Darthlemsip sells his soul (aka ‘goes on a package holiday’) - LGW-GND-LGW in VS J
Oct 27, 2014, 4:41 am
#1
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Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: London
Programs: BA Gold
Posts: 4,029
Darthlemsip sells his soul (aka ‘goes on a package holiday’) - LGW-GND-LGW in VS J
Welcome dear reader to what is only my third trip report of this year (although this trip report actually started months ago when I booked it and kept notes on what happened).
I’ll admit it, I’ve not kept to my word - at the end of last year I promised you a whole heap of TR’s and delivered but a meagre few. And one of those I never even finished. Although in my defence, my dad did have a stroke in the midst of me doing that report - obviously he was my priority for a bit and everything else fell beside the wayside. Who knows, I may get reinvigorated writing this one and actually finish it off. I’ll add the promised report about Eurovision here though, it doesn’t require many words:
IT WAS BLOODY BRILLIANT!
There aren’t that many VS reports on here (in fact I found 2 within the last 18 months, and I wrote one of those), and none on at the A330 that I could see, so it felt a suitable time to come back on and bore you all silly.
Anyway, back to the matter in hand. I mentioned a while back that I hate dealing with travel agents - in the past they have royally messed me around and cost me an extortionate amount of money. And hair. I also know a TA, I see him at the football and he’s always the drunkest man on the planet. And he’s always damp - not someone I’d want to be handling my travel arrangements when he seems to struggle with stairs. I also have a similar dislike of package holidays, having been subjected to a number of them in my formative years with their, amongst other things, unnatural timings (I have always loved sleep, I do not like getting up when it’s dark - even for holiday), getting to the destination airport only to find you have the next 4 days on a coach, and their inability to leave me alone to read a book instead of dragging me off to some club or group (which promptly divide into cliques of kids that want to be there and get massively excited, and kids like me who wanted to be left alone). I realise that makes me sound ungrateful, but nothing could be further from the truth - I loved going on holiday, and I thank my family for fuelling my desire to travel, but I much prefer doing things of my own accord.
So when it was decided* (*I was told) that we would be doing a beach holiday this year, having only done city based holidays for the previous couple of years, I was faced with the perennial nightmare of FF redeemers - reward flights to a beach destination. Specifically, BA reward flights as at the time I only had enough Avios to do a WT+ to CW upgrade (the eagle eyed amongst you may be putting 2+2 together here).
Basically it never happened. Couldn’t get any reward availability for anything suitable no matter how many times I checked at some ungodly hour 355 days out (In the end, those Avios, in conjunction with a bunch from cancelling a NYC trip, were used for a J+F on CX trip to HKG which was fantastic, so every cloud and all that.)
We realised we were going to have to pay. My bank manager felt a chill.
We settled on Grenada in the end, on the basis it was pretty much the only island in the Caribbean that neither of us had been to (yes, I realise there are loads of them, but you know what I mean), we’d done the Indian ocean for our honeymoon, and my suggestion of the Middle East was kaboshed. So, having decided on where we were going, I set about getting us there. Oh, and suitable accommodation. BA were out as we wanted a 10 day trip and they only flew there once a week when we booked, which pretty much left Virgin Atlantic whose twice weekly flights allow for the 10 nights. At the time, I hadn’t flown with them for a while, so had no idea what they were like. Resort wise we were undecided, until we read about the Sandals opening there and decided it was time to accept we’re older than our physical years and embrace their ideology. Added bonus - no kids there. Some may take offence at that, none is intended, I promise - we were just looking forward to a quiet holiday. And, as it turned out, we experienced badly behaved adults instead, but more on that later.
I’ve said before that Mrs Lem has now reached F on the ‘never flying less than’ scale (cue finding flights that don’t have an F cabin) so I knew this would have to be in Upper Class. When it came to pricing it up however, it soon became clear that this was a no-goer when booking separately - unless we wanted to fly in Premium Economy. I submitted this to the committee and she gave me her ‘look’. Back to the drawing board. She did later admit she would be fine flying in Premium Economy, but it was actually me that put my foot down about not wanting to do an overnight flight in an upright seat (despite my inability to sleep on planes). Turns out this was a wise call, some time later a friend announced his stag do in Amsterdam, leaving on the afternoon that we arrived back.
While mulling over our options (which at the time were “Go somewhere else”, “Fly PE” or “Suck it up and pay it”), some ancient memory flickered in my brain about having a Virgin Flying Club account and that giving you a discount on anything booked through Virgin Holidays. A cursory check indicated I was correct and a 7% discount was given to those in the basic, Red, membership tier, plus one Flying Club mile for every pound you spend. Not too shabby. But it would mean booking through a TA and abandoning my principles regarding package holidays (that principle being “Shoot me if I ever agree to a package holiday”).
Principles that went out the window as soon as I priced up the trip on VH’s website that, before discount, was a touch over 25% cheaper than booking separately. This meant we could not only fly there in Upper Class, but also get a better room, all for less than our original budget. Woof woof, yes please. But I’d be darned if there was anywhere for me to put my Flying Club number and obtain this further discount. Another check on Virgin Atlantic’s site advised that you have to call in to do this. Despite my usual interactions with people on the phone normally resulting in me sighing and shaking my head a lot (a work thing I should add), I was not put off and gallantly jumped right in.
