Air Canada rouge Flight Report and Feedback Thread
 

Hi all,

Taking a page out of Andrew's book from a few years ago, we'd like to have a dedicated place where you can post your experiences when flying on AC rouge. We hear there are some things we can improve, so we feel having one repository of sorts will serve as a good way for us to centralise that feedback and act on it more quickly. This will help us identify gaps where we need to work on as we strive to improve our products and improve on consistency. It will also allow us to identify areas where we are performing well and pass on commendation. Let's keep this thread to feedback only and not have discussions in here.

Thanks all.

My suggestion would be to copy the form below and select the onboard section pertaining to your cabin flown:

Flight/Origin-Destination:
Date:
Cabin:
Status:

Pre departure
Was check in quick and efficient?
Was priority boarding offered (if applicable to your status) and efficient?
If there was a delay, did the gate agent provide timely updates?

Onboard - Premium rouge cabin:
Were the crew professional & well groomed?
If there was a delay, were you provided with timely updates?
Did the IFE work as expected?
Was a pre-departure beverage offered on the ground?
Were newspapers & menus distributed and meal orders taken (Please specify when meal orders were taken - on the ground or in the air)?
Approximately how long after take off did it take for the first meal service to be completed? (From takeoff to all items collected)
How was the quality of all the meals?
Did the cabin crew continiously top up the beverage of your choice throughout the flight?

Onboard - rouge cabin:
Were the crew professional & well groomed?
If there was a delay, were you provided with timely updates?
Did the IFE work as expected?
Approximately how long after take off did it take for the first meal service/Onboard cafe to begin?
How was the quality of the meal/Onboard cafe?
Did the cabin crew offer water regularly throughout the flight?

Post departure
If you have checked baggage, did it arrive within reasonable period of time?

Overall experience/any other comments

EDIT: Please note that while we may not respond directly, we are reading every post and taking notes on how we can improve!

My 1st Rouge experience
 

Flight/Origin:

YOW-YYZ-CUN (YOW-YYZ on mainline)
Dec 31st
Economy A319

Pre-departure:
YOW-YYZ arrived late, connection was tight but made final boarding call.

On Board:
Had no time to buy something to eat at YYZ, so decided to choose from the On Board items. I had a sandwich and coke, the Mrs had the Pizza and Martini.

Mrs Heffeh41 felt sick shortly after finishing her dinner, so we looked in the seat pockets, but no sick bag could be found. She decided to head towards the bathroom at the rear of the plane, but someone was inside.
End result: She accidentally vomited all over a crew member that was standing in the rear galley.

Post departure
Bag arrived as it should.

Overall Comments:
-Do Rouge flights carry sick bags?
-I will only fly Rouge again if they are the cheapest seat to where I'm going.

I had 2 flights on rouge recently. The overall experience was ok. No surprise, everything was as expected for a low cost carrier. I bought a sandwich at one flight and it was just as other AC flights. I brought my ipad with me so I could use the on-boad entertaiment app which is quite nice.

I've done 2 round trips on the A-319 in Rouge Premium on the YYZ-NAS route since the beginning of May. My biggest complaint, and the most important from my viewpoint are the seats....I find them too narrow and incredibly uncomfortable in design and legroom. The other thing that is seriously problematic in my opinion is the reduction in available overhead bins due to the removal of the closet....so now the aircrafts safety equipment and the FAs luggage are taking up the space in about half of the available overhead bins in the Premium Rouge cabin....I think your going to see some serious issues this coming winter with all the heavy winter jackets added into the mix.

I found the food,drinks,etc on all 4 flights to be virtually the same as mainline,so perfectly acceptable.
The FAs all seemed friendly and still enthusiastic although a bit inexperienced at times...just some of the cheesy/cutesy announcements are a tiny bit irritating but bearable.

I have no comment on the IFE issues...I never used it on Rouge or mainline so don't really care about it.

