After hearing all the negative comments re TCD I felt I had to comment. We travelled with TCD in August 2002. The flight was not good, we flew with My Travel, and the service left a lot of room for improvement. Apart from this the flights left on time the plane was clean and the organisation of the holiday ran very smoothly.
Last year we decided that we would travel with Virgin, extra luggage allowance , seat back tvs etc. It was a nightmare. We had an early morning flight from Manchester so decided to stay at the airport hotel overnight. We tried to use the online check in service before we left home but because all the members of our party did not have the same surname it would not let us check in. When we got to Manchester we then spent two hours on the telephone to virgin explaining about the problems.The person on the phone assured us that we were now checked in, our seats were reserved and we would just need to go down to the online check in desk two hours before our flight.
We did this only to find there was no record of this on the sytem. We stood at the check in desk for an hour,as everyone else had now checked in and the only seats left were single ones, we had two small children who could not possibly sit on their own. After an hour this was finally sorted out and we got on to the plane, only to find that my husbands seat was broken. It would not sit upright.We called the cabin crew and were told that the plane could not take off with the seat in this possition. They called an engineer who managed to fix the seat into an upright position which was how it had to stay for the whole journey. My husband is 6ft 2 and found this very uncomfortable especally when the person infront of him lay there chair back and remained in that position for the whole flight.
Also during the flight three of the toilets on the plane were blocked so therefore out of order causing large c
ues.
On arrival at Orlando we stood at the luggage carousel awaiting the arrival of our luggage , only to be told that it was all still in Manchester. We were given $200 to buy essentials, but because Hurricane Charley was on its way we were not sure when our luggage would arrive.
We finally got our luggage three days later after numerous telephone calls to virgin to check when it would be arriving.
We had a wonderful holiday at AKL but then came the return flight.
We travelled on the same plane where again the toilets were blocked and this time the tv on one of our seats didnt work. But at least our luggage arrived at the same time as us.
We have just booked for August 2006 and on checking prices even with an upgrade to Sunshine first class TCD is still cheaper than Virgin Economy. Hope things are a little smoother next time.
I do get fed up of people who think that cheap is the only way to go and that to pay more is "money to burn" I work hard for my vacations, and if I want to go the best that that's what I will do.
