Run a business with my partner, designing, crafting and selling alternative clothing and accessories...
Run a business with my partner, designing, crafting and selling alternative clothing and accessories. You can check it out at www.freakclubwear.co.uk Vicky
Member since:06.12.2000
Reviews:41
Members who trust:52
Hello all, tonight I’m going to tell you a little story about a poor unsuspecting family who went on a holiday with the tour operators JMC.
All the family wanted was time to relax, sunbathe and be offered some entertainment. However JMC had other ideas.
It all began when they boarded the plane. It was approximately 9pm and over a two hour flight so they were hoping to watch a newly released film on the in-flight entertainment. Unfortunately the first thing the JMC crew announced was that the in-flight entertainment system was not working. However you could still buy their headphones! As a very poor compensation they did offer everyone a complimentary drink (the usual ‘trial size’ cans of course). So one lot of entertainment was down, the only other thing for the family to really do was eat. So they waited with baited breath for the in-flight meal. And waited. And waited. Then slept a bit. And waited. Eventually at gone 11pm dinner was served. However instead of the usual choice between at least two meals there was one option, unfortunately being spicy sausages and onion. So why was this unfortunate? Well one member of the family is intolerant to onion. However in this one case the JMC staff showed they could be decent people even if the company was not up to much and managed to find said family member a spare vegetarian meal so no one went hungry. Horay.
Now for the rather boring part of the tale – the one time JMC neither excelled or failed abysmally, the journey from the airport to the accommodation. The journey was smooth and quick. The only unfortunate points were the JMC rep. speaking over the microphone was inaudible and the coach did not go down the long drive-way up to the resort despite there being plenty of room for it to, so the family were left to drag all their luggage the five minute walk in the dark to the resort entrance.
Next came the JMC rep’s talk about the resort and JMC trips available. Unfortunately the family member writing this was too tired (O.K. too lazy) to go to this. (As it’s yet another company which assumes the day after you arrive you want to get up early in the morning - why can’t any
of these companies have rep’s make the talk in the afternoon or early evening?) However the rest of the family reported back that the talk had been very brief, they had been given a booklet with the trips in but didn’t really know what any really involved, and the rep. had been very unwilling to talk when they had asked questions. Subsequently JMC lost out as we were not inspired to book any trips at the point. (And if only it had stayed that way…)
Several days of blissful relaxation and sunbathing passed. However the nights were plagued by mosquito bites making life so unpleasant we required a pharmacist for cream and repellent. Being in a strange country (to us) we thought we would ask our JMC rep. for help (as many of the staff at the accommodation did not speak good English). The rep. did tell us where to go ….eventually. She was very offhand, turned up late for her shift of being ‘advice-giver’ and treated us like we were idiots for not knowing ourselves. However at least the information she gave us was correct (if a little sparse) and we got all the creams and repellents we needed and had a relatively bite free holiday after that point.
The next big event for JMC to prove they could do good was their Spanish Galleon boat trip which we all went on. It cost £100 for four adults, and for this money we were promised a trip on an authentic Spanish Galleon, with a meal served onboard, and entertainment throughout the day.
Well in the UK this company would have been sued for false advertising by now just for this! The ‘authentic Spanish Galleon’ was a motor powered boat, of which some of the wood used to be a Spanish Galleon, and sails were erected but not used to power the boat. So instead of the relaxing sound of the waves you had the sound of the motor. However to drown out the sound of the motor they played music constantly, through massive speakers all over the boat, so loud that we rapidly got headaches. The food was good and I won’t fault them on that. However the entertainment was literally an outrage. For £100 we got the wonderful game of guess the item in the bin liner. The item was a cocktail stick and you won a T-shirt. There were no verbal clues, no hunt the boat for treasure clues, just a man holding up a bin liner filled with air, saying ‘guess, guess’. Then there was that great family game of bursting balloons in sexual positions and that was it! Apart from the jet skiing and a go on a banana boat of course. However what they had neglected to mention before you came along on the trip was that this would coast an additional £16 per person to go on just one of these! Then just to round the day off nicely when we got on dry land again and ran to the toilet (as the one with no light on the rocky boat was rapidly covered with liquid that had not come from the sea, or even inside the toilet bowl, get my drift?), only to find when we emerged moments later that our coach to take us back to the resort had already left! Fortunately there were other coaches going in that direction which agreed to drop us (and the several other families left behind) at our resort.