I'm based in YUL....I might use Rouge Premium A-319 in future for direct, non-stop flights from YUL, of 3 hours or less...but I'm not going to fly to YYZ on mainline just to then get onto a Rouge flight. In closeting....bring back true business class seating and I'm back in your aircraft...until then I'm on mainline or another airline....

Flight/Origin-Destination: YYZ-PHX
Date: May 2014
Cabin: Y
Status: 50K


Onboard - rouge cabin:
Were the crew professional & well groomed? Yes
If there was a delay, were you provided with timely updates? 10 hour delay. 3 hours on the plane (at the gate, not allowed off the plane), 2 hours in the gate area once allowed off the plane, 5 hours while they flew in another rouge plane.
Did the IFE work as expected? honestly, don't remember. Was still furious at being on a rouge flight.
Approximately how long after take off did it take for the first meal service/Onboard cafe to begin? See above
How was the quality of the meal/Onboard cafe?
Did the cabin crew offer water regularly throughout the flight?

Post departure
[B]If you have checked baggage, did it arrive within reasonable period of time?[/B NA

Overall experience/any other comments
You will never, ever, EVER find me on a Rouge flight ever again. I am 5'9" and my knees were hitting the seat in front of me before the guy reclined. This flight was not Rouge when I booked it, but got "rouged" between time of booking and departure.

The elderly couple beside me (window and middle) were distraught because they followed instructions and boarded when called, therefore all overhead space was taken. They had their feet space jammed with their carry-on (and not because of oversized carry-on) and less than zero leg room.

Three hours on the plane, at the gate, while they tried to fix "an IT issue" ... I'm all for not flying on a plane that shouldn't be flown, but let us off the darned aircraft - especially when we're sitting at the gate.

While the crew were eager and cheerful, the hard product was intolerable.

Never, ever, ever, not ever, will I get on a Rouge plane again.

Ever.

ooh ooh this is going to be fun -- going to contribute while i can still make it on the first page :D

Flight/Origin-Destination: YVR-SFO
Date: Jul 7, 2014
Cabin: J
Status: SE

Pre departure
Was check in quick and efficient?

Yup, I love using the almost always-empty SE check-in line. Only minor complaint I have (and this also extends to YYZ domestic and tb, and YUL domestic) is that I really dislike it when the check-in agent (or the "queue dragon" for YYZ tb) always have to ask me "are you SE?" -- don't they know who i am :mad:

Was priority boarding offered (if applicable to your status) and efficient?
Yup. But PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give SE and J higher boarding priority. Even eewnited does this!

If there was a delay, did the gate agent provide timely updates?
Don't remember a delay

Onboard - Premium rouge cabin:
Were the crew professional & well groomed?
Yup. I REALLY love their hats :-:

If there was a delay, were you provided with timely updates?
No delays

Did the IFE work as expected?
Strictly speaking, yes. But I found some aspects of the iPad app's UI to be a bit nonintuitive. Also, what's with the outdated IFE selections?

Was a pre-departure beverage offered on the ground?
I think so ... I can't remember anymore, sorry :o

Were newspapers & menus distributed and meal orders taken (Please specify when meal orders were taken - on the ground or in the air)?
I can't remember either :( ... but I distinctly recall that they didn't really take meal orders by status ....

Approximately how long after take off did it take for the first meal service to be completed? (From takeoff to all items collected)
Took around 1h15m. I distinctly remember either just finished or almost finished eating when I hear the "we're going to land soon" PA announcement

How was the quality of all the meals?
Just a bit inferior to AC

Did the cabin crew continiously top up the beverage of your choice throughout the flight?
Yup!


Post departure
If you have checked baggage, did it arrive within reasonable period of time?
No bags

Overall experience/any other comments

On my flight, the blocked middle row had big plump pillows (like Classic J pod). Please don't get rid of those (I can imagine some beancounter wanting to remove them to reduce weight).

And one more :p

Previous post was YVR-SFO, this one is for a SFO-YVR flight that I took a few days earlier, which I decided to sit "in the back" (not really... 4D) to experience rouge whY

Flight/Origin-Destination: SFO-YVR
Date: Jul 3 2014
Cabin: whY
Status: SE

Pre departure
Was check in quick and efficient?

