Virgin Holidays

[Lesleyluvdisney]

HI there!!

Has anyone gone with Virgin recently. this will be our 3rd time, and I feel they are in need of an overhaul especially the aircrafts!!

I tried today with no success to add on my Disney Dining Plan to my honeymoon booking only to be told that the "market-leader" to Florida, have terminated their contract for this!!! called Walt Disney Travel Company to be told it cant be "added" on has to be booked with tour operator.

Could have booked honeymoon for £105 cheaper, out of Glasgow with First Choice (on a new aircraft) and still been able to book Dining Plan.

Get a grip Richard, stop trying to fly to the moon and deal with the people who are making you your millions!!!

Les
x

 

[JohnnySharp2]

We went from Manchester in August, fly with them every year.

To be honest they do boast about having a very modern fleet, and up until the middle of last year the planes they used at Manchester were very old jumbo's.
However, all their 747's are the newer 747-400 type and to be honest we noticed a massive improvement in the quality of the aircraft we flew on.

 

[Lesleyluvdisney]

Thanks Johnny,
Glad to hear it!! We are going from Gatwick this year, and getting our domestics added on for £1.00 which is good.

I am a travel agent, and was getting fed up with Virgin going on about how they are thes best, market leader, No1 for families etc. Fair to say that was right about 5-6 years ago, but all the charters are catching up if not surpassing them. I'm only hoping they don't follow suit with their Schedulded service rivals such as United, Continental who are this year restricting your checked-in baggage to 20kgs per person.

thanks again

 

[carolfoy]

ITA Lesley, I don't know about you but I've found that more and more virgin hols I book for clients are going wrong with silly little things, they used to be so reliable, just the other day they booked clients of mine a ski pass for quebec when they're holidaying in Banff, of course it took me 3 hours and major negotiating to get them to admit its their fault.

 

[jen_uk]

I think Virgin have let it slip a little but I would still rather book with them than anyone else. I just priced a holiday to Disney with First Choice and it was £300 more expensive, the luggage allowance is only 20kg and you have to pay to prebook your seats!

 

[PaulaSB12]

According to Virgin

"Having investigated the points raised in your letter, it is regrettable that virgin Holidays is unable to offer the Disney Dining Plan for our customers. This is due to operational guidelines enforced by Walkt Disney World, such as clients must pre-purchase the Walt Disney World theme tickets at the time of booking. This is also due to a lack of demand from from our clients."

So anyone else who has tried to book the dining plan contact me and I will have another go at Virgin because quite frankly they DONT HAVE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!!!

 

[carolfoy]

I think Virgin have let it slip a little but I would still rather book with them than anyone else. I just priced a holiday to Disney with First Choice and it was £300 more expensive, the luggage allowance is only 20kg and you have to pay to prebook your seats!

True Jen but if they changed their luggage allowance policy I'm sure they'd soon overtake virgin, who's customer service has so gone downhill lately

 

[JohnnySharp2]

Thanks Johnny,
Glad to hear it!! We are going from Gatwick this year, and getting our domestics added on for £1.00 which is good.

I am a travel agent, and was getting fed up with Virgin going on about how they are thes best, market leader, No1 for families etc. Fair to say that was right about 5-6 years ago, but all the charters are catching up if not surpassing them. I'm only hoping they don't follow suit with their Schedulded service rivals such as United, Continental who are this year restricting your checked-in baggage to 20kgs per person.

thanks again

I think they do have their faults Lesley - however, we have always used them and will continue to.
They fly direct to MCO from Manchester and several other carriers (including BA) do not.

I think they are more clued up on Florida than anyone else, you only have to look at their brochure to see that - but you will always get problems at some point and I do agree with Paula that their Customer Service is not as good as it should be , or as good as they say it is!

 

[Lesleyluvdisney]

According to Virgin

"Having investigated the points raised in your letter, it is regrettable that virgin Holidays is unable to offer the Disney Dining Plan for our customers. This is due to operational guidelines enforced by Walkt Disney World, such as clients must pre-purchase the Walt Disney World theme tickets at the time of booking. This is also due to a lack of demand from from our clients."

