Thomas Cook flight to Cuba - premium cabin

boufje

Have booked flights with thomas cook tyo cuba ( no availability on virgin), as it is a 10 hour flight, we have opted for their premium economy. i am not expecting much, but wondered if anyone has any experience with them - particularly is the inflight entertainement "on demand"/ interactive or just a few channels on a loop. As I haven't been able to find any schedules/ info on their website I am guessing the latter. Just wondering how many books to pack!

We are flying from gatwick to Varadero in a fortnight. If anyone has been there and can offer some tips I'd be very grateful.

stephb34

34in leg room, own seat back telly with controls, choice of several movies, comedy, kids stuff, radio.
Bubbly drink or fruit juice on boarding. Free drinks throughout the flight although they only come round a few times if you buzz them or go to them they will give you more drinks unless you appear intoxicated. Free wash bag with earphones, lipbalm, toothbrush etc, eye mask flight socks, newspaper on return flight. Choice of meal, icecream bar about 6hrs into the flight and a light meal 90mins before landing. Oh priority check in and luggage returned first at each end.

dmg24

stephb34 wrote: »

34in leg room, own seat back telly with controls, choice of several movies, comedy, kids stuff, radio.
Bubbly drink or fruit juice on boarding. Free drinks throughout the flight although they only come round a few times if you buzz them or go to them they will give you more drinks unless you appear intoxicated. Free wash bag with earphones, lipbalm, toothbrush etc, eye mask flight socks, newspaper on return flight. Choice of meal, icecream bar about 6hrs into the flight and a light meal 90mins before landing. Oh priority check in and luggage returned first at each end.

Sounds better than Virgin on the routes that still have the old PE!

stephb34

dmg24 wrote: »

Sounds better than Virgin on the routes that still have the old PE!

I went with TC in april 2009 on that Cuba flight and i was impressed with it, so we did premium again to the dom rep this year. I also did Virgin for the first time in dec 2009 i must admit i was a little disappointed in my own mind i had thought Virgin were the bees knees up there with BA but they were just standard really not much different i thought to Thomas Cook or Thomsons, funny how you have pre conceived ideas.

boufje

Thanks all, I am used to checking the films to be screeend on the BA website and deciding how many magazines to take with me based on that, but there is nothing like that on thomas cook's website so this is v helpful.

johnnyroper

stephb34 wrote: »

I went with TC in april 2009 on that Cuba flight and i was impressed with it, so we did premium again to the dom rep this year. I also did Virgin for the first time in dec 2009 i must admit i was a little disappointed in my own mind i had thought Virgin were the bees knees up there with BA but they were just standard really not much different i thought to Thomas Cook or Thomsons, funny how you have pre conceived ideas.

virgin have gone drastically downhill of late on routes out of LGW,MAN and glasgow the fleet are getting long overdue refurb next year.
routes out of LHR are a considerably better product.

as for T/C the premium cabin is not that bad at all the only problem i had on one leg of journey was a different A/C that had no premium cabin,presume due to technical issues??

stephb34

johnnyroper wrote: »

virgin have gone drastically downhill of late on routes out of LGW,MAN and glasgow the fleet are getting long overdue refurb next year.
routes out of LHR are a considerably better product.

as for T/C the premium cabin is not that bad at all the only problem i had on one leg of journey was a different A/C that had no premium cabin,presume due to technical issues??

Were we on the same flight lol. In April the Dom rep flight only had premium on the outbound, unfortunately on the return there was no premium of which we had already been informed and we did receive half the money back we had paid for the premium, which we quickly used to book the extra legroom seats, but unfortunately i had to make do with standard seats as i have a child and these seats were only 29in ooh dear they were small.:eek:

johnnyroper

stephb34 wrote: »

Were we on the same flight lol. In April the Dom rep flight only had premium on the outbound, unfortunately on the return there was no premium of which we had already been informed and we did receive half the money back we had paid for the premium, which we quickly used to book the extra legroom seats, but unfortunately i had to make do with standard seats as i have a child and these seats were only 29in ooh dear they were small.:eek:

the standard economy on TC is very poor in my opinion compared to other charter carriers.i would only go premium with them.

FLINT

Hi there my wife and I have just returned on Thursday ( 30/09/10) from the Dominican Republic, we travelled with TC using their Premium cabin. I thought the whole service was very good, I'm not just talking about the flight aspect either, the 30kg luggage allowance was very welcome, we arrived at Manchester airport and saw a huge queue for checkin but the premium desk only had one other person in front of us. Fast tracked through security, boarded first.

The flight itself was not bad either, plenty of leg room, welcome drink, pamper pack etc. In my opinion the only thing that let it down was that the entertainment was not on demand like it is with Thomsons. Did you want to know which films are showing?

Littlemadam83

I know if you post on Trip Advisor or another forum which has all the airlines (cant remember the bname) someone will be able to give you a current film/entertainment list.

xxx

cabbage

Hi

If you go to http://www.ink-live.com/emagazines/thomas-cook-travel-magazine and register you will be able to peruse the inflight mag with details of all the flights. Each magazine covers a three month period so Aug 10 will cover Aug, Sept, Oct 2010. The next one should be due out soon.

A couple of pointers, flew LGW to Florida and then back again 2 weeks later. The pamper pack was only given out on the way there and we expected one on the way back. They include headphones and a socket converter. We had to use our ipod headphones on the way back and only got it in mono. The headphones are'nt very good but you you need the two to one socket thingy if nothing else. You still get a blanket and pillow both ways.

TV in seat back. Plays the films in a loop. Some seatback tv's weren't working.

Next year there will be no PE with Thomas Cook. The seats will still be there but will be sold as extra leg room seats without the pamper pack, newspaper (only on way out for us), free wine, juice etc on boarding and choice of meal and drinks included will all disappear.