TV presenter Josie Gibson had so many five star experiences filming her new luxury travel series that she now says “I don’t want to see another glass of champagne for as long as I live.”. The bubbly This Morning star travelled on first class airlines and stayed at high end hotels in Scandinavia, the Middle East and the Caribbean for The First Class Travel Show but in the end craved the simpler things in life. “I know this is going to sound so bad, but there was so much luxury that I just wanted a glass of water,” she says. “There was champagne everywhere. I’m one of these people because I didn’t grow up with it, I’ve got to have it. You make the most out of everything. If there are any freebies to take, I am taking them. Any drinks to be had or food to be tried I am trying it all. First World problems, but I am totally champagned out!”.
Gloucestershire gal Josie initially “thought it was a wind up” when she was asked to present the luxury travel show, as before her Big Brother win in 2010 her holiday experiences were more Butlins than the Bahamas. “When we were younger, we didn’t really go on holidays. I’m one of six so our holidays would have been in Brean or Butlin’s. I still go to those places now, mind. I’m still a fan,” she says.
“What my mum would do is put us in the back of the car and drive around for ages on the estate, so it felt like we were going somewhere really far but we were just being dropped off at this little field up the road by the quarry in Rangeworthy. We would camp there but when you’re a kid it doesn’t matter, does it?”. The places Josie stayed in the new series are a far cry from camping in an English field. In Qatar she visited the five star Mondrian hotel in Doha that is famous for its Arabian wonderland-themed design, in Sweden she checked out a private island, while in Dubai she stayed at the luxurious Anantara at the Palm, which boasts personal infinity pools and a private beach.
Unfortunately she was unable to take her six year old son Reggie on her journeys due to the intense filming schedule, but she plans to return to at least one of the locations with him for a holiday in the future. “I think he would quite like Dubai because it’s geared up for kids,” she says, noting that he would be especially impressed with the place she stayed. “I was in a villa on the water with a glass floor, so you can look down at the sea while you’re having your breakfast.”.
Josie, 40, also tried out some luxury experiences for the series, including a RIB speedboat ride in Sweden. “I am not joking; I have never been so fast in all my life. I think we took to the water at about 90 miles an hour. It felt faster. I thought I was going to take off,” she laughs. She also got to ride a camel at sunset across the desert. “My camel was very well behaved and what a view that was. It felt like I had been dropped into a film or a parallel universe. To have that ride at sunset and then you get off the camel and they give you a glass of champagne with strawberries in it in the middle of the Arabian desert,” she says.
She also developed a special relationship with her mode of transport. “Me and my camel really connected. You know when you properly connect with an animal? It was like we had imprinted each other from the moment I got on her.”. However, she didn’t get on so well with a horse in Grenada in the Caribbean. “I went riding on a horse that maybe I didn’t connect with so well. It was full-on that one. It was a lovely experience, but the horse just wanted to do what he wanted to do. I was on the white beaches of Grenada, and it was glamorous but I’m not sure that I made it look that glamorous.”.
As you’d expect from the cheery star, there were plenty of funny moments during filming, not just when she was trying to stay looking cool on a horse. “The bottom washer in my bathroom suite in the Hotel St George in Helsinki was amazing. I don’t know why they haven’t got them over here,” she laughs, before revealing one of the more embarrassing moments on the show. “When I was in Dubai, they gave you so many freebies in your room. I said, ‘Ooh, this is brilliant, a Protector kit. You even get your own bug spray!’ And the producers went to me, ‘It’s not that sort of protection, Josie!’”.
“It was a raunchy kit for people,” she explains. “I didn’t check what was in it. I just left that to my imagination. I am not a woman of the world when it comes to things like that.”. For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads. Get the biggest TV headlines, recaps and insider knowledge straight to your inbox.
