Sorry for the silly title, my hope is it will be picked up by search engines and offer more warning to the fellow travelers.

This is about Air Canada A330-300 (A333) bulkhead row 18 specifically seats 18A 18C 18H 18K, and to smaller degree 18D 18E 18F and 18G. Do not take seats in this row unless you are small and have short legs. Or enjoy self-abuse. They are advertised as preferred seats, but you still don't want to sit there for more than maybe 30 minutes. You don't have to thank me

I took AC874 from YUL to FRA in their Airbus 330-300. I checked SeatGuru, saw the warnings for row 18, but chose not to listen and told the friendly lady at AC call center, who offered me 18C (since I'm valuable Star Gold dude), that I'll take it. Huge mistake. The bulkhead is indeed there, and if you happen to be over about 5'-8" or so with average length legs, you will not be able to stretch your knees. There is nowhere to put your feet, no row of seats in front of you, no space, just a wall. I am close to 6'-4" tall. Technically speaking the leg room there is normal at about 32", but since you can't slip your feet under the seats in front of you, you can't stretch your legs. The level of discomfort is amazing, the contorted position forces you to think about it the whole time. Every 15-20 minutes I tried to put my legs up high on the bulkhead wall, but that's about all you can do. You get up and walk a bit more. No way to stick your legs to the aisle, the armrests are immoveable, the exception would be seats 18D and 18F, which somewhat allow you to stick your feet out. Of course you will get crushed by the carts ...

I had 18H on the way back, already changed it.

It is incredible that AC sells these seats as Preferred. Most of my flights in the past 25 years were in coach, so I know when I see bad seat. I had plenty of time to think while sitting there, and I could only remember the Lufthansa 747 back in 1993 I took from Boston to Frankfurt, that was equally as bad. I haven't taken LH 747 in coach since then, so I don't know if they got better or worse, but I recall I literally could not fit in then.

This of course is the first world problem, but the FT in general is all about that. I told my daughter after the landing and munching on scrambled eggs and pretty good cappuccino in LH lounge (after taking a hot shower of course), how bad the flight was but Columbus would still be impressed we made it across in 7.5 hours. Via gHangout, because she just landed in LHR ...

Good luck!