The Concierge arranged a taxi to take us back to T3 next day. We had checked-in on line, but for some reason the machines wouldn’t recognise the booking, nor had the boarding passes come through to my phone, so we needed to go to the check-in desk and get them printed there. The agent was rather off-hand, not quite rude but almost there. We breezed through Fast Track in about 30 seconds, or at least I did, having removed all jewellery etc, but my husband, as usual, forgot to empty his pockets of ALL coins, so had to have the x-ray scan as well, when will he learn? A quick detour into Duty Free to buy some perfume for me and we made our way to the Galleries Lounge.
We have not used this lounge up until now, as we have never before flown BA from T3. Gracious it’s neverending! It wasn’t easy finding a seat at 11.30ish as it was rammed, but we eventually found a couple of comfy chairs right at the far end, and set about getting some drinks - a glass or two of red for him, a couple of cokes for me. Lunch was an extremely nice vegetable curry, but Mr D was disappointed - no dessert! He had a VERY sweet tooth. So he filled up on the yoghurt coated cranberries and nuts, which I must admit were very moreish. While the lounge was better than the main departure lounge that I find hellish, I was slightly disappointed in this Galleries lounge. Dirty, used crockery and glassware was left sitting on tables for ages before being cleared and the whole place felt a little shabby.
The flight was called and we strolled straight away down to Gate 29, as much to get up and move as anything. There was a fairly long queue but we walked right past them and found the priority queue and were into the holding area and waited for about 5 minutes for cleaning to be completed before actually boarding. We had seats 4A&C and were very surprised at the smart, clean appearance of the aircraft. Our most recent CE flights have all been on shabbier, definitely dirtier aircraft but this was very smart and actually quite comfortable. There was no middle seat tray in place, but the middle seats were all unoccupied as usual.. Cabin crew appeared pleasant, and so they were. Boarding took forever and we eventually pushed back at 3pm joining the end of a very long line of aircraft waiting to take off. Eventually our turn came and we were airborne at 3.30 heading towards the east.
There were six rows of CE seats allocated on this flight, though a couple of rows were empty, but for some reason, only one crew member for the cabin, instead of the usual two. She was very friendly and professional, but took each and every drinks order and later every meal order individually, so by the time she got to us, the flight was more than halfway over! I was served a standard CE meal, despite having ordered a veggie special, but after refusing it, she soon came back and said she’d found mine. It was an Asian tray and was really, really good. At least the starter and dessert were, the starter a spiced tofu and lentil salad, and dessert, a sort of mango cheesecake, were both absolutely delicious, but after my curry lunch I refused the main course. My husband had the standard meal and said his was very good too, a smoked salmon and cream cheese roulade and then chocolate panacotta, though he also skipped the main. We asked for, and received, champagne, which was more than ok and the nice flight attendant topped us up without any prompting.
Coffee appeared to be on request, but was served right up to less than 15 minutes before landing. We were through immigration in a few seconds but the bags took forever to start coming through and when they did, our two were amongst the very last batch to appear some 45 minutes later, which was very disappointing. Don’t BA prioritise CE bags any more? Anyway, they got there eventually and we joined a short taxi queue ready to spend a few days with our son and his girlfriend. It’s very hot here incidentally, so we are having a very enjoyable time in this lovely city.
Thanks for reading.
Gill