So anyone else who has tried to book the dining plan contact me and I will have another go at Virgin because quite frankly they DONT HAVE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!!!

Hi Paula,

I got a more "direct explanation" today, as I am a travel agent. Peolpe were turning up in resort to be told that as the tickets werent booked by tour op they didn't recognise Upon calling Virgin in the UK to obviously kick off, Virgin then agreed to pay all the meals as in effect its not the guest's fault, but Lee the supervisor IS allowing me to add it on, as long a I book my ultimate 21 day tkts with them, and to be honest they are the same price as keith prowse, seligo etc.

 

[Lesleyluvdisney]

ITA Lesley, I don't know about you but I've found that more and more virgin hols I book for clients are going wrong with silly little things, they used to be so reliable, just the other day they booked clients of mine a ski pass for quebec when they're holidaying in Banff, of course it took me 3 hours and major negotiating to get them to admit its their fault.

They really have lost the plot, It takes about 2 hours to get through, and they are getting so careless. they've off loaded a ton of allocations to Jetsave, who are undercutting them - where's the sense in that.

As I said B4 stop trying to fly to the moon Richard and get your Virgin Atlantic sorted out!!!PS Have you noticed the price hikes and lack of understing from United Vacations since Funway bought them over!!!!

Les
x

 

[Lisash]

We're just back from our 6th Virgin holiday this week which was problem filled from start to finish (mega check in queue a Gatwick, TV down on flight for 2 hours, hotel had NO reservation for us & was undergoing major renovations which we had not been advised of, the 24 hour contact number in resort for Virgin is anything but! no Downtown Disney check out, 2 hour check in queue at Orlando & cabin crew down in numbers on return flight so reduced service available) We have always been very impressed in the past but feel very let down indeed on this occasion. Their customer service this time was very poor indeed. It is the 'little extras' that make them stand out from all the other companies and when those are absent you may as well save yourself a few pounds and just go with anybody. We hope that our recent experience was just a 'one off' especially as we already have our Easter trip to New York booked with them. As for our recent holiday we have e-mailed a complaint to them and are awaiting a response (not holding our breath though as it has taken nearly a week to acknowledge our e-mail in the first place) will keep you posted as to how we got on

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

We're just back from our 6th Virgin holiday this week which was problem filled from start to finish (mega check in queue a Gatwick, TV down on flight for 2 hours, hotel had NO reservation for us & was undergoing major renovations which we had not been advised of, the 24 hour contact number in resort for Virgin is anything but! no Downtown Disney check out, 2 hour check in queue at Orlando & cabin crew down in numbers on return flight so reduced service available) We have always been very impressed in the past but feel very let down indeed on this occasion. Their customer service this time was very poor indeed. It is the 'little extras' that make them stand out from all the other companies and when those are absent you may as well save yourself a few pounds and just go with anybody. We hope that our recent experience was just a 'one off' especially as we already have our Easter trip to New York booked with them. As for our recent holiday we have e-mailed a complaint to them and are awaiting a response (not holding our breath though as it has taken nearly a week to acknowledge our e-mail in the first place) will keep you posted as to how we got on

I take it you did not do twilight checkin at gatwick, or online at either end?
When was Downtown Disney checkin not working? what was the reason given?
TV's can go down at any time, they are computers and we know how tempramental they can be :-0
With crew, any airline only has available what has come out on a pre flight. if some of them fall ill, there are no replacements available down line. If it happens at the home base, people can be called in.
There have been a lot of complaints about Virgin Holidays, especially since they offloaded their call centre to India.

 

[Andy Lou & Meg]

We have been twice with Virgin and are going with them again at the weekend.

On our last trip we stayed in St Petes for our first week and a few months before we left we had to change our hotel as they were no longer doing our one then a week before we go they contacted us again to say that the new hotel we were going to was having some renovations done to it and we would have to move again (turns out the hotel we were supposed to go to has shut down completely whilst renovations were being made). I must admit that I was a little annoyed but our new hotel was fantastic. It was 4* plus and we did not have to pay anything on the upgrade.

When we were in St Petes we did not see a rep our entire time although we made appointments with her and she failed to show. Its a good job we went with people who have been to the area before otherwise we would not have had a clue on what to do other than sit by the pool.

