First Choice > Reviews (55)

We recently travelled to the Maldives with First Choice, and I found it to be a very varied experience. Whilst I found the tour operator themselves to be very mixed in customer service, the airline is of a very good standard for a charter.

We booked our holiday back in February, and due to having a few problems I had to deal with the customer services team on a few occasions. Barring a couple of very helpful staff I found them to be rather blasé and not very well informed on the processes of their company. I was given differing information by different team members on numerous occasions, and no one seemed to actually know exactly what First Choice was and wasn't able to offer. For example - a couple of weeks prior to the holiday we had the opportunity to upgrade to Premium at a very good price. I was advised on the phone that if we did day before check-in at Gatwick, we would be able to choose our seats, therefore guaranteeing we had a window. However, when I called the day before to check times I was informed this was completely wrong and that seats are allocated four days in advance, and are allocated on a first upgraded, first served basis. So basically even though we had booked the holiday 5 months earlier, as we had only upgraded two weeks previously, someone who had booked the whole holiday three weeks before would be seated before us. As it was pointless to check-in the day before we didn't, but had I not checked with another member of staff we would have done the 80 mile round trip to Gatwick! I do think it is rather unfair that they do it this way, and it would be nice if it went back to the old fashioned 'first checked-in' process, where if you arrived at the airport early you had the pick of the seats, and if you checked in last and were separated then it would your fault for not arriving at the airport earlier.

I was also informed we would lose our guaranteed seating together that we had as part of our holiday package. This is another thing that I find rather despicable about the company, they will charge a ridiculous amount if you want to be guaranteed you will sit together, and even then you could be separated by an aisle or one behind the other. However, I hadn't been told this on upgrading and was most anxious by the time we arrived at the airport. Luckily we were seated together in both directions, but a few people were separated, not very nice considering in one couple she was pregnant and it was an 11 hour flight.

Having upgraded to Premium we were looking forward to a comfortable and pleasant flight, and we weren't disappointed. The cabin crew were excellent, especially on the way back when they were trying to perk up a planeload of depressed passengers who desperately didn't want to be on the flight but back on their little piece of paradise!

The seats are very comfortable, although on our flight out we were in the middle of the plane at the back of Premium, so our seats couldn't fully recline. On the way home however we had a window and were very surprised when we did recline to find out just how far back the seats went!

On boarding we were offered a champagne cocktail and given a menu to choose our dinner for later in the flight. All the food is served on crockery and is of good standard. The breakfast was a little disappointing, Cornflakes and grapes, but overall it was good.

The in-flight entertainment was reasonable and you had a good choice of films - the noise reduction headphones are a godsend and block out pretty much everything! I did go into the Star Class cabin a couple of times, and this also looked good, although I was pleased we had upgraded on such a long flight, not least as drinks are included. It is definitely worth checking with the airline a couple of weeks prior to departure if upgrade costs have gone down, it should have cost £320 per person, but we upgraded for just £60.

First Choice does offer good value for money on holidays, and the airline is excellent for a charter, they just let themselves down in the customer service department, and I think if they could nail this they would be an excellent holiday company.