Flight partners for Carribean 24/25

[CCFC]

Its a gamble, we booked for Jan 2025 a year ago as it is a 60th birthday with 4 generations of people. When we booked it was all London airports, ended up with Gatwick which I hate and Norse Air which I have no experience of.

 

In an ideal world I would have liked flights out of Birmingham on Virgin with Upper class for me and the birthday girl, ah well.

[Windsurfboy]

28 minutes ago, CCFC said:

Its a gamble, we booked for Jan 2025 a year ago as it is a 60th birthday with 4 generations of people. When we booked it was all London airports, ended up with Gatwick which I hate and Norse Air which I have no experience of.

 

In an ideal world I would have liked flights out of Birmingham on Virgin with Upper class for me and the birthday girl, ah well.

 

Can you ask about other airports and airlines.

 

Is it same as last year nothing off for booking your own. 

[TomCroozzz]

Got mine on Norse from Gatwick too. Thankfully, I’ve flown Norse twice already on their scheduled services and it was a great experience, so quite happy with that outcome especially given the dramas last winter. 

[CCFC]

1 minute ago, Windsurfboy said:

 

Can you ask about other airports and airlines.

 

Is it same as last year nothing off for booking your own. 

I have only ever booked the package with P&O so not sure sorry.

1 minute ago, TomCroozzz said:

Got mine on Norse from Gatwick too. Thankfully, I’ve flown Norse twice already on their scheduled services and it was a great experience, so quite happy with that outcome especially given the dramas last winter. 

Thats comforting to know, did you do Premium economy or was "Cattle class" ok

[TomCroozzz]

4 minutes ago, CCFC said:

Thats comforting to know, did you do Premium economy or was "Cattle class" ok

“Cattle” was just fine. Good comfy seats, decent legroom, crew were really friendly. Modern aircraft and good selection of entertainment. Can’t really ask for more. Only downer on their scheduled flights is the service is “buy on board” - but thankfully that won’t be the case on the P&O charters. Its low cost, so no blankets or headphones, but personally that’s not a deal breaker. 
 

Never tried their premium, although it seems more like premium economy than virgin upper or anything else. 2-2-2 config I believe on Norse 787s. 

Edited May 24 by TomCroozzz

[doog442]

1 hour ago, TomCroozzz said:

Never tried their premium, although it seems more like premium economy than virgin upper or anything else. 2-2-2 config I believe on Norse 787s. 

3-3-3

 

For anyone flying Virgin they still have some right old sheds doing that Caribbean route. If you can, in economy upgrade to Economy delight, seat pitch up to 34". We flew economy classic - never again.

 

We're flying TUI to the Caribbean from Bournemouth in Dec. We've never had a bad TUI long haul and never felt the need to upgrade to PE, perhaps we've been lucky.    

Edited May 24 by doog442

[TomCroozzz]

40 minutes ago, doog442 said:

3-3-3

 

Yeah, sorry, should have been clearer, I meant in premium. 

[doog442]

27 minutes ago, TomCroozzz said:

Yeah, sorry, should have been clearer, I meant in premium. 

 

No worries I should have sussed it having re- read your post 🤣. Premium appears to be 2-3-2 on the link which doesn't lean that heavily towards couples. That said clearly a better option than the disaster that was Maleth 

 

 https://www.aerolopa.com/n0-789

[Well boy 91]

13 hours ago, doog442 said:

3-3-3

 

For anyone flying Virgin they still have some right old sheds doing that Caribbean route. If you can, in economy upgrade to Economy delight, seat pitch up to 34". We flew economy classic - never again.

 

We're flying TUI to the Caribbean from Bournemouth in Dec. We've never had a bad TUI long haul and never felt the need to upgrade to PE, perhaps we've been lucky.    

That would have a Virgin A330.  Which are getting a bit long in the tooth now.  Gradually being replaced with new A330 NEOS.  According to the info Virgin will be utilising an A350 on the Barbados route. They are all fairly new,so hopefully a better travel experience for those on board 

[doog442]

On 5/23/2024 at 3:32 PM, Megabear2 said:

My December London premium flights have a £509pp supplement, so £1,018 for two.