Virgin have really gone down in my opinion but I will continue to travel with them for a few reasons:

Baggage allowance is fantastic
On Line Check In / Twilight Check In
Down Town Disney Check In
All meals and drinks are free on plane
Flights are direct to MCO

Maybe if another travel company offered this I would travel with them but until then I will stick to Virgin.

 

[carolfoy]

Virgin have really gone down in my opinion but I will continue to travel with them for a few reasons:

Baggage allowance is fantastic
On Line Check In / Twilight Check In
Down Town Disney Check In
All meals and drinks are free on plane
Flights are direct to MCO

Maybe if another travel company offered this I would travel with them but until then I will stick to Virgin.
__________________
Exactly my opinion, if any other company decided to start the same they'd soon see a difference in their passenger numbers.

 

[Soprano]

There have been a lot of complaints about Virgin Holidays, especially since they offloaded their call centre to India.

Nail struck firmly on the head with that one.

A number of times I called them about changes I wanted to make only to be told the wrong information, including it would cost me over £600 to move my holiday back one week!

Virgin have been fine for us in the past. The free meals/drinks and entertainment system win me over. We're off at the end of next month, so I hope all will be well again with them.

 

[Lesleyluvdisney]

Virgin have really gone down in my opinion but I will continue to travel with them for a few reasons:

Baggage allowance is fantastic
On Line Check In / Twilight Check In
Down Town Disney Check In
All meals and drinks are free on plane
Flights are direct to MCO

Maybe if another travel company offered this I would travel with them but until then I will stick to Virgin.
__________________
Exactly my opinion, if any other company decided to start the same they'd soon see a difference in their passenger numbers.

Hi carol,

Was on to them last week regarding Disney Magical Express passsed between 3 people none of them had any info on it! I eventually had to go on to disneytravelagents.co.uk to get updated info. They've had it their own way for far too long now, need a wake-up call!!

 

[Lisash]

I take it you did not do twilight checkin at gatwick, or online at either end?
When was Downtown Disney checkin not working? what was the reason given?

We couldn't do twilight as we live too far away and as it was Christmas Eve we did not want to travel down to spend the night in a hotel so our children could get a reasonable amount of time with their presents. We didn't do on-line for same reason and I suppose because naively we thought Christmas Day at Gatwick would be quieter (it was I hasten to add fully staffed with all desks operational so I don't know what the delay was). Downtown check in was not working last Wednesday (4th) hence massive queues at MCO. There was no reason given we were just flagged down in the car park and told not to get bags out of car as system was going to be down all day.

Our main complaint is not about check in, to be honest if we had not had hotel problems we wouldn't ever dream of complaining about other stuff (we are not habitual complainers in fact this is the first time we have ever complained in over 30 overseas trips) but as we had a number of quite serious issues with the hotel we thought we would mention the other stuff as it does add to our general dissatisfacion with this holiday.

Like you we are big fans of Virgin and hope that on this occasion it is just a 'one off' as I said before we await their response and will keep you all posted.

 

[carolfoy]

I had terrible problems trying to get checked in this year, this was in part due to a complete computer failure but the Virgin reps were clueless, sending us out of a queue we were supposed to be in, sending us to the wrong desks etc it was awful, I had to go on a hunt for the head of space control in the end to get it sorted, and she did, but it was a horrendous experience.

and Lesley, I agree there call centre people don't seem to know much about much.

 

[Scottish-Helen]

They really have lost the plot, It takes about 2 hours to get through, and they are getting so careless. they've off loaded a ton of allocations to Jetsave, who are undercutting them - where's the sense in that.

Hi Lesley. I agree with what you are saying here. I priced my flights with all the operators and Jetsave were quite a bit cheaper than Virgin Hols. When I was still working as an agent in the UK we tried not to use them because of the time it would take to get through & the staff not being particularly knowledgable (about even the most obvious things).

 

[VSL]

I went to WDW with Virgin Holidays in Dec 2005 and would definitely fly with them again. Next time, I would book the hotel direct but still fly with Virgin Atlantic (for the £££ savings). We really had no problems.

It was the first time for DBf and I to fly without parents too, so we were just happy that it all went quite smoothly.