Welcome from Jamaica (1.Viewing)

rlm said:

Is that the Riu Palace Las Americas? We stayed just up the street at the Riu Palace Peninsula in November (the one with the giant square hole in it that you can't miss). We've been pretty happy with staying at Riu's (just don't stay too long or you get sick of it - but that's true of anywhere for me).

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Yup, the Riu's have been consistantly good for us but always make sure you're not on the side with the air conditioners, we only made that mistake once.

We love the RIU group too. Amazing properties but like @rlm said, once we stayed for 10 days and we were ready to leave on the 9th. 7 is max and ideal.

So, one of the fliers talked to a crew member and they were venting that the check engine light was on for 12 days before the engine blew out. Sunwing put everyone in danger not taking care of this promptly.

Here is what happened on the way back...

1. One hour delay due to deicing of the incoming plane.
2. Baggage was 1 hour delayed due to not having enough staff.
3. Two bags missing delayed by another 1.5 hours making it 2.5 hours to get our bags.

Reason given: workers did not want to work in the cold temperature.

Real reason: Not enough staff.


So we lost 1 full day coming in and about 3.5 hours coming back.
The idiotic part about this is we paid extra to get the better times and the plane that was scheduled 6 hours behind us had their bags and things earlier than we did.


Also keep in mind Sunwing kept out 12k three years ago and gave us a 2 year voucher which would have expired. Luckily I have a world elite travelers card and they took care of the charge back on that one for me.

My 13 year old girl gave sunwing a scathing review and looking at all the one star ratings she was not alone.

My Warning - Stay far away from sunwing

I took sunwing once and never again. They are the absolute worst. The reviews are awful and every experience I have heard has been bad. I would NEVER recommend anyone going on a sunwing flight even if a resort is only offered by sunwing I still would never go.

My experience with them was when I went to the Dominican Republic. Luckily it was nothing as serious as your experience but the delays are consistent with anyone who takes Sunwing. It actually led me to purchase a domain to spite them but ended up dropping it years later.

My wife & I took a sunwing travel package to Cabo once, to the RIU there. That was mid-pandemic, but after the vaccinated were allowed to travel again. We've never taken a package like that before, but got talked into joining another couple that had already booked the trip.

Things actually went very smoothly, tour bus transfers to/from the resort were nice and simple. They had onsite covid testing that was required to return to Canada, and that was fast and easy as well. And due to the pandemic and lack of travellers at the time, we got a smokin' hot deal. It was $3K CAD for two weeks all inclusive including flights, transfers, etc... The resort wasn't busy, but by the end of the second week we could definitely tell that the crowds were ramping up.

In any case, I guess we can chalk up the good Sunwing experience due to the fact that demand was still low at that point. but I certainly was happy with the overall experience.

MapleDots said:

1. One hour delay due to deicing of the incoming plane.
2. Baggage was 1 hour delayed due to not having enough staff.
3. Two bags missing delayed by another 1.5 hours making it 2.5 hours to get our bags.

Reason given: workers did not want to work in the cold temperature.

Real reason: Not enough staff.

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In all fairness, that's probably happening to every airline.

MapleDots said:

So we lost 1 full day coming in and about 3.5 hours coming back.
The idiotic part about this is we paid extra to get the better times and the plane that was scheduled 6 hours behind us had their bags and things earlier than we did.

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This is the real bullshit part of booking airline tickets, and they're all probably doing it too. We booked flights like 6 months in advance for our Nov trip to Cancun, and we did the same, paid extra for specific flights, connections and times. Then later WestJet changed those times when they likely consolidated flights, so we got put on the shittier flight, but since prices had been jacked up since then, all they would do is offer to cancel and I could rebook at an even higher price for the shittier flights. They're getting sneaky and pulling bait-and-switch moves now, in a way that there's nothing you can really do about it. The consumer protection laws aren't savvy enough to prevent this trickery. Instead of being offered a refund and being forced to pay potentially last minute prices, you should be guaranteed the lowest price ticket on the flight you were switched to, because had I wanted that flight, I could have would have booked it at that price back then. I believe I should have been due a partial refund of the difference.

@rlm

Forgot to tell you we returned on a brand spanking new 737 max which made me a bit nervous.

A couple of observations....

• The technology was insane
• All writing was in english only, on the 737 it was english and some other language I did not recognize.
• I am 6 foot 1 and I had to bend my knee into my sons isle, it was almost unberable for 4 hours.
• Nice USB slots in seat backs but we could not use with our modern USB C phones without an adaptor.
• Sunwing used to paint the wing tips orange with the sunwing logo, now it is just an orange sunwing sticker no painted tip.
• No TV screens anywhere anymore.

MapleDots said:

@rlm

Forgot to tell you we returned on a brand spanking new 737 max which made me a bit nervous.

A couple of observations....

• The technology was insane
• All writing was in english only, on the 737 it was english and some other language I did not recognize.
• I am 6 foot 1 and I had to bend my knee into my sons isle, it was almost unberable for 4 hours.
• Nice USB slots in seat backs but we could not use with our modern USB C phones without an adaptor.
• Sunwing used to paint the wing tips orange with the sunwing logo, now it is just an orange sunwing sticker no painted tip.
• No TV screens anywhere anymore.

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Yeah, the planes are pretty nice - with one exception. Leg room. Its gotten ridiculous. Of course the airlines can order them with whatever spacing between seats they want, with different spacing for for first, business, coach, etc.... But I'm only 5'7" and even I'm starting to complain about it being too tight. I feel bad for tall people! Nah, no I don't. I get screwed at concerts and events trying to see over tall people, so you guys can get screwed on airplanes

If you're in the cheap seats, don't even bother trying to pull out the laptop, you'd need t-rex arms to type because the thing would basically be sitting 1 inch from your body! On a long flight it is also ridiculous to try and eat a meal with so little space. I don't usually bother spending the big bucks for the roomier seats, especially if the flight is only a few hours. But coming back from Paris last year we upgraded to biz class and it was way more comfortable. Probably still not worth the cost in my book, but it kept the wife happy. And the meal was actually delicious.

In the main cabin, seats can be as close as every 28" inches. CRAZY. AirCanada has 30", Westjet goes with 31" to 34", most north american planes are in that 30-34" range for the main cabin, with some combination 30 and larger so they can sell upgraded comfort seats. Not sure about Sunwing.

And yeah, screens are disappearing. Of course the airline can order them with 13" screens and bluetooth headphone capable... Its nice not to have to deal with cables, or balancing your own ipad or iphone the whole time.

The overhead bins are pretty spacious, so that's nice.