When it comes to holidays my Husband and I like to go for cheap and cheerful; our typical holiday for the past 10 years would cost under £500, be in the EU and fully self catering. We had never booked a holiday with First Choice before as I prefer to search the Internet and find the cheapest deals myself, cutting out the shop assistants commission.
I first entered the First Choice in Rotherham while looking for a wedding destination for my then Fiance and I; as soon as I walked in I was impressed by the store, the main desks were set out as though they were in a large ship, then had a waiting area made to look like an old 60's dinner with a duke box and refreshments. More importantly for me they also had a small child's play area with cars, jigsaws and other toys to keep the children entertained throughout the long drawn out process of purchasing a holiday.
After waiting for roughly ten minutes to be seen by a representative I was greeted by a lovely woman who sat me down and talked me through what type of holiday I was after. I didn't make life easy for her, I knew I wanted somewhere special that I had never been before that would look fabulous in my wedding pictures, that would stick within our wedding budget of £5,000 and could accommodate a child who at the time was under two. The obvious choice was the Caribbean and the main two places that stood out for me at that time were the Dominican Republic and Cuba. I made it very clear that I would need to go home and research the countries and talk it through with my Fiance, the assistant was fully understanding of this and in no way rushed me knowing she would not get a sale that day, in fact she wrote her contact details and shift times down for me so we could go back and deal with her again.
The brochure that I was given in store was a huge help in deciding what destination to pick, at the front on the brochure it was broken down into countries letting you easily flick through the pages to read about you're chosen destination. The first few pages on every destination showed a map of the country, gave some brief history to the country, the temperature and rain fall every month and listed activities that you may be interested in. Once past the fact and figures you are displayed with the hotels on offer around each country, each in given it's own 'Sun Rating' which really made no sense to me as there was no information on what they were basing this rating on; I also found while on our holiday that we were in a four sun hotel and there was a five sun hotel right next to it, however our hotel was by far better and people from the other hotel were always coming over to ours to have a look around.
The other brochure that we were given was for the wedding, In this brochure we were told about the resorts that held weddings and renewal of vows and what the wedding packages would include. Most of the resorts offered the same things, private check in, free room upgrade, flowers, private meal the night before and night of the wedding, wedding cake, breakfast in bed, champagne, and all this normally costs an extra £500 and obviously also includes the cost of the registrar and legal documents.
One of the main problems we came across when looking for the wedding destination was finding somewhere that would allow such a young child as most of the long haul destinations seemed to be adult only.
BOOKING
After spending all night looking through the brochures together, my fiance and I decided on Cuba and went to the Rotherham First Choice again to speak to the same lady I had dealt with before. She was incredibly professional and built a great rapport with us making sure we were happy with every little detail regarding the holiday and wedding. We were given two days to pick for the wedding day and were told this would be confirmed to us when we met our wedding planner, looking back this was pointless as we didn't really care what day we would get married and we didn't get married on one of the days we chose anyway!
The price of the holiday along with the wedding package at this point came to just over £3,000 and that also included £100 for two weeks holiday insurance. When we booked the holiday we had 16 months to wait before the actual holiday but everything had to be paid in full three months before we would travel, which unluckily for us landed on Boxing day. We paid a £300 deposit at the point of booking and then tended to go into the store every few weeks to pay a bit off at a time.
A few months after we had booked the holiday my fiance and I were discussing what hell it would be flying for 10 hours with a 19 month old child and decided that we thought it would be impossible to keep him seated on our lap for that length of time. The next day I went back into the Rotherham store and enquired about the price of buying a seat for our son, they said it would cost an extra £480, which we gladly paid. While I was slightly angry that the price of our holiday had dramatically risen I knew we had made the right decision and would be thankful for our child having their own seat.
After booking the wedding we were sent a wedding pack through the post, which included a list of legal requirements we would need to send to them to get a wedding licence; we quickly sent off all the information they asked for and never questioned anything further as we were told we would have a call from the weddings department two months before the holiday. After we never heard anything from the weddings department up to 6 weeks before we departed we again went into the Rotherham branch to make sure everything was OK and they had all the paper work required; we were told that my fiances birth certificate was causing some problem as his surname was spelt wrong, something we had never realised and had never been an issue before. We did as they said and went to our local registry office and bought a new birth certificate and were reassured everything was now in order.
While I was pleased the issue with the legal paper work was sorted I couldn't help but feel let down by the weddings department, they had had 14 months to contact us about this and get it sorted and yet they left it for us to chase them up.
This unfortunately was only the beginning of my issues with the weddings department and every time I had a question for them they seemed incapable of answering me and always resulted in them needing to call me back. I am almost certain that as a bride-to-be I was not the only person to ever feel the need to call and ask them a nagging question, for example if I could take my dress on as hand luggage or how much the photographer would cost- which they never could answer and said it varied from each resort.
CHECKING IN
By the time the holiday was upon us I had almost lost all faith in First Choice as a weddings provider but was overcome with a mixture of emotions and tried my hardest to relax and enjoy the holiday. We were flying from Manchester airport and were instantly greatest by a huge line of people wanting to check in with First Choice. Now this came as a shock to me as we were there three hours before our departure and I had timed everything down to the T, I then found out that we were not in a queue for our Cuba flight but for First Choice holidays in general. This must have been one of the worst spectacles I have ever seen, my son was getting angry as we were just waiting in a line that wasn't moving, and I was getting frustrated with my son and worried we would be late.