Do Virgin provide their call centre staff with a caffeine drip?
In the space of one phone call I was called “Delightful”, “My lovely” and “Mr. Fancy Pants” by a woman I’ve never met, and who sounded so relentlessly cheery and smiley that her mouth must physically hurt if she ever has to frown. She could also speak at a thousand words a minute without pausing for breath. I was bewildered and my brain was starting to hurt. Unfortunately the sigh had to be issued as Sandals have about three dozen different room types at the resort and Ms. Delightful was having trouble finding the one we wanted - there is only so many times you can say “Pink gin ocean… No, pink gin. No, gin, like the drink, which I now need.” In the end I had to jump onto the Sandals website and find the room code they used, which enabled her to find the room and get us booked in. Flying Club discount was applied, we were all booked in, and I hung up and went to spend some time in a darkened room to let my senses return to normal.
Before we departed for Grenada, I had cause to call Virgin Holidays three more about the booking - the first time was down to being somewhat concerned that no flights had yet appeared under our booking three months after we’d made it. Turns out they somehow hadn’t been booked automatically, but this was resolved in relatively short order. The second time was when I acquired Flying Club Gold status and wanted that added to the VH side of the booking as it meant I got double the FC points per pound spent. When the lady I spoke to thanked me for being such a frequent flyer with Virgin, she too sounded so relentlessly cheery and smiley that I had no wish to ruin her day by telling her I’d acquired said status via a status match from my BA Gold card. More on the third time shortly.
In the intervening period, I also flew VS in UC to JFK and back on an A340-600, which while I thoroughly enjoyed, I wouldn’t go out of my way to fly them again - but felt it would be perfectly fine for this trip. Then I found we would be flying on an A330-300 and saw some opinions of the new Upper Class Dream Suite. Decided to stop reading the reviews after that. Besides, even if it is cramped, it’s still better than being down the back right? Right?
And speaking of reviews, the Sandals wasn’t even open when we booked it, so had to wait a while for reviews to appear. Top tip - do not read the reviews of somewhere when it’s only just opened, they’re never good. Fortunately they massively improved over the following months. And I guess if we always relied on other peoples opinions, none of us would ever go anywhere…
At T-60, seats were selected. At T-30, there were still at least 8 reward seats available in the UC cabin on both flights - wondering why it seemed such a quiet period there given it’s got a fairly consistent climate year round, I took to Google. Ah, hurricane season. Probably should have looked at this before booking. Fortunately Grenada hasn’t had a hurricane hit since Ivan in 2004. Although to me that means one was due. And our wedding anniversary was while we’re there. Hmmmmm.
With it being an early morning departure from Gatwick, I blew some Hhonors points on a suite at the Gatwick Hilton for the night before, with absolutely no idea if that was a good use of points or not as I could find practically no information or pictures on that type of room. But I’d had the points for ages and never get the chance to use them, so why not.
Then all there was to do was wait
Oh, and for Sandals to do a 50% off sale that meant we could have got a butler suite and still been well under budget. While new Virgin Holiday bookings could access this pricing, it was not available when trying to upgrade an existing one. The woman on the phone still sounded relentlessly cheery and smiley as she told me that…
Coming up in the next part - A King Suite at the Gatwick Hilton, the Virgin Clubhouse at Gatwick and the VS UC experience on an A330
I’ll admit it, I’ve not kept to my word - at the end of last year I promised you a whole heap of TR’s and delivered but a meagre few. And one of those I never even finished. Although in my defence, my dad did have a stroke in the midst of me doing that report - obviously he was my priority for a bit and everything else fell beside the wayside. Who knows, I may get reinvigorated writing this one and actually finish it off. I’ll add the promised report about Eurovision here though, it doesn’t require many words:
IT WAS BLOODY BRILLIANT!
There aren’t that many VS reports on here (in fact I found 2 within the last 18 months, and I wrote one of those), and none on at the A330 that I could see, so it felt a suitable time to come back on and bore you all silly.
Anyway, back to the matter in hand. I mentioned a while back that I hate dealing with travel agents - in the past they have royally messed me around and cost me an extortionate amount of money. And hair. I also know a TA, I see him at the football and he’s always the drunkest man on the planet. And he’s always damp - not someone I’d want to be handling my travel arrangements when he seems to struggle with stairs. I also have a similar dislike of package holidays, having been subjected to a number of them in my formative years with their, amongst other things, unnatural timings (I have always loved sleep, I do not like getting up when it’s dark - even for holiday), getting to the destination airport only to find you have the next 4 days on a coach, and their inability to leave me alone to read a book instead of dragging me off to some club or group (which promptly divide into cliques of kids that want to be there and get massively excited, and kids like me who wanted to be left alone). I realise that makes me sound ungrateful, but nothing could be further from the truth - I loved going on holiday, and I thank my family for fuelling my desire to travel, but I much prefer doing things of my own accord.
So when it was decided* (*I was told) that we would be doing a beach holiday this year, having only done city based holidays for the previous couple of years, I was faced with the perennial nightmare of FF redeemers - reward flights to a beach destination. Specifically, BA reward flights as at the time I only had enough Avios to do a WT+ to CW upgrade (the eagle eyed amongst you may be putting 2+2 together here).