Yes...ish. A couple was taking up an inordinate amount of the J/*G check-in agent's time. I had to wait quite a few minutes before someone noticed me waiting and opened a counter for me.

Was priority boarding offered (if applicable to your status) and efficient?

Yup but again, please please please please find a way to give SE and J even higher priority for boarding!

If there was a delay, did the gate agent provide timely updates?

Yes.

I'm noticing a very annoying trend where I don't think ANY of my ex-SFO flights this year have boarded on time (i.e. within 10min AFTER the printed boarding time on the bp). So I'm used to hearing the standard "Thank you for your patience; the plane has just landed and will be at the gate soon, boarding should start at [time]"

This flight was particularly egregious because it caused me to misconnect. I originally planned on arriving YYZ at 10am and I arrived at 7pm instead.


Onboard - rouge cabin:
Were the crew professional & well groomed?
Yup!

If there was a delay, were you provided with timely updates?
No delays

Did the IFE work as expected?
Forgot to bring my iPad, so I spent the time looking at the 787 poster folded inside the seatback pocket

Approximately how long after take off did it take for the first meal service/Onboard cafe to begin?
Unfortunately, don't remember :/ but it was relatively prompt

How was the quality of the meal/Onboard cafe?
I only eat the shepherd's pie, which I sadly found out got taken out of rotation (please bring it back!!!!). So I had to settle for the pizza. I had it once before doing YYZ-SFO and this time it was equally .... meh.

On the bright side, it's hot food ...

On the other side, well ... the pizza looks really grotesque. The only way I can describe it off the top of my head is ..... well, it's like taking the skin scraped off the back of a diseased patient suffering from a combined case of jaundice and cowpox. I'm sorry for the imagery

Did the cabin crew offer water regularly throughout the flight?
Yup

Post departure
If you have checked baggage, did it arrive within reasonable period of time?
No checked bags

Overall experience/any other comments

I really like the rouge concept (as long as I'm sitting in row 4 or up front). The combination of young crew, new "friendlier" choice of words for PA announcements, and uniform (with the hats!!!) feels fun (or as much as an airline can make flying "fun") and refreshing.

Also, SFO seriously needs concierge service. I tried calling LAX and got an answering machine to call another number (seriously??). Couldn't jot the number down so ended up calling YVR concierge. And now I have a $5 international charge on my cell phone bill :td:

Flight/Origin-Destination: LAXYVR
Date: 8 Aug
Cabin: J
Status: E50K

Pre departure
Was check in quick and efficient? OLCI ^
Was priority boarding offered (if applicable to your status) and efficient?
--do not know
If there was a delay, did the gate agent provide timely updates?
--flight disappeared from AC app at departure time. The flight wasn't posted as delayed, preventing anyone from having any idea what was going on
--I told every agent I was deaf and needed to be informed of changes, and not once did they do this. There were, as usual, a lot of people needing agent service prior to the apparent delay, and I really hate having to stand in line waiting to tell them something they could not be less interested to know, but it burns me to stand in line ten minutes, have them give me the "roll eyes" look and then blow me off by not bothering to give me the information they blab into the PA
--trying to get an idea what was going on, the sourpuss gate agent hissed at me to siddown (and, implicitly, shaddup) "we don't have a plane". (You do too. It's right there. Now, it might be on fire, full of termites, or have a dead body on it, but I am looking right at it, so you do so have "a plane". You apparently don't have one you are prepared to put me on at the scheduled time. Stop with the jargon and give me facts.)
--My concern about my 90 minute connection in YVR seemed to be mine alone - it did not seem they were checking whether connecting passengers might need assistance with disrupted plans. (and since they were not forthright about the delay, how could passengers fix their own problems?) The great AC Twitter team rebooked me and I simply had to get the cranky apathetic gate agents to print the paperwork. Unprompted, they also gave me a "controllable delay" $15 meal voucher ^ that wasn't valid anywhere that I could find :td:.
--icing on the cake was that not only did I not connect to the aircraft with a lie-flat J seat for the red-eye, but the red-eye mainline direct flight was almost 1000 AQM less.
--although I was no longer on it, the rouge pushed back about 4 hours delayed


Post departure
If you have checked baggage, did it arrive within reasonable period of time?
--After I got my rebooked BP, I inquired about my bag and was half expecting it not to be transferred, but hooray, they did it.

