we arrived at the front of the hotel, there he was!
Our bags had already been loaded into the taxi, so with a quick tip to the bellman and many fond farewells, we hopped on board and were on our way to BGI.
Check in was very swift and efficient, and very smiley! The agents were very chatty and helpful, but told me the plane was totally full, so upgrades were out of the question this time.
And here’s where things started to go off the rails…
I had “requested” seats 33G,H&K, but had not managed to do online check in as my phone kept bugging out. As a consequence, we had been moved, and now had 37D,E&F – right at the back of the PE cabin, andright in front of the toilets. To say I wasn’t very happy was an understatement, but there was nothing that could be done, so that was that.
Boarding cards in hand, my daughter dragged me off to a little shop, landside, that sells all sorts of craft items – nice little shop. She bought (well, I bought for her!) a hand-carved mahogany dolphin, and a couple of wooden keyrings with maps of Barbados for her friends. Good little shop this, if you want some different little last minutes bits and bobs.
After a last couple of smokes, off to security which was efficient, I guess, but not overly friendly –did what it says on the tin, you could say.
Down to gate 11 for boarding. The gate agent remembered us from previous visits, so we exchanged a few pleasantries, and were asked to board with UC and the other PE passengers.
Out into the Barbados sun for the last time, and up the creaky old metal steps to board Tinkerbell.
I still enjoy that boarding via the old way, a bit of a blast from the past, and you get to appreciate just how bloody big those 747s are!
Grunted to on boarding, and thrust towards the back of the PE cabin.
Was just getting sorted out, when the Y passengers started boarding. And then, it happened again! Someone who had been made redundant from my company went by –we exchanged a few words, but she had to move on, but it’s bizarre that I should see two people who have been made redundant recently on a single visit from a company of less than 700 staff.
A lady boarded, who had bought an upgrade to PE a few days before, who had been allocated the same seat as me – they finally realised that G was free and seated her there. As they’d taken so long to sort it out, she never got her pre-takeoff drink, and was a little peaved about it – not a big deal, you might say, but they made her stand about for 20 minutes sorting it out, then told her there was no time for the drink.
I secured a second drink despite the very obvious displeasure of the CC person assigned to our area – she didn’t seem overly happy to be asked to do extra – a theme that was to repeat for the entire journey.
Take off on time, and a smooth climb out. No sooner had the wheels left the ground, “crunch” – the seat in front was fully reclined in to my face and remained there until it was reluctantly put to upright just before landing.
I’m not going to go into full detail about the service or meal, I had a beef stew thing that was ok plus a very nice apple tart. Managed to squeeze a small bottle of white wine off the trolley, but top ups were harder to find that rocking horse pooh.
The main point here is that as I was sat in D, and my wife in F with our daughter between us, we were served by different CC servicing different isles. By the time the drinks, meals etc reached us, my meal was being served 15 minutes before my wife.
The CC on my side didn’t offer a roll to my daughter (she was having the regular meal, not a childs meal), and my attempts to call her back failed – she didn’t even respond to the call bell. We finally got one for her from the CC that arrived 15 minutes later in the other isle. I also secured another glass of wine from her, just a glass as the little bottles had run out.
This glass, remained on my armrest table thingy until just prior to landing. I almost got the feeling that it was being left there to punish me for daring to have extra wine.
Overall, the service was extremely surly and unhelpful, with second drinks never being offered, and when requested, were dolled out with a real touch of “for goodness sake, don’t you know you’re causing me work and I can’t be bothered”.
With the toilets making there periodic booming gurgle every now and again, those purple leather seats that I never seem able to get comfortable in, the seat back in front of me making it difficult to get in and out, the lack of any real service offering aside from a box-ticking exercise, this was in all truth, an awful flight.
I will never willingly pay for PE except in the upper deck, ever again – it’s not worth the money in my opinion.
And, as you can’t be sure you’ll get the bubble for PE, I’m seriously wondering about sticking to Y or J in the future or perhaps using WTP that seems on the up and hasn’t let me down recently at all.
Oh yes, remember the lady that never got her “champagne”? Well, they’d run out of anything she could eat by the time they got to her, and refused to do anything about it. I suggested that they go check out what was left in UC, then they suddenly remembered that they could do that, and said “oh what a good idea”. They came back with a chicken dish for her about 15 minutes later. Again, could not be bothered…
Having paid a W fare for this flight as that was all that was available at the time, to say I was disgruntled, probably doesn’t come close to how let down I felt on this flight.
Still got the slightly bad-taste ending to our holiday, to be honest.
And there you have it – brilliant CC in Y on the way out, really pleasant flight, could give a sh1t CC on the way back and I feel totally let down…VS, are you taking note? This inconsistency is really denting my confidence in your product.
Sorry to come out with such a negative TR folks, but as you can probably tell, I’m not overly pleased with this one.
Let’s hope my PE return (already paid for) to MCO at Easter is better…plus my reward returns in PE in July. These may well be my last ventures into PE with VS unless they redeem themselves…
Thanks for reading, and feel free to knock me back on my comments if you feel I’m over-reacting!!!
Concorde RIP - the most amazing machine to grace our skies
