I was on this train; the replacement IET had only standard class carriages and set off around 4am, so not much sleep on that part of the journey. Unfortunately history repeated itself last night, when the night riviera broke down again at Plymouth around midnight. They offered hotel rooms, but most people seemed to opt for the replacement IET. This time it had a few first class carriages and the reclining seats made sleep a bit more possible. I’m glad I took my winter coat; it made for a good blanket. Appalling behaviour from some of the passengers towards the onboard staff, I’m sorry to say. Unfortunately I’m now put off using the sleeper in future and am probably going to change the couple of pre-booked tickets I have for it daytime tickets instead.

I travelled from Paddington down to Cornwall on the 10.03 on Good Friday; it was rammed. I'd guessed it might be busy but as I'd just come off a 12h flight I didn't fancy messing about, bought a first class ticket and nabbed a seat pretty quickly after the platform was announced. Other first class passengers were not so lucky, though they managed to get a seat by the time we'd left Plymouth. Standard class travellers overspilled into first and were standing in the first class aisle up until St Austell.
Obviously the refreshments trolley had no hope of getting through, so they handed out bottles of water and biscuits after a few hours.

I got the sleeper for the first time on Thurs 26th July, from Paddington to Camborne. It being one of the hottest days of the year, it wasn't a total surprise to get woken at 3am to be told the aircon had failed and they had to choose between kicking us all off or propping our doors open with paper cups to improve the air circulation. I felt rather sorry for the staff doing the waking and the door propping, as I imagine the hot weather meant opening cabins to find their occupants not wearing a great deal.

Thanks for your replies on this.
I'd quite understand not selling very cheap tickets on busy trains, but these particular trains are always fairly empty. I usually sit in the quiet carriage and it's only ever 2/3 full as it gets into Paddington. The much busier return trains back to Penzance on Thursday late afternoon are chock-a-block and priced accordingly!
That said, I had another look last night and the elusive £24 tickets are still available on Monday mornings, just not on other mornings as they used to be. Oh well, it's up to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) what they want to charge for their tickets - it just means the £66 or so return I've been regularly paying is much harder to find now.

I’ve been regularly booking advance weekday tickets from Camborne to Paddington for the last 6 months. Advance fares for journeys leaving between 8 and 11am routinely used to cost £24. A standard return is £114, so this is a good price. As of a couple of weeks ago, however, they’re now all priced at £49.50
I asked GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) if they no longer offered the £24 tickets, and they said they do. I looked, and there are a handful, but seemingly only at odd times of the day (arriving after 11pm, for example), or with a change involved. They also said the cheapest advance tickets sell out fast, which is a fair point, but there have been plenty of £24 tickets for most morning journeys all year (up to now). It’s almost as though someone has got rid of several of the cheapest fares altogether, leaving only a handful scattered at odd times.
Does anyone know anything about this, or found similar issues with previously cheap fares they’ve been regularly booking?