Overall experience/any other comments
--My business travel is often to "tourist" destinations so sadly, I see the jaunty hats, overcooked bread rolls, and hiding FAs more than I wish. However, this is one rouge flight I wish I'd taken because I was booked in relatively painless J, and I really needed that connection to the pod. :(

Flight/Origin-Destination: YYZ/CUN
Date:03 Aug 2014
Cabin:Y
Status:E50

Pre departure
Was check in quick and efficient? Yes
Was priority boarding offered (if applicable to your status) and efficient? Yes though chaotic at gate and not enforced
If there was a delay, did the gate agent provide timely updates? No delay

Onboard - Premium rouge cabin:
Were the crew professional & well groomed?
If there was a delay, were you provided with timely updates?
Did the IFE work as expected?
Was a pre-departure beverage offered on the ground?
Were newspapers & menus distributed and meal orders taken (Please specify when meal orders were taken - on the ground or in the air)?
Approximately how long after take off did it take for the first meal service to be completed? (From takeoff to all items collected)
How was the quality of all the meals?
Did the cabin crew continiously top up the beverage of your choice throughout the flight?

Onboard - rouge cabin:
Were the crew professional & well groomed? Yes
If there was a delay, were you provided with timely updates? N delay
Did the IFE work as expected? Yes
Approximately how long after take off did it take for the first meal service/Onboard cafe to begin? 20 mins
How was the quality of the meal/Onboard cafe? Did not try the meals
Did the cabin crew offer water regularly throughout the flight? Yes

Post departure
If you have checked baggage, did it arrive within reasonable period of time? Yes

Overall experience/any other comments
Good FA crew though since they all seem to be 20+ they rattle thru the anonuncements in FFWD mode. I was in row 4. Some family and friends in 12 and other rows. Several other pax discussed crammed seats. FAs were very friendly.

Flight/Origin-Destination:
YYC-LAS
E50k
Y/Rouge class seats
Fare was significantly higher than one-stop options. Reluctantly purchased Rouge due to non stop service (and WS flight time not optimal)

Pre departure
Was check in quick and efficient?
Identical to mainline


Onboard - rouge cabin:
Were the crew professional & well groomed?
Yes, although the Rouge announcement script became tiring and annoying quite quickly -- particularly the silly "your gear" lingo. Pretty hard to pull off an attempt at being fun/whimsical when you're reading (awkwardly) a corp comm script.

If there was a delay, were you provided with timely updates?
Delay yes. Updates no.

Did the IFE work as expected?
Yes. Many pax around me upset at learning of the mandatory iPad requirement to use IFE.

Approximately how long after take off did it take for the first meal service/Onboard cafe to begin?
Quickly -- acceptable.

How was the quality of the meal/Onboard cafe?
Passable, but not great. Like mainline, very few options that are both healthy and good. Had a Greek salad which was decent (even though it seemed like a fast food chain version of a salad.)

Did the cabin crew offer water regularly throughout the flight?
Yes.

Seating and cabin comfort
Noticed that you forgot to include this category in the review format.

Y cabin seating was awful. Awful, awful, awful, awful.

I'm 6'4". Sitting in Y class was utterly painful.

For the duration of my flight, I sat on your plane angry at Air Canada for thinking it appropriate to sell a product that does not even offer the most basic of human needs -- space for one's own body. To fork out my own money and then to be required to sit contorted and utterly uncomfortable was a horrendous experience.


Post departure
If you have checked baggage, did it arrive within reasonable period of time?
Carry on only.