Basically it never happened. Couldn’t get any reward availability for anything suitable no matter how many times I checked at some ungodly hour 355 days out (In the end, those Avios, in conjunction with a bunch from cancelling a NYC trip, were used for a J+F on CX trip to HKG which was fantastic, so every cloud and all that.)
We realised we were going to have to pay. My bank manager felt a chill.
We settled on Grenada in the end, on the basis it was pretty much the only island in the Caribbean that neither of us had been to (yes, I realise there are loads of them, but you know what I mean), we’d done the Indian ocean for our honeymoon, and my suggestion of the Middle East was kaboshed. So, having decided on where we were going, I set about getting us there. Oh, and suitable accommodation. BA were out as we wanted a 10 day trip and they only flew there once a week when we booked, which pretty much left Virgin Atlantic whose twice weekly flights allow for the 10 nights. At the time, I hadn’t flown with them for a while, so had no idea what they were like. Resort wise we were undecided, until we read about the Sandals opening there and decided it was time to accept we’re older than our physical years and embrace their ideology. Added bonus - no kids there. Some may take offence at that, none is intended, I promise - we were just looking forward to a quiet holiday. And, as it turned out, we experienced badly behaved adults instead, but more on that later.
I’ve said before that Mrs Lem has now reached F on the ‘never flying less than’ scale (cue finding flights that don’t have an F cabin) so I knew this would have to be in Upper Class. When it came to pricing it up however, it soon became clear that this was a no-goer when booking separately - unless we wanted to fly in Premium Economy. I submitted this to the committee and she gave me her ‘look’. Back to the drawing board. She did later admit she would be fine flying in Premium Economy, but it was actually me that put my foot down about not wanting to do an overnight flight in an upright seat (despite my inability to sleep on planes). Turns out this was a wise call, some time later a friend announced his stag do in Amsterdam, leaving on the afternoon that we arrived back.
While mulling over our options (which at the time were “Go somewhere else”, “Fly PE” or “Suck it up and pay it”), some ancient memory flickered in my brain about having a Virgin Flying Club account and that giving you a discount on anything booked through Virgin Holidays. A cursory check indicated I was correct and a 7% discount was given to those in the basic, Red, membership tier, plus one Flying Club mile for every pound you spend. Not too shabby. But it would mean booking through a TA and abandoning my principles regarding package holidays (that principle being “Shoot me if I ever agree to a package holiday”).
Principles that went out the window as soon as I priced up the trip on VH’s website that, before discount, was a touch over 25% cheaper than booking separately. This meant we could not only fly there in Upper Class, but also get a better room, all for less than our original budget. Woof woof, yes please. But I’d be darned if there was anywhere for me to put my Flying Club number and obtain this further discount. Another check on Virgin Atlantic’s site advised that you have to call in to do this. Despite my usual interactions with people on the phone normally resulting in me sighing and shaking my head a lot (a work thing I should add), I was not put off and gallantly jumped right in.
Do Virgin provide their call centre staff with a caffeine drip?
In the space of one phone call I was called “Delightful”, “My lovely” and “Mr. Fancy Pants” by a woman I’ve never met, and who sounded so relentlessly cheery and smiley that her mouth must physically hurt if she ever has to frown. She could also speak at a thousand words a minute without pausing for breath. I was bewildered and my brain was starting to hurt. Unfortunately the sigh had to be issued as Sandals have about three dozen different room types at the resort and Ms. Delightful was having trouble finding the one we wanted - there is only so many times you can say “Pink gin ocean… No, pink gin. No, gin, like the drink, which I now need.” In the end I had to jump onto the Sandals website and find the room code they used, which enabled her to find the room and get us booked in. Flying Club discount was applied, we were all booked in, and I hung up and went to spend some time in a darkened room to let my senses return to normal.
Before we departed for Grenada, I had cause to call Virgin Holidays three more about the booking - the first time was down to being somewhat concerned that no flights had yet appeared under our booking three months after we’d made it. Turns out they somehow hadn’t been booked automatically, but this was resolved in relatively short order. The second time was when I acquired Flying Club Gold status and wanted that added to the VH side of the booking as it meant I got double the FC points per pound spent. When the lady I spoke to thanked me for being such a frequent flyer with Virgin, she too sounded so relentlessly cheery and smiley that I had no wish to ruin her day by telling her I’d acquired said status via a status match from my BA Gold card. More on the third time shortly.
In the intervening period, I also flew VS in UC to JFK and back on an A340-600, which while I thoroughly enjoyed, I wouldn’t go out of my way to fly them again - but felt it would be perfectly fine for this trip. Then I found we would be flying on an A330-300 and saw some opinions of the new Upper Class Dream Suite. Decided to stop reading the reviews after that. Besides, even if it is cramped, it’s still better than being down the back right? Right?
And speaking of reviews, the Sandals wasn’t even open when we booked it, so had to wait a while for reviews to appear. Top tip - do not read the reviews of somewhere when it’s only just opened, they’re never good. Fortunately they massively improved over the following months. And I guess if we always relied on other peoples opinions, none of us would ever go anywhere…
At T-60, seats were selected. At T-30, there were still at least 8 reward seats available in the UC cabin on both flights - wondering why it seemed such a quiet period there given it’s got a fairly consistent climate year round, I took to Google. Ah, hurricane season. Probably should have looked at this before booking. Fortunately Grenada hasn’t had a hurricane hit since Ivan in 2004. Although to me that means one was due. And our wedding anniversary was while we’re there. Hmmmmm.