Finally we got to the front of check in and was greeted by a woman who can only be described as a jobs worth. We had three suitcases, one of which was weighing in over the normal 20KG allowance, but we were given an extra 10KG of allowance due to the wedding and had to produce evidence of this, which I expected. Next we were asked how old my son was and why he had his own seat as she didn't think this was allowed. I think it's fair enough to say that after spending almost £500 on a seat for my son I was less then impressed with their attitude when in the end all it took was a nod from a supervisor to give the approval.
After checking our bags in we made ourselves upstairs to the passport control area where I was thrilled to finally see a bit of VIP treatment as were were ushered to the front of the queue (I do think this was more to do with having a baby then anything else).
My next big complaint was aimed directly at First Choice weddings, as we reached the departure lounge for our flight I counted at least another five women all with wedding dresses to take onto the hold. I cornered one of the women and asked her how she managed to get her dress this far to which I was told 'I didn't take no for an answer'. I thought this was grossly unfair, I was told on more then one occasion that it was strictly against policy to take the dress into the hold and as a result my huge dress had to be folded into a suitcase.
THE FLIGHTS
The airplane looked immaculate to me and we were flying in 'Star Class' which I believe comes as standard with long haul flights, included in this we all sat together, were given a meal and had the option of games, films and radio as in flight entertainment. The films available were very good and new releases which I enjoyed watching when my son was sleeping, but mostly enjoyed playing the games as you could play against other passengers which was a lot of fun on the return flight as we knew a lot of the people we were playing.
The food and service is one area where I was less then impressed again While the food was fine for my fiance and I, I was expecting (and had paid for) a child's meal for my son and thought it totally unrealistic for them to think he would eat what they were presenting us and also found it disappointing that they didn't bring around something for the children such as crayons like I have seen on other flights.
The service on the flight from the cabin crew was very few and far between, they never seemed to answer the service bell and I waited almost an hour just for them to bring my son a pillow so he could sleep. Maybe this is standard to long haul flights but the presence of someone bringing drinks every so often would not have gone amiss. If we were to fly with First Choice again I might contemplate upgrading to Premium Star Class for an extra £199 per person just for the better service, more selection of the TV (although you can upgrade to this for £10 per person in Star Class), free drinks and a more relaxed environment.
THE HOLIDAY REPS
As soon as we had collected our bags in Cuba we were greeted by a Cuban First Choice rep who showed us to our coach. She was only a young lady and somewhat reminded me of an over excited Butlins red coat. Some of the other passengers were finding any excuse to moan about things and I thought she dealt with them fantastically and more or less told them to be quiet and enjoy the sights of Cuba.
When we arrived at our resort I was more then impressed, it was a fantastic location and it really was like living in the true lap of luxury. We were advised there would be a meeting with our First Choice rep, which we attended to see what trips they had available. While we were happy to listen to the local information and be given some tips on things like finding the best cigars, the trips that were being offered were extortionate and I didn't see anyone sign up for any trips. That was the last I saw of our rep despite her claims she would be there every day; we didn't need her for anything as it turns out but it would have been nice to see someone there representing First Choice.
OVERALL/ CUSTOMER SERVICE
Without a shadow of a doubt the holiday to Cuba was the best holiday of my life, a fantastic resort and the staff at the hotel and our wedding planner (who are not employed by First Choice) were superb, I could not fault them in anyway and it was most certainly value for money at roughly £3500.
However, everything that was right with the holiday had nothing to do with First Choice and more the Sol Melia resort we stayed in. As I said previously I had lost all faith in First Choice before we had even been on our holiday but after spending two weeks in the most beautiful country to unwind, (almost) everything was forgiven and my plan to complain was scrapped- till six months later.
It was six months ago since we were in Cuba and having our beautiful wedding, but unfortunately six months later and I am still constantly having to ring First Choice and complain.
When we first booked the wedding we were made well aware that it can take up to six months to receive the wedding certificate, but told that Cuba tends to be quite quick at issuing them. A few weeks before we flew there was an issue of Watchdog on TV that was all about First Choice wedding's and how they were in some cases taking two years to produce wedding certificates but were assured time and time again that this was a very isolated case at the resort they had the issue with was no longer in partnership with First Choice weddings.
When at the resort we were told by our wedding planner and the First Choice rep to expect up to three months wait for the certificate, after three months I called the weddings department who said they were wrong and it can take 6 months. Feeling the need to chase this I began calling First Choice weddings every three weeks to ask for an update on my missing certificate only to be constantly told it's on it's way and infact on one occasion was told it had been received at the resort and would be sent via DHL within a matter of days, something I now learn to be untrue.
It seems that the weddings department are completely incapable of being straight with me regarding time scales or where my wedding certificate is, I have recently been told two different time scales one of 9 months and one of 12. Feeling the need to catch First Choice out I looked in their new brochure only to find they have changed the wording to 'we can't confirm how long it will take' but on calling the weddings sales line posing as a bride-to-be was told again that it's a 3-6 months time scale.
As much as I loved my wedding and my holiday and had the best customer service at the initial stages of my relationship with First Choice, they have seriously let me down now with their lack of care or compassion.
If they got their act together with the customer service issues mentioned then I would have no issue with using this company again.
www.firstchoice.co.uk
SLB
My Last Choice 