Overall experience/any other comments[/QUOTE]
I have one future Rouge flight booked -- YYC/LAX (Initially booked mainline, but then Rouged after the fact.) Have booked Plus seating for that flight, which appears to be my only option with you. (I'm a Y class, Flex fare customer of AC). Sadly that limits my possible seats to only 6 per plane.

Highly unlikely that I will fly Rouge again after that trip unless Y space issues are addressed.

Flight/Origin-Destination: CUN/YYZ
Date: 10 Aug 2014
Cabin: Y
Status: E50

Pre departure
Was check in quick and efficient? Yes, one family ahead of us.
Was priority boarding offered (if applicable to your status) and efficient? Yes
If there was a delay, did the gate agent provide timely updates? No delay

Onboard - Premium rouge cabin:
Were the crew professional & well groomed?
If there was a delay, were you provided with timely updates?
Did the IFE work as expected?
Was a pre-departure beverage offered on the ground?
Were newspapers & menus distributed and meal orders taken (Please specify when meal orders were taken - on the ground or in the air)?
Approximately how long after take off did it take for the first meal service to be completed? (From takeoff to all items collected)
How was the quality of all the meals?
Did the cabin crew continiously top up the beverage of your choice throughout the flight?

Onboard - rouge cabin:
Were the crew professional & well groomed? Yes
If there was a delay, were you provided with timely updates? No delay, left gate slightly early.
Did the IFE work as expected? No IFE at all. Recd a email from AC a couple o hours before dep advising no IFE but no comp.
Approximately how long after take off did it take for the first meal service/Onboard cafe to begin? 30 mins
How was the quality of the meal/Onboard cafe? Just had a beer.
Did the cabin crew offer water regularly throughout the flight? Couple of times

Post departure
If you have checked baggage, did it arrive within reasonable period of time? Priority checked bags came out first, hallelujah

Overall experience/any other comments
Fifth Rouge flight this year (1 from LAS-YYZ and 2 round trips YYZ-CUN incl one J segment in a 767 Rouge) and crew seems to be better. General customer dissatisfaction with seat space, not sure if this translates to future lost sales or not. This is based on other customers discussions. I was ok in row 4. I would not fly Rouge to Europe. 4 hr flight is the limit with this seat pitch. Really need IFE to keep busy. How about wifi?

Wow - great job to AC and Ben's for posting this.

1) So I know AC's desire to save space reduces knee room significantly which is probably a main source of complaint.

As a tall flier, I would suggest raising the height of the seats by a few inches on the rouge aircraft if this is possible by modifying the frames or something. This way legs would have more room to "dangle down" and thus creating more room for the legs without increasing pitch. Very similar to adjusting heights for office chairs, it's a way to increase room for legs - downwards - instead of forwards. See my simple illustration for details - where the "hypoteneuse" has increased due to increase in height of seat but not in the pitch between seats.

http://i1368.photobucket.com/albums/...psb8f7c2f0.jpg


2) I would also suggest the ability to use less eupgrades, preferably less or half of the eupgrades you would need on mainline just because its not full J class.

3) I would also like to suggest the ability to have the in-flight entertainment app be available on Android and Blackberry devices. Note that Blackberry runs Android apps. Not everyone uses an apple :)

4) Would also like to be able to charge devices. One can be cheap but sophisticated :)

Thanks for the opportunity to provide feedback! Presumably, Air Canada rouge ex-YVR to SFO (alongside LAX and LAS) is here to stay for the immediate future. Therefore, I wanted to provide a number of constructive, concrete, implementable improvements to help bridge the gap between mainline and rouge.

1. Increase turnaround time. 50 minutes is NOT sufficient time to turn these high-density A319s. AC 1846 pushed back 20 minutes late on 14-Jul ex-YVR. Both the gate agents and flight crew blamed the late arrival of the inbound aircraft (AC 1883 from LAX). It wasn't even late as per AC's own 15-minute window (it arrived at the gate 6 minutes later than SKED).

