HazelJoy - 19/01/2012 16:56 GMT
Well, we have recently arrived back from Mexico, having flown on the Thomas Cook A330 - 354 passengers
On long-haul flights with Thomas Cook you cannot book a seat in the premium cabin- these are offered on a first come basis. We arrived at Gatwick early and were asked if we would like to upgrade for an extra £20 per passenger. For this you get to wait in the VIP lounge and given free breakfast and drinks, except the champagne cocktails, and there is a toilet area and lounge area with plasma TV. There is no premium extras on the flight but the seats are obviously more spacious and more comfy.
You can book the premium seats for the return journey but by the time we made our holiday booking these had all been taken - hence we opted to sit in seats 38H & J (37 had already been taken).
The seats at the rear of the cabin are in a 2-3-2 formation and the 2 seats do give extra room in the aisle but they are standard seats. The problem we found was that the seats had obviously been spaced further apart for the long-haul flights but the over-head individual lights had not been moved so my seat light shone on the passengers head in front of my husband! The toilets are quite close but we found that passengers actually queued in the rear section rather than along the aisle itself.
The only real complaint we had was the food on the return journey. On the original take-off there was severe vibration on the front wheels so the take-off was aborted and we ended up being delayed for 22 hours. This meant the food pre-packed for the return journey had defrosted and Thomas Cook had to get food from Mexico and this was disgusting.
I hope this information helps others.