With it being an early morning departure from Gatwick, I blew some Hhonors points on a suite at the Gatwick Hilton for the night before, with absolutely no idea if that was a good use of points or not as I could find practically no information or pictures on that type of room. But I’d had the points for ages and never get the chance to use them, so why not.
Then all there was to do was wait
Oh, and for Sandals to do a 50% off sale that meant we could have got a butler suite and still been well under budget. While new Virgin Holiday bookings could access this pricing, it was not available when trying to upgrade an existing one. The woman on the phone still sounded relentlessly cheery and smiley as she told me that…
Coming up in the next part - A King Suite at the Gatwick Hilton, the Virgin Clubhouse at Gatwick and the VS UC experience on an A330
Last edited by darthlemsip; Oct 27, 2014 at 4:48 am
Oct 28, 2014, 5:45 am
#9
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: London
Programs: BA Gold
Posts: 4,029
My wife likes to keep very tight control over the pennies (yet will happily sanction the spending of the GNP of a small nation on a holiday). So I’m not sure why I was surprised when I said “I’ll book cabs to get us to the hotel and back from the airport” I was met with “We’ll get the train!” This is not as simple as just getting a train – this is a bus, then a train and then another train. Anyone that read my Hong Kong report will know that I arrived at Heathrow with one arm about 3 inches longer than the other when I did a similar journey. So in the end, as we were travelling to the hotel the day before, a compromise was reached and we got the train to the hotel and a cab home.
Come the Sunday (where once again I was allowed no part of the packing, once again the case I was assigned weighed as much as a small car), we dragged the cases to the station. I look very happy about this
About 90 minutes later, thanks to the allegedly fast train being anything but due to the ever present Sunday engineering works, we arrived at the Gatwick Hilton. Check-in was a breeze, and we rather fortunately arrived before a whole bunch of people – by the time we were done, there was a queue back to the door. As Charlie Sheen would say – “Winning!” Our room was in the new block, which is a considerable distance from reception, and was a very good size.
But there the winning stopped. The room was very cold, and no amount of fiddling with the air-con could sort this out – including turning it off as it would just switch itself back on, one of the TV’s didn’t work at all, and the other forced subtitles on to everything. So we figured we’d head to the exec lounge and take full advantage of its offers. Mistake number 1. There was hardly anything there – some rather limp looking sarnies, and soft drinks only. Apparently you only got hot food and booze during happy hour from 6pm-9pm, so we figured we’d go and get something from room service (something else that didn’t tally up with the aforementioned financial controls). Arriving back at the room to find a basket of food on the table, I figured it was a Hhonors Gold benefit and we were about to tuck in when I noticed the card on the table addressed to a different couple. A couple who were having a wedding reception downstairs. After a number of attempts to call housekeeping, who simply never answered the phone, I tried the concierge and, upon explaining what had occurred, simply got an “Ok?....” followed by a very long pause, until I asked if they’d like to come and collect it. Being given a direct task seemed to stir our man into life and he came and collected the food a short while later, explaining that it was meant for the room below us and that someone would be along shortly with some food and drink for us – winning! Don’t need room service then. Well, until it arrived. Mistake number 2. Four chocolates and a bottle of red wine so rough that I’d be afraid to use it in cooking. However, by now it was well after 6pm so we headed back to the exec lounge to see what was available there, intending to head down to dinner shortly afterwards. Like the reward flights, it didn’t happen – the buffet was poor, but the menus for the restaurants looked expensive and even more uninteresting, so we stocked up on chicken wings, cheese and salad and made an executive (geddit?) decision to get up early instead and eat at the Clubhouse.
Had an early night and was out of the hotel at just after 6am. As airport hotels go, this one wasn’t the worst I’ve stayed in, but it certainly isn’t worth the price they charge for it if you were paying cash. Even though it didn’t cost me a penny, I still feel we’d have been better off using less points on a exec level room and saving the rest for something else. If we go anywhere from Gatwick South again, I think I’d prefer to stay at the Sofitel and get the monorail round.
But with that bit out of the way it was time to start the holiday proper, and presented ourselves at the Upper Class check-in and we were done and through security in no-time. I have to say Premium Gatwick is very good - whenever I’ve used it, it certainly seems to flow faster than the fast track at Heathrow T3 or T5.
A few minutes later we escaped the shopping centre you’re forced through and found ourselves in the Virgin Clubhouse – where we the first people (in fact, we were “the first lovely people”). It’s nowhere near as good as the LHR T3 Clubhouse (but then what is?), but it’s still a much more pleasant environment than many airport lounges. After an excellent breakfast we set off to find somewhere a bit more comfortable to sit, where Mrs Lem started a recurring theme of this holiday – bad photographs of me. Practically every single one I’m in is while I’m doing something like standing up, sitting down, blinking, looking away etc There is not a single good one of me from the trip, and that extended to the Sandals photographers (more on them later).