2. Gate-to-gate inflight entertainment. I boarded AC 1846 at 17:11; pushed back at 17:40; wheels up at 18:03; but didn't receive an iPad until 18:17 (well after drink and meal orders and over an hour after boarding). While there may be regulatory issues regarding the activation of the wireless system below 10,000 feet, at the very least distribute iPads in Premium rouge prior to pushback so they can be used as soon as the aircraft reaches 10,000 feet. Similarly, wait until the aircraft descends below 10,000 feet to collect iPads.

3. Same entertainment content as mainline. This exacerbates #2 above as SFO <> YVR isn't long enough above 10,000 feet to watch an entire movie. Onwards connections on mainline are frustrating due to an entirely different content selection. One can't continue a half-watched movie when moving between mainline and rouge.

4. Wireless internet access. It's somewhat ironic that rouge has an entire inflight wireless system to distribute video content to personal devices yet doesn't offer internet connectivity to the ground. Great news that mainline is (finally!) retrofitting its narrowbody fleet with Gogo. But why not rouge? (This also solves the problem of not having an interactive map available!)

5. Increase Premium rouge pitch. It's pretty awkward distributing and collecting meal trays for PAX seated in window seats let alone getting up to use the bathroom. A few extra inches could go along way in comfort and convenience for inflight crew.

6. More rouge Plus seats. 6 seats with a "reasonable" pitch in Y isn't sufficient. Enable more PAX to "buy up" similar to the significantly increased inventory of "preferred seats" on mainline announced and reconfigured earlier this year. Eliminating one row in Y could help with both this point and #5 above.

7. Fewer eUpgrade credits. Premium rouge isn't Business Class. The experience is underwhelming compared to mainline yet there's no differential in the number of eUpgrade credits required (nor the number of Aeroplan points). Decrease the number of eUpgrade credits needed to upgrade to Premium rouge.

8. Enforce typical middle seat storage in Premium rouge. Don't use the storage underneath seats 1B, 1E, 2B, and 2E as additional overhead bin storage for PAX not seated in adjacent seats. On both rouge flights, flight attendants instructed PAX seated in row 1 to utilize the space underneath the middle seat behind them. Foot space is already at a premium due to the 6-abreast Y seats.

9. Ensure catering is at parity with mainline. Presumably, catering between mainline and rouge is the same. On SFO > YVR I ordered a FPML (fruit plate) but got what appeared to be AVML (asian vegetarian). On YVR > SFO I ordered AVML (asian vegetarian) but it simply wasn't boarded. (These were two separate PNRs with the requests submitted separately so they weren't swapped by accident.)

I really do appreciate Air Canada's need to remain competitive and cut costs. Most of the above would be relatively sane to implement at a marginal cost. That being said, my hope is Air Canada comes to its senses and no longer considers SFO a "leisure" destination ex-YVR ;)

Flight/Origin-Destination: YYZ-CUN / CUN-YYZ
Date: 6 January rt 13 January
Cabin: J
Status: none

Pre departure
Was check in quick and efficient? Checkin both at YYZ and CUN was efficient.
Was priority boarding offered (if applicable to your status) and efficient? No different than flying mainline.
If there was a delay, did the gate agent provide timely updates? NA

