First choice holidays

[dizzzy]

Hi

I'm booking a holiday for next year and I'm considering going with First choice and just wondered if anyone could tell me what there flights are like. We'll be flying from manchester and we might upgrade to star class premier.

We've never been to orlando before and we're planning on staying in a villa as we're a big family. Any advice would be welcome.

Thanks
Dizzzy

[Hall Family]

Hi Dizzzy,
I can't help yet I'm afraid but will be able to shortly, we fly with First Choice from Gatwick on 27th Aug and we have upgraded to Premier as my Hubby is 6ft 3.
On the web page it looks quite good (though it would do I suppose) and I'm ridiculasly (probably spelt wrong, sorry) excited about upgrading even on a charter!
It's our first time to Florida too and can't wait.

[katie]

I just read somewhere that their standard seat pitch is 33" but someone told me that - I haven't seen it written down anywhere. That is not bad for charter airlines. Still not big enough for my DH but must be more comfortable for others who are below 6' or so.

Katie :)

[dizzzy]

Hi Dizzzy,
I can't help yet I'm afraid but will be able to shortly, we fly with First Choice from Gatwick on 27th Aug and we have upgraded to Premier as my Hubby is 6ft 3.
On the web page it looks quite good (though it would do I suppose) and I'm ridiculasly (probably spelt wrong, sorry) excited about upgrading even on a charter!
It's our first time to Florida too and can't wait.

I'm pleased I'm not the only one who is soo excited about upgrading but as I said I haven't booked my hols yet so hopefully upgraded seats won't be sold out when we want to go. We mainly want to upgrade because my brother (who's going with us) is six foot.

Hope you have a great holiday.

[katie]

dizzzy - Airtours/Mytravel and Travel City direct also have the option of premium seats with extra leg-room. For some reason, I have never considered First Choice but I may look into their facilities for future flights.

Katie

[dizzzy]

Hi Katie

Thanks for the reply. I've read on the first choice website that there standard seat pitch is 33" and premium are 36". I haven't got a copy of the current airtours brochure so I might have to pop and get one. I would go with virgin but when I saw the price to upgrade with them I nearly fell over.

Dizzzy

[YNWA]

First choice upgraded all their fleet from 1st may 2005, they now have seatback tvs and 33 inches legroom, free meals and leather seats on all standard seats!!

If you upgrade you get a 9 inch screen (instead of 7) and 36 inches legroom and free drinks, it is not worth the money though! I flew with them in MAy and they have bigger legroom then virgin and BA economy class which is good.

If you compare, mytravel only have 30 inches, britannia 31, travel city 31, virgin 31, ba 31, thomas cook 31.

So they are well worth going with First choice rather than mytravel, we paid £100 more for our seats compared to my travel for out aug seats because we knew we would get a good service with enough legroom!

Hope this helps!!

[tracey.cross]

we are going by first choice airways in Nov and someone replied when I asked about their flights on the forum either last monthe or the month before. They said the first choice long hall service was good. I hope this is the case as in Nov it will be my first longhall fight.

Tracey

[orangebreezer]

Hi Dizzy,
I can't comment on flying to Orlando, but I have gone on many holidays with First Choice and have always found them to be an excellent company......so going by that benchmark you should have a nice flight and I know you will have a brilliant time.........

[YNWA]

If you have not been long haul with First choice since may this year then they are totally different to before that, however good or bad they were because the fleet is much larger and planes have more legroom and seatback tv's etc

[katie]

Standard seats at 33" are not big enough for my DH which is why we upgrade to premium. I just checked First Choice flight prices in Premium and Airtours are cheaper for the dates I go (only just though).

Katie :)

[YNWA]

Yes but you would get a far better service with first choice than airtours, thats why we paid the extra, if you paid for the extra legroom with first choice it would set you back £60 per person (i think) which is cheaper than the premium seats, you would get 36 inches legroom and still seatback tvs etc, where you wouldnt with airtours

[katie]

The other think I'm not sure about is that we go for 3 weeks whcih Airtours provide but Travel City don't and I would need to contact First Choice to see whether they do 3 weeks.

Katie :)

PS we've never really noticed that First Choice service is any better than Airtours - we've alwways had good service from Airtours - guess we've been lucky and it is a long time since we went anywhere with First Choice.

[YNWA]

First choice and airtours have 3 week and 4 week holidays too! There has not been much of a difference before but since First choice made all the changes in May of this year they have better legroom and seatback tvs across the board, where as airtours only have this on a few planes! Airtours will have this across the board in 2007. Hope this helps.

[katie]

Great news about First Choice doing 3 & 4 weeks - this will definitely suit us as will their Premium service. I checked the prices to compare again and it is very close but both still about £200 more to travel from Newcastle rather than Manchester. It's more economical for us to drive to Manchester, stay overnight and pay for extra parking than to pay the extra from Newcastle. I don't know how they airlines get such a difference in price as the aircraft have always been full from Newcastle when we went to Florida from there in the distant past.