As an example, here’s me adjusting into the chair
So I end up looking like some weird combination of half sitting, half standing, half raising my glass, half blinking, leaning forward like a drunkard. And I hadn't even taken a sip of the Virgin Readhead yet. That’s about as good as pictures of me get. As you’ll see. Sigh…
Also, note the emergency socks on the table. The shoe shine man came round, where I discovered that some creature inside my shoes had managed to eat through the toe of both socks (which were also new) in the hour and a half I’d had them on. Fortunately said shoe shine man found this creature, no doubt in a cotton fed slumber, and disposed of it – which distracted him from the more obvious task of shining my shoes as they came back looking exactly the same…
It wasn’t too long before we were called for boarding (Virgin do seem to start this very early), and once again they nailed the boarding process. Right up until the door of the plane. In front of me was an old lady being assisted to the plane. When they got to the door, the man carrying her bag left it with the crew and handed over her boarding pass, before wishing her well and heading back. The lady asked for help with her bag, and the crew member who had taken her boarding pass looked at it and, in a very dismissive tone, said “Ooh no, you’re right down the back in 56, you’ll have to help yourself” before actually leaning over her and taking mine, breaking into a smile and saying “Upper class, right this way sir!” I wasn’t really having that, so told him, in as pleasant a tone as I could manage, “I’m ok thanks, I think it would be better if you helped this lady with her bag.” His face suggested he did not like this idea, but did it anyway. More on this particular crew member shortly. Mrs Lem was oblivious to all of this, having been led off to her seat by another crew member, and asked where I’d been – my reply of “Just making friends” was met with a sigh. She knows.
A quick photo of us at the seats (another bad one of me, where I now seem to have a lazy eye) and we were off.
First impressions of the cabin were quite mixed. It’s noticeably more crowded than any other UC cabin because of the denser seating, with very tight aisles, but figured we’d be ok as there had still been loads of seats available to buy the day before. Yet the cabin was eventually full, with some last minute upgraders (Virgin allowing you to use miles at the airport) and a couple of op-ups, so it felt crowded at times. At first I really liked the this particular iteration of the UC seat, it was noticeably wider at shoulder level than the other version I’d flown, and had a better placed drinks table and light, plus the IFE seemed much better. I was impressed. Until I tried to stretch out – because of the curvature of the ottoman, I could only extend one leg fully straight, and had to cross my other one over the top of it. That would not be comfortable for 9 hours, so gave up and alternated which leg I had up. That was very disappointing, and talking to the CSM she said that so many passengers and crew have complained about this version. Virgin had obviously taken some heed of these complaints as the version installed in the Dreamliner is different and closer to the old version, while there are some rumours that the A330’s will be refitted with the Dreamliner seat.
The food was pretty good, I think only Cathay’s has been better on anything I’ve flown of late, and the wine choice wasn’t too bad. However, once again it was the Virgin crew who made the flight – they were (mostly) superb. I know some don’t like the less formal attitude (there are a few on the BA forum who seem genuinely horrified by it), but I like it and enjoy the engagement with them. However, a crew can also break a flight, and while it wasn’t quite that extreme, come changeover at St Lucia, the experience was certainly sullied. Once the passengers had disembarked, and the crew started to swap, it all changed. First of all, the crew member from earlier, with the old lady and the bag, came bounding through the UC cabin and, having spotted some ground crew he knew, suddenly shouted “WAHEEEEEY! BIIIIG MAAAAN! HOW YOU DOING!!!!” right over a passenger who was getting something out of her bag, startling the life out of her. No apology, just pushed past her and carried on down the cabin. There was the usual chit chat you get between crews at changeover, but once we were off again, those of thus that remained on the plane were quite literally ignored. Seriously. The crew were all sat at the bar having a chat, the entertainment was left off, no drinks were offered and any requests for anything were treated like an inconvenience. Mrs Lem asked for a glass of water and was told they didn’t have any as they’d have to open a bottle – “Ok, so please open a bottle then” was met with a huff and rolled eyes. It really does go to show the chalk and cheese nature you can have between crews – 8 hours with a great one, 90 minutes with an appalling one.
But finally we came into Grenada, spotting the Sandals immediately on our left (picture in the next part of just how close) and we were off the plane and into a temperature that immediately made me regret my shirt and jacket attire (I wore the jacket as I didn’t want to pack it, thinking I’d need it for dinner, and then never wore it again for the rest of the holiday…)
Coming up next – Grenada part 1, think Belinda Carlisle once sang about it
Come the Sunday (where once again I was allowed no part of the packing, once again the case I was assigned weighed as much as a small car), we dragged the cases to the station. I look very happy about this
About 90 minutes later, thanks to the allegedly fast train being anything but due to the ever present Sunday engineering works, we arrived at the Gatwick Hilton. Check-in was a breeze, and we rather fortunately arrived before a whole bunch of people – by the time we were done, there was a queue back to the door. As Charlie Sheen would say – “Winning!” Our room was in the new block, which is a considerable distance from reception, and was a very good size.
