V-Flyer

After spending 11 nights at Secrets The Vine our pre booked transport picked us up on time for our short journey to the airport. We had managed to request seats 19A&C 3 days before the flight I would have liked 24A&C but they had already been taken. Check in at the Upper class desk had just one other couple checking in before us. The young man checking us in was very pleasant and put an upper class tag on our case, when we checked if it was marked priority as it certainly wasn't priority on the outbound journey. We than asked for our lounge invites but were told we would only need to show our gold card to gain access. I double checked this with him because at on line check in the instruction was to pick up an invite.
We made our way to security which was quite busy and they picked on my bag to turn inside out even asking me to open my purse they found nothing that shouldn't have been there, but other people were having large quantity of items confiscated. So with totally messed up hand luggage we made our way to the lounge. At the lounge Mr. D showed his gold card, but the receptionist was adamant that a gold card would not get us into the lounge. After some more arguing and their refusal to ring the VA desk to check, another gold card holder (who later told us he was a lifelong gold card holder. I haven't heard of this before as anyone else? ) and his wife came to say they were having the same trouble. In the end we give up trying to get in with the gold card and handed over our Priority Pass cards and signed in the other gold card holder and his wife. The lounge was dire - on a par with the one in Havana. It was hardly worth the effort of getting in and whilst we were there another gold card holder was turned away!
Priority boarding was called by upper class first then PE but ‘would you believe it’ they would not accept gold card holders who were not travelling in upper as priority boarding. We boarded on the PE call but it was still a bit of a scrum with economy passengers blocking the way. They were also selling PE seats for 200 US dollars each. It was full on take off so they must have sold their spare seats. We took our seats 19A&C and was quickly handed our pre flight drinks. I must say I did not like 19A it felt claustrophobic and I missed the side bins to store everything in where I could reach it, also the atmosphere was too hectic compared to the calm of the bubble even with the split cabin of PE/economy so given the choice I would choose the bubble every time. Now to the food our first choice had run out long before they reached us. Not that it would have made much difference - all the food was dreadful, totally inedible. The best part was the hot drinking chocolate followed by the Brandy & Baileys. We had two male cabin crew looking after us who were both excellent. They made numerous water & juice runs throughout the night and were always in attendance. We later spoke to the young man looking after our side of the cabin and told him of the problem we had getting into the lounge and he suggested we fill in a “Any concerns form” and later brought us the form to fill in and informed the FSM. Just before landing the FSM came to speak to us, she turned out to be from Wales and had lived just 20 miles away from us. She was very helpful and friendly; she said she could offer us 2,000 miles each in compensation for being refused access to the lounge on the gold card and running out of our first choice meal. It was our aim to bring both problems to VA attention but decided if 2,000 miles were on offer we would accept them any way. We are still waiting for VA to post them in our flying club accounts!
We were one of the first off the plane but once again priority baggage did not work with economy off first and ours arriving some time later. So a great crew let down by the inedible food they had to serve, the problem of the lounge access, priority boarding for gold card holders and lack of priority with baggage reclaim.
If you would like to know more about Secrets the Vine follow this link to our tripadvisor report: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g150807-d2627483-r147991770-Secrets_The_Vine_Cancun_Resort_Spa-Cancun_Yucatan_Peninsula.html

Good crew aside, sounds like a very shabby experience. I'd be writing to Crawley Towers.

Thanks for the TR. I get dismayed when I read about another poor experience that really could and should have been avoided, especially as the crew were so good.

Thanks for the TR

Given how VS/ VH have pushed Cancun, how the Ground Staff there have not been properly trained which led to your poor experience - at least the on board crew made up for this
Thanks once again

buns

Thanks for the TR Daffodil

You are much more forgiving than I, fur def would have flown in CUN airport if I had been told I could have lounge access at check-in and then denied it.. However am I not correct in saying that AU only gives us access to VS owned Clubhouses by default... is entry to any of the shared lounges not at the discretion of the ground staff?? Please correct me if I am wrong here, it is the principal I have been assuming all these years.

Regarding the lifelong Gold holder... I have only heard of this in passing so may very well be hearsay, at an anniversary event for VS a few years back (15 I think) they gifted lifelong gold to some of their AU pool of the time... not sure on criteria or if it was just some random lottery.

Good to see the CC made up for the less than poor ground staff performance, and as for the food .... I thought VS had got a handle on this ... shame

Sorry for my rather long response .. Cheers for posting

joeyc wrote
However am I not correct in saying that AU only gives us access to VS owned Clubhouses by default... is entry to any of the shared lounges not at the discretion of the ground staff?? Please correct me if I am

Having a gold card gives access to VS shared lounges to the holder and a guest which ever class you are travelling in. It is Mr.D's card ( I was his guest ) and at on line check in there was an instrution to pick up the lounge invite at the check in desk. The FSM also give us the 2,000 flying clud miles for wrongly being denied access. We have never been denied access before.

joeyc wrote
Regarding the lifelong Gold holder... I have only heard of this in passing so may very well be hearsay, at an anniversary event for VS a few years back (15 I think) they gifted lifelong gold to some of their AU pool of the time... not sure on criteria or if it was just some random lottery..

The lifelong gold card holder said he had been given the card quite a while ago and had attend a lot of SRB events for his regular fliers. I just wondered if Virgin still give them out any more.

Regards,
Daffodil

Sorry Daffodil, didn't mean that to sound as confrontational as it did..

Anyway, regarding the CHs, glad I am wrong on this. Only going on what a friend's dad told me a while back (he is AU too) and taking a look at the benefit list it does specifically say Virgin Atlantic clubhouses.. (no mention of shared ones..) with the caveat of when flying with partner airlines there is a list of shared lounges available.. perhaps looking at this too deeply with a pessamistic eye.. will stop now

Re the lifelong AU - my info came from a half random convo with a businessman in the JFK CH a few years back.. it was definitely something in passing. Doubt it was anything more than a temporary promotion though, look at the trouble AA had with their AAirpass system.

Again, thanks for the TR