Katie :)

[YNWA]

This august the flights were £200 per person cheaper to fly from glasgow than manchester so we are flying up to glasgow!! There is plenty of availability in glasgow and not much in NCL or man so thats why prices are cheaper, normally manchester is cheapest along with gatwick!

[DanC]

Good to hear they have seatback tv's now, as they did not last autumn, and it was a little cramped for me (6ft 1")

Enjoy yourselves whatever the flight, the bed waiting for you in Florida, will be lovely whatever! :D

[Vikki]

true, it's always worth it all as soon as you get off that plane!

[Isaac]

Hi Dizzy, just back from Orlando after a wonderful 3 week holiday. Flew with First Choice excellent planes, plenty of leg room. The food was as good as you will get on any plane and the cabin crew were friendly and helpful. I would not hesitate to use them again.


Regards,

Isaac.

[tracey.cross]

Thank you,:)
This is so good to hear as my mum had booked with first choice for this Nov on the basis of the new plane info. She wasn't very keen to go first choice (she wanted to fly Virgin as she has done in the past) and virgin had no avaibility on Saturday flights for our party of 7.
She booked first choice because I said the brochure info looked very good too but I coould tell she was still not convinced. This post will put her mind at rest.

Thank you again

Tracey

[Catherine]

I am sure your mum will be impressed, with 2" more legroom than virgin and a seat back tv to match, see cant fail to be impressed, Try to get some cabin pictures, we are using first choice next year to the dominican republic and upgrading to premium.

[dizzzy]

Hi Dizzy, just back from Orlando after a wonderful 3 week holiday. Flew with First Choice excellent planes, plenty of leg room. The food was as good as you will get on any plane and the cabin crew were friendly and helpful. I would not hesitate to use them again.


Thanks for the post. I'm pleased you had a good holiday. We're going this week to book our hols so it's nice to hear again how good there flights are.

Dizzzy

[Jobeck]

Hi Dizzzy,

We flew with First Choice from Manchester last year and were absolutely delighted with everything.The plane was very clean, the 33" seats were very comfortable, the in-flight entertaiment kept the children amused for hours, the food was nice, the cabin crew were very friendly and the flght was on time to the minute. Our return flight was a little bit delayed (4 hrs) due to a little weather front (huirricane Francis no less!!!) and the airport had a backlog of flights to get out due to them shutting down for 2 days, we also had to stop in Bangor, Maine to re-fuel due to Sanford having limited supplies, but throughout we were kept well informed by the First Choice staff.
The First Choice rep, Steve, in Orlando was also very helpful and was at our hotel every other morning to answer any queries that we had on things like,where to get a taxi, or what to do in a hurricane etc.
All in all we found First Choice to be excellent :thumbs: and have already booked for our next trip to Florida (cheaper than TCD!!!)
Don't hesitate BOOK NOW!
p.s. I don't work for them!!!!:lol:

[Catherine]

Good to hear Jobeck. :)

[Save It]

Hi Dizzy, just back from Orlando after a wonderful 3 week holiday. Flew with First Choice excellent planes, plenty of leg room. The food was as good as you will get on any plane and the cabin crew were friendly and helpful. I would not hesitate to use them again.


Regards,

Isaac.
Hi Isaac,

I've booked for early September with First Choice, was there any delays?

Thanks

[Isaac]

Hi Isaac,

I've booked for early September with First Choice, was there any delays?

Thanks

No delays either way. Took off and landed on time both ways.

Isaac.

[Vikki]

I just called them to enquire abut flight only for next year as you can pay a £60 upgrade for extra legroom seats, which I thought was reasonable.

Anyway, I called them and they said you can't book the legroom seats at the time of booking, you have to book the flight, then contact someone else to see if you can add the legroom supplement to it.

A little odd I thought. You would think they'd let you do the upgrade at the same time, rather than booking, hoping to get the upgrade later......very strange

[davelympany]

You will love Florida we have just got back from our first time! Dont worry too much about the flights its only a way to get you there, we flew economy Air Atlanta, for the money you save I think IMO that you are better off spending it on your hols, we didnt have back seat tv`s just the main one, but we managed to survive! Your flight is such a very small part of a trip to WDW and Florida.

Dave :-)

[Vikki]

:iagree:

[bawden2]

Hi can not tell you what they are like but will be able to in a month. The seat pitch is meant to be 33. We travelled airtours and would never again. They only provided 2 out of our 4 meals. When we asked were the other 2 meals were they just shrugged. Thier resort staff were very unhelpful. Our complaint was that bad that they upgraded us on the flight home and gave us £500 back without a fight. Say's it all.

[dizzzy]

Thank you for all of your replies. We've now booked our holiday with first choice and we've upgraded our flight to starclass premier. :excited:

I can now start getting excited, even if I have got to wait 10 months before I go.