JMC airlines are part of the JMC travel group which offers a wide range of package holidays from the UK to a wide range of European holiday destinations eg Spain, Greece and portugal to name a few of thier holiday destinations.
Having just returned from a ’’bargain’’ break with JMC holidays, I would like to say that overall we had a very good holiday once we did not have contact with this company.
JMC’s slogan is unwrapping the packaged holiday, to be honest I could not see any difference in their package to any other’s offered by tour operators.
My holiday was booked and paid for one week prior to departure. The party consisted of myself and my 3 year old daughter who JMC classed as an adult as I had paid the adult price for her, hence such things as tickets on departure, transfer to the resort and pre booking of airline seats were all at adult prices for both of us.
My holiday price ( per person) was broken down as such
Basic holiday price £109
Tickets on departures £10
Transfer to resort £15
Pre booking of seat on plane £9
Total per person £153
Given that the original price of the holiday would have been over £500 per person I did get a bargain. From that point of view I was extremely happy with the price I paid to JMC.
The day before I was due to fly out I recieved from my travel agents an official invoice that JMC had sent to them. One wonders if they can send out an invoice which obviously spent at least two days in the post why my flight tickets could not have been sent out as well? The recent is patently clear it would have meant JMC would not be able to charge me £20 for standing in a queue at Manchester airport!!
My flight to Rhodes was from Manchester airport, after picking up my tickets from the JMC desk I proceeded to the checking desk there were several desks opened so it was a quick and painless procedure, till I found out that JMC had failed to prebook my seats on the plane even after I’d paid £18 for this privellege. I returned to the JMC desk to be told by a JMC empolyee that she would try to sort it out. Customer care skills were not this womans forte. But as it was 5:30am I really wasn’t going to argue with the woman and presumed stupidly that it would be done. Seats were not pre-booked for the return journey either as I later found out
The Flight
Outwards I was pleasantly suprised to find that due to tail winds etc they had knocked an hour off the flight time of 4hrs35. Having travelled on several different airlines I can confidently say that the leg room on a JMC flight is the worst I have expreienced. to be honest if you are over 5’9’’ you’ll probably feel cramped. Images of being in a Greek hospital with a DVT passed throw my mind as I frantically wiggled my toes to aid circulation and to ward of any potential clots ( ok I’m a neurotic but it was that cramped!)
Inflight catering
This unfortunately left alot to be desired. I had ordered vegetarian meals for us but as you’ll probably have already guessed this slipped their minds so on the flight out a rather tired and hungry little treasure eat both bread rolls and the small pots of yoghurts which accompanied a rather dried up bacon, sausage, egg and beans. The air hostess promised to rectify the problem on the flight back.
One thing that I did noticed on the flight out only hot drinks were served so any child that did not drink tea or coffee was going to be rather thirsty if parents hadn’t bought a supply of drinks with them.
On our return flight again Vegetarian meals had not been booked but luckly they had a spare one! The meat eaters tucked into a ’’traditional’’ chicken meal whilest I ate a dried up veggie korma. Given that curry is an aquired taste one wonders why the airline choose this option. little treasure ate further bread rolls as curry is not her thing! The attitude of the staff on board when I queried why meals had not been booked for us at the second time of requesting was one of indifference.
Transfers to the resort
The resort we said at was about 3km from the airport so Taxi’s were used to transfer us to the hotel. JMC saw fit to try to cram four adults and two children into one taxi from the airport. Luckly the mother of the other child was as vocal as I was and seperate taxi’s were provided. Given that the transfer fee was £7.50 each way per person the profit they made was huge as a taxi to the airport was only about £5 I later found out.
On our return journey a taxi transfer was again provided, supposedly booked for 12:45pm but arriving at the hotel 1:25pm some 15 minutes after we were supposed to have booked in at the airport.Again only one taxi was provided for 3 adults and 2 children luckly we all managed to cram in as did all our luggages.
The hotel
This was excellent, the accomadation was self catering studio’s with a bath and shower and a small seperated kitchen area. The staff were very friendly and nothing was to much trouble for them. I was even moved to a room over looking the pool as Little treasure was so excited about seeing the pool, without asking.
If you read the brouchure desciption you would be forgiven into thinking that all the studios were for 3 people. The studio I had was definetly just for 2 people. Had I booked this as a non late bargain I would have had to pay an under occpuancy charge of £16 per night. Given that the room was not under occupied I do feel that this is again another JMC scam.
The brouchure also went onto say that some aircraft noise would be possible due to the proximaty of the airport. This rather wooly expression can mean any thing to a distant roar of an engine to a thundering of a plane over head. The hotel is directly on the flight path and the planes fly at a very low level over the hotel. Prehaps a more accurate description would be better.
The resort
Kremasti is actually a very nice resort which is not too commercialised and is actually a working village/small town. The beach is basically pebbles and so if you are looking for a bucket and spade holiday then this is not the place for you. JMC discribe the beach as a mixture of pebbles and sand. The only sand is to be found in small patches around the tree’s that line the road that rounds at the back of the beach.
The holiday rep
To be honest he was like every other holiday rep I have encountered, out to sell you the tours they do. He also had a limited knowledge of the area and gave the impression that public transport out of the resort was very infrequent and not at all reliable. Having used the buses to do a bit of sight seeing I would argue this was far from the case.
Booking in at Rhodes airport.
This was a nightmare, we arrived at the airport some 35 minutes after we should have checked in to find that there was only one desk opened for our flight and the queue was out of the doors when we arrived. We queued outside in the blazing sun for nearly an hour. Then the JMC reps decided to form 2 queues which merged into one. A riot nearly broke out at one point as people were accusing each other of pushing in by this point the JMC reps were no where to be seen. Due to the fact that people were still booking in at 3pm ( when the flight should have been )the flight was delayed for over an hour, all due to the fact that only one desk was opened for check in even though the desk next to it was not in use.
Now you would be forgiven if you thought I’d had a terrible holiday it was actually really good the only thing that spoilt it was the contact that I had with JMC!! I hope to return to Rhodes but it definetly will not be with JMC!