 

As I said further up I'm not that fussed about PE on TUI as usually the seat pitch is decent.(I've been lucky I guess) However as an aside and out of interest price wise I contacted my TA about PE for our December cruise (TUI) and were told that they couldn't do anything until 14 weeks before departure. I recall using a different TA in the past and them offering PE well in advance.

 

I'm just wondering if I'm being fobbed off, it's in their too difficult box or the 14 weeks is a thing. I appreciate its probably a requirement for choosing individual seats but allocating PE seats in advance as you've managed to do ? As I said we're with TUI and we even have a flight number.   

 

Just looking at their aircraft I see they operate a 787-8 without PE, might explain things I guess.

Edited May 28 by doog442

[CCFC]

My travel agent told me to ring P&O to book premium, P&O then told me to ring the travel agent. I asked P&O while I was on to them if PE was available for my January 2025 flight and she said yes. Rang the travel agent and spoke to someone different and she said she would get pricing for me from P&O.

 

Ring P&O if you think they  are fobbing you off, they cant give you pricing but can tell you if its available.

 

The 14 week thing is for seat selection I do believe, not choosing you travel class

Edited May 28 by CCFC

[CCFC]

Booked Premium Economy today £509 each.

[Presto2]

On 5/29/2024 at 6:32 PM, CCFC said:

Booked Premium Economy today £509 each.

You won't regret it. It is well worth it if you can afford it. All you need to do now is to sit up until midnight when they become available to book the one you want ....even more money I'm.afraid

[CCFC]

Do you mean booking the seats 14 weeks out 😐

[pennib]

Yes, and you may have to stay up until the early hours as the website has a habit of going down. I think the latest we have stayed up to is 03.30. Good luck. At least we won’t be doing that again as we have given up entirely on the Caribbean fly cruises. Often late, too much grief. It takes us a couple of days to come to. Premium economy is well worth it though!! Good luck

[Thedonkeycentrehalf]

15 hours ago, CCFC said:

Do you mean booking the seats 14 weeks out 😐

I did this and was lucky that I only had to stay up to about 1:30am.  The P&O system is really poor and keeps crashing you out.

 

TUI PE is a 2-3-2 configuration so if you want to be guaranteed a pair of seats together then this is the best way. 

 

There is yet more cost and to be honest, if it wasn't a special trip, then I wouldn't have worried and just left it to hope - especially as I'm not the most sociable of flyers anyway.

 

What I would say is that the PE is good.  Dedicated cabin and service, drinks before take off and regularly throughout the flight, the food was good as airline food goes.  More importantly, the seats were very comfortable and the extra width and legroom does make a difference over the nine hours you are on board each way.  At Gatwick, we also had dedicated check-in so no queuing on arrival and fast track security (not the case on the way back from Barbados).

[Presto2]

We stayed until 1.30pm with 2 laptops and a phone working on it. Was just about to give up and we logged in!

We got 4A and 4C so we'll.worth it. Think row 7 has no window seats. Good luck

[molecrochip]

On 5/28/2024 at 11:33 AM, doog442 said:

Just looking at their aircraft I see they operate a 787-8 without PE, might explain things I guess.

Not a standard on P&O charters.

 

Pre-Covid, Tui used to remove PE from two planes and replace with extra Economy for the summer season as they used the two Dreamliners as crowd busters to Palma, the Canaries and Cyprus.

[Presto2]

5 hours ago, molecrochip said:

Not a standard on P&O charters.

 

Pre-Covid, Tui used to remove PE from two planes and replace with extra Economy for the summer season as they used the two Dreamliners as crowd busters to Palma, the Canaries and Cyprus.

We have a flight with TUI to Cyprus in September and booked extra legroom seats. We have been allocated row 2A and 2C on a dreamliner so we are more than happy. We have already booked for 2025 and managed to find a Dreamliner Flight and have booked 4A and 4C 🙂

We don't get the premium perks but we get the extra legrooms seats so more than pleased.