Onboard - Premium rouge cabin:
Were the crew professional & well groomed? on the YYZ-CUN segment, the FA in the premium cabin was excellent. Was extremely attentive, personable and well organized. It was clear that he was comfortable with what he was doing and strived to make sure everyone walked away having a pleasant experience.
On the flight back it was the exact opposite. The FA for the J cabin made it quite clear she had absolutely no interest in working that day. She was inattentive and lazy. For instances when she was distributing the moist cloths, she rather than wait for the attendant with the iPads to finish with my partner, tossed the cloth from the seat in front of us to me. When she was serving the meals she haphazardly placed the trays in front of my partner and myself. Then disappeared for close to 45 minutes, leaving us with our empty trays and dirty dishes. I was able to squeeze out of my seat to use the washroom while she was absent and when I went up front i noticed she wasn't sitting in the galley. I can only assume she was hanging out with the pilots on the flight deck.
Afterward she returned, she made it quite clear that I was inconveniencing her whenever I asked for a top-up of my drink.
Did the IFE work as expected? It worked on my iPad, my partner used one of the loaners and had to get two replacement ones. IFE selection was poor. After spending a few minutes going through the selection i gave up and chose to read instead.
Was a pre-departure beverage offered on the ground? Yes
Were newspapers & menus distributed and meal orders taken (Please specify when meal orders were taken - on the ground or in the air)? No newspapers. On the flight down to CUN orders were taken on the ground. Flight back was after we took off.
Approximately how long after take off did it take for the first meal service to be completed? (From takeoff to all items collected): approximately 60 minutes for the flight to CUN, on the return to YYZ I'd say it was closer to 120 minutes.
How was the quality of all the meals? Same as mainline.
Did the cabin crew continuously top up the beverage of your choice throughout the flight?
on the YYZ-CUN segment, yes, as I mentioned the FA was quite attentive. On the return no, had to call her several times to request a top-up.


Post departure
If you have checked baggage, did it arrive within reasonable period of time? Yes

Overall experience/any other comments

The flight to CUN was tolerable., the return was not. In both instances, I was not impressed with the premium cabin on the A319. It was a bit of a joke that AC would consider 3x3 a J class configuration, especially on a 4 hour flight.
The return flight from CUN was not what I have come to expect from AC. As I mentioned above there were real issues with FA who made it clear we were an annoyance to her. On top of that, before we even left the gate there was an incident that made both my partner and I go "...?!". A couple who was seated in Y noticed when the boarded the plane that the J cabin was mostly empty. They asked a FA if it would be possible for them to move to 3AC, the crew allowed it, saying quite loudly "It's just extra legroom". This couple then received the full (granted it was terrible) J service.

Overall I have made the decision not to fly rouge in the future. While I haven't flown in Y, I can only imagine how terrible it is based on what others have said about it and just how cramped the people looked on my flights. The soft product in the J cabin does not make up for the hard product, and in no way is good value for the price AC is charging for the so-called J service.
As I've mentioned, my partner and I have elected not to fly any route that has been rouged, and as a result for our upcoming flight to MCO, we'll be flying WS in their plus section; the price of which is more inline with what you actually receive unlike Rouge.

Flight/Origin-Destination: YYC-LAS
Date: July 30, 2014
Cabin: Y
Status: None

Pre departure
Was check in quick and efficient? OLCI
Was priority boarding offered (if applicable to your status) and efficient?
If there was a delay, did the gate agent provide timely updates? Delayed 30 minutes (approx), one update

Onboard - Premium rouge cabin:
Were the crew professional & well groomed?
If there was a delay, were you provided with timely updates?
Did the IFE work as expected?
Was a pre-departure beverage offered on the ground?
Were newspapers & menus distributed and meal orders taken (Please specify when meal orders were taken - on the ground or in the air)?
Approximately how long after take off did it take for the first meal service to be completed? (From takeoff to all items collected)
How was the quality of all the meals?
Did the cabin crew continiously top up the beverage of your choice throughout the flight?

Onboard - rouge cabin:
Were the crew professional & well groomed? Yes
If there was a delay, were you provided with timely updates? Yes, pilot was very good about progress reports
Did the IFE work as expected? Didn't use
Approximately how long after take off did it take for the first meal service/Onboard cafe to begin? 30-40 mins
How was the quality of the meal/Onboard cafe? N/A
Did the cabin crew offer water regularly throughout the flight? Yes

Post departure
If you have checked baggage, did it arrive within reasonable period of time? Yes

Overall experience/any other comments:

Booked mainline, got Rouged. I'm 5'11" and spent the entire flight with my knees uncomfortably crammed into the back of the seat in front of me ( the passenger in front made that worse by reclining). There were a pair of knees pushing into my back at the same time - the poor guy behind me was well over six feet, so not his fault at all.
Never again - and I hear that many times at the carousel.