My amazing son, Ryan and his wife Katrina booked us on an “all-inclusive” to Cancun with Sunwing. They were coming from Toronto and us from Vancouver. The Flight from Vancouver was good as we booked “Elite Plus” and got Exit Row 15 for extra legroom as my husband is 6’5” and could never sit in the standard rows. Extra legroom and preboarding were the only perks to Elite Plus but we felt it was worth the extra $50.00 per person per flight. *Note the Exit aisles 15 / 16 and row 14 do not recline.
We had an absolutely wonderful stay with our family at our resort “Paradisus Cancun” (I will write glowing reports about that resort in another post).
On the morning of our departure, my husband woke up with trouble seeing out of his right eye. This had never happened, were very concerned and glad we were heading home to see our doctor.
Check out from our resort Paradisus was nice, easy and efficient and the Sunwing airport shuttle arrived on time and we had a baggage handler take us directly to our “Elite Plus” check in to head home.
After that, our trip home on Sunwing was absolutely horrible!
First, our WG586 flight was delayed by 30 minutes. Then we got bumped from the original A7 gate and had to head downstairs to Gate B1 on the tarmac (no communication as to why). When everyone was finally boarded and seated we waited another 30 minutes.
Then we were informed that due to a ‘weight issue’ our plane would now be flying to Winnipeg instead of Vancouver! All the passengers were very upset with the news. The pilot came back on the intercom 10 minutes later to say that it was only to be a “short” 30 to 45 min stop for ‘refueling‘ then onto Vancouver. So much for our easy 6-hour flight home. They offered the option for anyone that wanted to leave to disembark the plane. (There was no compensation offered.)
Once we were in the air the service wasn’t great. The only entertainment was listening to music stations or watching very old reruns of Big Bang, Friends, 2 and a half men and other random TV shows we had just seen on the way down. Food, unless paid for, was nonexistent and wasn’t great when you did get it.
Recommendation: Make sure you eat at your all-inclusive before you get on the plane to come home.)
Jan Addams Design
We arrived in Winnipeg and after refueling for 40 minutes and having paramedics come in to check on a very sick passenger, (who caught a parasite in Mexico that hospitalized her for 3 days and they didn’t accept her travel insurance and only treated her when she paid $3000.00 US) Our 6-hour trip now turned into 10.
We finally arrived in Vancouver at 11pm (2am Cancun time) instead of our original 8:35pm. Then we had to wait for 30 minutes for the ‘ground crew‘ to arrive.
One positive - we went through an 'easy Canadian Customs entry’ as everything is automated at YVR.
Now to await our luggage which was to arrive on Carousel 21. We saw a few people get theirs and we were hopeful our ordeal was soon over. We watched with anticipation for ours to come down the conveyor belt. Then we talked to a few passengers and they weren’t on our flight they were off a previous Sunwing flight from Maui and waited 1 1/2 hours to get their luggage!
We were now an hour + waiting and everyone was getting angry. Several, including myself, went to the Sunwing Customer Service Desk (I’d link to their desk site if they had one) and asked where our bags were and we were finally informed that they were still on the plane and may take another 1 to 3hrs to come off!!!! No one told us or gave us any options. There were families with young children and the poor sick lady that should have been taken to the hospital by ambulance hours ago and it was like no one from Sunwing cared.
With much prodding, we discovered that there was only ONE Sunwing baggage handler and only 2 attendants for 3 planeloads of people that recently landed – This was the last straw! Several of us, myself included just grabbed and filled out the ‘baggage delayed / damaged forms and Canadian Custom Baggage forms’ and opted to just go home (this is after waiting without communication for 1.5 hrs) the 11pm arrival now turned into 2:00am still waiting!!!
This was absolutely UNACCEPTABLE TREATMENT!
The next day I called the Sunwing Customer Service in the Baggage Department (I called twice and was on their ‘sales’ voice-on-hold for 5 minutes each time). Finally, I got through to a lady (Christina) that actually sounded like she cared and took all my info down ‘again’ as what I filled out at the airport wasn’t recorded anywhere. She gave me a baggage tracking reference number and told me that someone will call me when they locate my bag and it is out for delivery. Now we await the arrival of our bag… which finally arrived 2 days later by a very overworked and underpaid delivery man in a van.
Bottom line... I blame SUNWING CORPORATE for not providing both their customers and employees on the ground and in the air with accurate and current communication! Canadian’s are very polite but they too lose their cool!
Recommendation: Before you book – read SUNWING’s Twitter Feed
STARS??? I give them 1 Star out of 5 only because we bought Elite Plus for the extra the legroom and flight going to Cancun was fine.
Jan Addams Design
Personally we will never fly Sunwing again. They have lost us as a customer.
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