Tuesday 14 December 2010

GATWICK AIRPORT AND COPTHORNE HOTEL - PROBLEM!

Set off for our holiday, and spent night before flight at Copthorne Hotel, which is a taxi-ride from the airport. Taxi cost £8.50.
The staff promised to wake us at 6.15 and said they had never missed a wake up call! Needless to say, they missed ours, despite us reminding them the last thing at night. Luckily I woke at ten minutes to 7 and we had a rush to get to airport. They had messed up on ordering taxi too. Told us it had already been and gone without us!

Another problem was the weight limitation on Thomson flights. Carry-on is limited to 5 Kg and hold bags to 20 Kg. So the carry-on cases had to be weighed by me several times, at home and later at Gatwick, as by that time I was manic about having to discard stuff at the departure point.

Of course, nobody weighed anything at Gatwick so we need not have bothered and could have packed an extra book to read!

Flight was truly dreadful. Thomson was the one we booked because seat pitch is 31" but Thomson rep at Gatwick said they had to transfer flight to a Thomas Cook 767 airplane because of a technical fault.

The Thomas Cook planes are very cramped. I asked a flight attendant what is the seat pitch? He guessed 28" or 29", and the aisle between seats was so narrow you had to walk sideways. The attendants were good, pleasant and helpful but food was really the worst of air travel food, no choice, overcooked and tasteless chicken, cold fried potatoes and peas. Also you could not see the tiny TV screens up on the ceiling from where I sat. Not that I really wanted to see a film, but some people did. A very long ten hours, but I am glad to say the plane left and arrived on time, with no further hitches.

We then found where we had to get on the mini-bus supplied by Jamaica Tours to ferry passengers to hotels in Ocho Rios area.

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