But there the winning stopped. The room was very cold, and no amount of fiddling with the air-con could sort this out – including turning it off as it would just switch itself back on, one of the TV’s didn’t work at all, and the other forced subtitles on to everything. So we figured we’d head to the exec lounge and take full advantage of its offers. Mistake number 1. There was hardly anything there – some rather limp looking sarnies, and soft drinks only. Apparently you only got hot food and booze during happy hour from 6pm-9pm, so we figured we’d go and get something from room service (something else that didn’t tally up with the aforementioned financial controls). Arriving back at the room to find a basket of food on the table, I figured it was a Hhonors Gold benefit and we were about to tuck in when I noticed the card on the table addressed to a different couple. A couple who were having a wedding reception downstairs. After a number of attempts to call housekeeping, who simply never answered the phone, I tried the concierge and, upon explaining what had occurred, simply got an “Ok?....” followed by a very long pause, until I asked if they’d like to come and collect it. Being given a direct task seemed to stir our man into life and he came and collected the food a short while later, explaining that it was meant for the room below us and that someone would be along shortly with some food and drink for us – winning! Don’t need room service then. Well, until it arrived. Mistake number 2. Four chocolates and a bottle of red wine so rough that I’d be afraid to use it in cooking. However, by now it was well after 6pm so we headed back to the exec lounge to see what was available there, intending to head down to dinner shortly afterwards. Like the reward flights, it didn’t happen – the buffet was poor, but the menus for the restaurants looked expensive and even more uninteresting, so we stocked up on chicken wings, cheese and salad and made an executive (geddit?) decision to get up early instead and eat at the Clubhouse.
Had an early night and was out of the hotel at just after 6am. As airport hotels go, this one wasn’t the worst I’ve stayed in, but it certainly isn’t worth the price they charge for it if you were paying cash. Even though it didn’t cost me a penny, I still feel we’d have been better off using less points on a exec level room and saving the rest for something else. If we go anywhere from Gatwick South again, I think I’d prefer to stay at the Sofitel and get the monorail round.
But with that bit out of the way it was time to start the holiday proper, and presented ourselves at the Upper Class check-in and we were done and through security in no-time. I have to say Premium Gatwick is very good - whenever I’ve used it, it certainly seems to flow faster than the fast track at Heathrow T3 or T5.
A few minutes later we escaped the shopping centre you’re forced through and found ourselves in the Virgin Clubhouse – where we the first people (in fact, we were “the first lovely people”). It’s nowhere near as good as the LHR T3 Clubhouse (but then what is?), but it’s still a much more pleasant environment than many airport lounges. After an excellent breakfast we set off to find somewhere a bit more comfortable to sit, where Mrs Lem started a recurring theme of this holiday – bad photographs of me. Practically every single one I’m in is while I’m doing something like standing up, sitting down, blinking, looking away etc There is not a single good one of me from the trip, and that extended to the Sandals photographers (more on them later).
As an example, here’s me adjusting into the chair
So I end up looking like some weird combination of half sitting, half standing, half raising my glass, half blinking, leaning forward like a drunkard. And I hadn't even taken a sip of the Virgin Readhead yet. That’s about as good as pictures of me get. As you’ll see. Sigh…
Also, note the emergency socks on the table. The shoe shine man came round, where I discovered that some creature inside my shoes had managed to eat through the toe of both socks (which were also new) in the hour and a half I’d had them on. Fortunately said shoe shine man found this creature, no doubt in a cotton fed slumber, and disposed of it – which distracted him from the more obvious task of shining my shoes as they came back looking exactly the same…
It wasn’t too long before we were called for boarding (Virgin do seem to start this very early), and once again they nailed the boarding process. Right up until the door of the plane. In front of me was an old lady being assisted to the plane. When they got to the door, the man carrying her bag left it with the crew and handed over her boarding pass, before wishing her well and heading back. The lady asked for help with her bag, and the crew member who had taken her boarding pass looked at it and, in a very dismissive tone, said “Ooh no, you’re right down the back in 56, you’ll have to help yourself” before actually leaning over her and taking mine, breaking into a smile and saying “Upper class, right this way sir!” I wasn’t really having that, so told him, in as pleasant a tone as I could manage, “I’m ok thanks, I think it would be better if you helped this lady with her bag.” His face suggested he did not like this idea, but did it anyway. More on this particular crew member shortly. Mrs Lem was oblivious to all of this, having been led off to her seat by another crew member, and asked where I’d been – my reply of “Just making friends” was met with a sigh. She knows.
A quick photo of us at the seats (another bad one of me, where I now seem to have a lazy eye) and we were off.
First impressions of the cabin were quite mixed. It’s noticeably more crowded than any other UC cabin because of the denser seating, with very tight aisles, but figured we’d be ok as there had still been loads of seats available to buy the day before. Yet the cabin was eventually full, with some last minute upgraders (Virgin allowing you to use miles at the airport) and a couple of op-ups, so it felt crowded at times. At first I really liked the this particular iteration of the UC seat, it was noticeably wider at shoulder level than the other version I’d flown, and had a better placed drinks table and light, plus the IFE seemed much better. I was impressed. Until I tried to stretch out – because of the curvature of the ottoman, I could only extend one leg fully straight, and had to cross my other one over the top of it. That would not be comfortable for 9 hours, so gave up and alternated which leg I had up. That was very disappointing, and talking to the CSM she said that so many passengers and crew have complained about this version. Virgin had obviously taken some heed of these complaints as the version installed in the Dreamliner is different and closer to the old version, while there are some rumours that the A330’s will be refitted with the Dreamliner seat.