Well the family were feeling brave (not to mention very p**sed off) so we complained to our JMC rep. Well he actually found us and asked how we’d found the trip as we’d been unable to control ourselves when the video maker asked if we wanted a video of our day for £18 (we didn’t snap at her or anything, just replied we didn’t see the point as nothing had happened all day so there would be nothing of interest on the tape) and this person had obviously reported back. The rep. at least expressed shock when he found out what the entertainment had been, which grew when he asked what the two paid JMC rep’s on this trip had organised in the form of entertainment and we replied nothing, then when we complained about the coach leaving us and others, his jaw nearly hit the floor. However it was worth complaining as he promptly offered us all free tickets to a night-time show put on by the JMC rep’s. We graciously accepted the offer.
Well we waited for our free tickets, and prompted the rep., and waited, and prompted and waited. Then the day of the night trip we went to the rep. and stood over him while he wrote the free tickets out for us there and then. We got dressed up for the night out, saved some money for drinks for the evening (as it was a night shortly before we departed and the resort was all-inclusive), and waited to see what would unfold (as we had not been told what would happen at the event at all and we’d found getting information out of our reps. harder than getting blood from a stone). After a nearly two hour coach journey we arrived at the venue, only to find out then it was a free bar and we could have therefore spent more money when we had gone souvenir shopping that day. The show was a mixture of comedy sketches, audience participation in the form of shouting, dance routines performed on stage, and 70’s music by a live band after the show. It wasn’t too bad considering how poor the boat trip was, and the more intoxicated members of the family loved it. However it was a shame the comedy sketches were all based on racism/regionalism, and that the 70’s band was one that had already played at the resort, exactly the same show, music, and outfits.
JMC’s last chance to prove themselves as no worse than the rest came with the return to the airport for the journey home. We packed our bags, kept a close eye on the time, now knowing how impatient Spanish bus drivers could be, and waited in the reception to be collected by our JMC rep. and coach. After waiting there for five minutes we found out from a friend (not a JMC rep.) that we had to wait outside the resort by the roadside. So we grabbed our bags and ran to the road, to find two coaches and no rep’s, and bus drivers who spoke no English at all (not their fault – I speak no Spanish either, it just made finding out which coach was ours impossible). Eventually our rep. turns up and we find out neither coach is ours and ours has not arrived yet. So we wait. And we wait. And we begin to realise the plane will be leaving in just over an hour and we’re still at the resort. And we wait. And we wait. Eventually (after about an hour and a half of standing in the cold without drinks, toilets, seats, etc, not knowing what is going on) our coach turns up. Yippee. Soon be at the airport we think. But we were sorely mistaken. We were the first pick-up. We then spent half an hour travelling round the island collecting passengers, getting stuck on roads too small for two lanes of traffic and having the reverse up main roads, with no reassurance from the rep. that we would still make our flight.
We arrived at the airport, checked in our luggage, and then waited! Again! There were no messages saying our flight was delayed, yet also no messages telling us to board the plane. After half an hour of not knowing what was going on we were then told to board immediately, rushed onto the plane (while we could see them still loading our luggage onto the plane!). Here we were told we had five minutes to get off the ground before we missed our flight slot and would have to wait on the plane for an unspecified amount of time. Therefore we were asked to sit down ready for take off a.s.a.p. Well they didn’t need to tell us twice and we somehow made it! (So at least JMC airlines can pull off some amazing stunts.)
So here we are back in England, back into our separate lives and separate homes, yet all vowing to not use JMC again.
Epilogue ------
JMC is a relatively new company (less than 2 years old I think), so it may improve with time and experience. It also will depend on the human element when it comes to the quality element of the rep’s (i.e. some people will always put themselves out for others and others won’t, people had bad and good days, etc), whichever tour operator you book with. However I would not recommend you make this tour operator your first choice (maybe about your 6th or 7th?!). If you go to Thomas Cook you are likely to be offered a holiday run by JMC.
Personal Epilogue ---------------
Hi everyone. Hope you liked my op. I know it’s a bit chatty and long but I fancied a change in writing style for once. I will be returning to my usual, more factual, sectioned style of op’s but please feel free to let me know what you though of this one.
P.S In referance to the title. The one p*ss-up they did organise (namely the rep's show) they did manage to get people p*ssed. However a little too sucessfully as I found a girl face down alone on hard floor tiles unconscious and had to alert them to her. So they really can't sucessfully organise a p*ss-up.
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Advantages: The rep has admitted liability & was quite helpful in doing so! Disadvantages: Money off my next holiday is a joke!, complaints form too small
moose 05.08.2001 (07.09.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of JMC
Jul 19th, 2001
very helpful by (97%):
helpful by (3%):