The food was pretty good, I think only Cathay’s has been better on anything I’ve flown of late, and the wine choice wasn’t too bad. However, once again it was the Virgin crew who made the flight – they were (mostly) superb. I know some don’t like the less formal attitude (there are a few on the BA forum who seem genuinely horrified by it), but I like it and enjoy the engagement with them. However, a crew can also break a flight, and while it wasn’t quite that extreme, come changeover at St Lucia, the experience was certainly sullied. Once the passengers had disembarked, and the crew started to swap, it all changed. First of all, the crew member from earlier, with the old lady and the bag, came bounding through the UC cabin and, having spotted some ground crew he knew, suddenly shouted “WAHEEEEEY! BIIIIG MAAAAN! HOW YOU DOING!!!!” right over a passenger who was getting something out of her bag, startling the life out of her. No apology, just pushed past her and carried on down the cabin. There was the usual chit chat you get between crews at changeover, but once we were off again, those of thus that remained on the plane were quite literally ignored. Seriously. The crew were all sat at the bar having a chat, the entertainment was left off, no drinks were offered and any requests for anything were treated like an inconvenience. Mrs Lem asked for a glass of water and was told they didn’t have any as they’d have to open a bottle – “Ok, so please open a bottle then” was met with a huff and rolled eyes. It really does go to show the chalk and cheese nature you can have between crews – 8 hours with a great one, 90 minutes with an appalling one.
But finally we came into Grenada, spotting the Sandals immediately on our left (picture in the next part of just how close) and we were off the plane and into a temperature that immediately made me regret my shirt and jacket attire (I wore the jacket as I didn’t want to pack it, thinking I’d need it for dinner, and then never wore it again for the rest of the holiday…)
Coming up next – Grenada part 1, think Belinda Carlisle once sang about it
Last edited by darthlemsip; Oct 28, 2014 at 8:08 am
Oct 30, 2014, 6:37 am
#13
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Dallas, TX
Programs: AA Concierge Key, SPG Plat, Hyatt Diam
Posts: 510
Lem - your writing style is very entertaining. Typically on text heavy TRs I miss the pictures but not in this case.
My favorite part is in regards to Ms Lem doing all the packing - no matter how many times I read it (across your trip reports), it always gets me to chuckle.
Well done sir!
My favorite part is in regards to Ms Lem doing all the packing - no matter how many times I read it (across your trip reports), it always gets me to chuckle.
Well done sir!
Nov 3, 2014, 5:55 am
#15
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: London
Programs: BA Gold
Posts: 4,029
Right, so where was I when I left you last? Oh yeah, sweating.
Suffice to say it was rather warm upon arrival, but no major hold ups getting out of the airport, through the Virgin Holidays rep, and onto the (mercifully air-conditioned) mini-bus to the Sandals resort. A whole 5 minutes away. When I said it was close to the airport, I wasn’t kidding – took these a few days later when the next Virgin flight arrived (coincidentally, exactly the same plane we were on).
Oooh look, plane..
See, told you the airport was close…
Fortunately GND isn’t exactly a busy airport, so while you certainly knew it when a big passenger jet landed, it was pretty infrequent.
Anyway, back to the resort. What I thought I’d do is split the review of Grenada into different parts, I’ll deal with the Sandals in the first few bits (as there’s only so much you can say about an all-inclusive resort), and do a separate section on the rest of Grenada. Hopefully that will contain enough to hold your interest…
So, having been dropped off at reception and our bags ushered away somewhere, we were immediately presented with a glass of champagne and asked to take a seat in some rather comfy chairs while we were checked in. Nice.
As I write this, I’m reminded that the there was another time I contacted Virgin Holidays that’s not mentioned in the first post. As I also mentioned there, when we first booked this holiday the resort wasn’t open. This led to a bit of a cock up with the room classes – when we booked, we paid a bit extra for an upgraded room, but once the hotel opened it actually then got reclassified as the most basic one. Not that Virgin Holidays contacted us to tell us this, it was only Mrs Lem’s keen eye that spotted it. So off I go on the phone to a member of the relentlessly cheery squad who confirmed what we had seen, and offered to upgrade us to an Oceanview Penthouse at a discounted rate. Fair enough. Although having now checked, it would appear that we paid full whack – I’m really not sure I can be bothered to go through the hassle of arguing this one, I may just use it as another feather to my bow of ‘Travel Agent Hatred’…
‘Where is he going with this?’ I hear nobody ask. Well, in the intervening months, we decided that if we’re going to spend as much as we did on a trip, we might as well spend a bit more and upgrade the room further. However, while Sandals themselves had plenty of different room types available, only Virgin Holidays were able to alter our booking before arriving at the hotel, and they only had Butler Suites left. With no lottery win to call on in order to fund this, we waited until we arrived to see what we could do, having set our sights on one of the club level rooms (concierge service, mini bar and wi-fi included etc). The resort was at 95% occupancy and none of those rooms were available, but the club service was available at a subsidy. Done. Or so I thought, more on that later.
We were then whisked off to the room, with a short tour of the facilities on the way, and first thoughts were a) “Bloody hell that was a steep hill to get here”, b)“How did our cases get here so quickly?” and c) “This is a penthouse?”
Nice view
But it was all a bit small
Naturally with me midway through moving...
But who goes to a Caribbean island to sit in their room anyway (well, other than honeymooners...)? Quick shower and change, and we headed out to explore.
First impressions were simply “wow!” – the resort is big, but so well designed that you would never know there were over 400 guests there at the time. It was also immaculate, full of friendly staff, and, seemingly, very peaceful. Following the first of many beers and many, many ridiculously strong cocktails (over the whole holiday, not the first night I hasten to add…), we observed it was suddenly dark, like someone had switched off the sun, travel fatigue had set in from the long day, and that we were hungry. One of the best things about the place is that you’re never far away from somewhere to eat, so we ambled over to the nearest restaurant, Neptunes, and set about our first meal. Which ultimately was disappointing. It wasn’t bad by any measure of the word, but there was just nothing much to it. Still, it was only the first of ten places, and being shattered probably didn’t help.
We headed off to the main bar and sat in a ridiculously comfy lounger facing some of the butler suites, where our eyes were immediately drawn to movement - let's just say that thankfully they had drawn the curtains, however the light in the room had the effect of projecting their, err, 'activities' onto said curtain.
Having laughed at that for a few minutes, we decided to get our heads down at a reasonable hour and be refreshed for the next day. Naturally we were both awake about 4am… *sigh*
I best do some work now, but coming up in the next part Cocktails! Resort photos! Beer! Noise! More cocktails
Back soon
Suffice to say it was rather warm upon arrival, but no major hold ups getting out of the airport, through the Virgin Holidays rep, and onto the (mercifully air-conditioned) mini-bus to the Sandals resort. A whole 5 minutes away. When I said it was close to the airport, I wasn’t kidding – took these a few days later when the next Virgin flight arrived (coincidentally, exactly the same plane we were on).
Oooh look, plane..
See, told you the airport was close…
Fortunately GND isn’t exactly a busy airport, so while you certainly knew it when a big passenger jet landed, it was pretty infrequent.
Anyway, back to the resort. What I thought I’d do is split the review of Grenada into different parts, I’ll deal with the Sandals in the first few bits (as there’s only so much you can say about an all-inclusive resort), and do a separate section on the rest of Grenada. Hopefully that will contain enough to hold your interest…
So, having been dropped off at reception and our bags ushered away somewhere, we were immediately presented with a glass of champagne and asked to take a seat in some rather comfy chairs while we were checked in. Nice.
As I write this, I’m reminded that the there was another time I contacted Virgin Holidays that’s not mentioned in the first post. As I also mentioned there, when we first booked this holiday the resort wasn’t open. This led to a bit of a cock up with the room classes – when we booked, we paid a bit extra for an upgraded room, but once the hotel opened it actually then got reclassified as the most basic one. Not that Virgin Holidays contacted us to tell us this, it was only Mrs Lem’s keen eye that spotted it. So off I go on the phone to a member of the relentlessly cheery squad who confirmed what we had seen, and offered to upgrade us to an Oceanview Penthouse at a discounted rate. Fair enough. Although having now checked, it would appear that we paid full whack – I’m really not sure I can be bothered to go through the hassle of arguing this one, I may just use it as another feather to my bow of ‘Travel Agent Hatred’…
‘Where is he going with this?’ I hear nobody ask. Well, in the intervening months, we decided that if we’re going to spend as much as we did on a trip, we might as well spend a bit more and upgrade the room further. However, while Sandals themselves had plenty of different room types available, only Virgin Holidays were able to alter our booking before arriving at the hotel, and they only had Butler Suites left. With no lottery win to call on in order to fund this, we waited until we arrived to see what we could do, having set our sights on one of the club level rooms (concierge service, mini bar and wi-fi included etc). The resort was at 95% occupancy and none of those rooms were available, but the club service was available at a subsidy. Done. Or so I thought, more on that later.
We were then whisked off to the room, with a short tour of the facilities on the way, and first thoughts were a) “Bloody hell that was a steep hill to get here”, b)“How did our cases get here so quickly?” and c) “This is a penthouse?”
Nice view
But it was all a bit small
Naturally with me midway through moving...
But who goes to a Caribbean island to sit in their room anyway (well, other than honeymooners...)? Quick shower and change, and we headed out to explore.
First impressions were simply “wow!” – the resort is big, but so well designed that you would never know there were over 400 guests there at the time. It was also immaculate, full of friendly staff, and, seemingly, very peaceful. Following the first of many beers and many, many ridiculously strong cocktails (over the whole holiday, not the first night I hasten to add…), we observed it was suddenly dark, like someone had switched off the sun, travel fatigue had set in from the long day, and that we were hungry. One of the best things about the place is that you’re never far away from somewhere to eat, so we ambled over to the nearest restaurant, Neptunes, and set about our first meal. Which ultimately was disappointing. It wasn’t bad by any measure of the word, but there was just nothing much to it. Still, it was only the first of ten places, and being shattered probably didn’t help.
We headed off to the main bar and sat in a ridiculously comfy lounger facing some of the butler suites, where our eyes were immediately drawn to movement - let's just say that thankfully they had drawn the curtains, however the light in the room had the effect of projecting their, err, 'activities' onto said curtain.
Having laughed at that for a few minutes, we decided to get our heads down at a reasonable hour and be refreshed for the next day. Naturally we were both awake about 4am… *sigh*
I best do some work now, but coming up in the next part Cocktails! Resort photos! Beer! Noise! More cocktails
Back soon