This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
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So before the flight report, the bounce report. If you agree at check-in, your ticket and baggage is marked with a red VO sticker - and then life continues as before. I had no particular reason to be back in London on Saturday morning, so an extra day in SF seemed a very light price to pay for 'a free economy return anywhere on the Virgin network'. Boy, was I wrong (more on that later).
I got through SFO security - and this was the only time I regretting volunteering. Shoes, belts (belts!), laptop and jacket off, and my carry-on luggage was sent through the X-Ray three times, swabbed, checked by hand and then X-ray'd again. Took half an hour of sheer misery: it turned out that the item that had confused them was a replica Byzantium icon of St George giving the dragon a good kebabbing.. All that gold leaf. And if I won my bounce, I'd have to do it all again.
After that, it was a straight line to the bar beyond A8 - where, as per, a killer Bloody Mary (made with half a pint of voddy) repaired my good spirits and prepared me for the flight.
But it was not to be. After a lot of chaos at A8, myself and the other 18 volunteers were called to the podium, given our tickets back and told to go back to check-in to pick up our bags and our 'package'. Ooh! I was a bit surprised at how easy it was leave airside - we just walked through a set of doors. No security at all.
The package turned out to be a chit for fifteen dollars' worth of food (no booze - I couldn't buy an eight dollar burger and a four dollar beer) and a long wait for a shuttle. We then got a voucher describing our allowances - 25 dollars for dinner, 15 dollars for breakfast and 117 dollars for accomodation at the Holiday Inn on Columbia. It was all a bit messy, as nobody in the process seemed to know what paperwork to expect or what to hand over where. I did make sure I got a window seat booked at this point, as I suspected that I wouldn't be able to change it online later (which turned out to be true, as we had no e-ticket or reference number).
The evening was fun. I ended up buying far too much jewelry from a designer boutique for my intended (hence the complete failure of this as a cheap extra day) and investigating some very scuzzy bars indeed. And thence back to the airport the next day (Holiday Inn food is... best avoided), where I was a bit worried about turning up without my visa counterfoil (taken the day before - was I legally in the US or not?) or any form of official ticketing. But the security guy on the queue said 'Oh. YOU again.' and waved me through. Then came the Magic Ticket, which was _not_ (as advertised) a free return to anywhere, as Oz was specifically excluded. Bah. And they got me to sign it without giving me any time to read the conditions, which makes me think they knew... still, no matter.
SFO security was completely different. Still had to do the whole belt/shoes thing, but went through in a trice with friendly, joking staff. And then I had a Groundhog Day Bloody Mary, and this time got on the flight.
There's not much to say about life in 53A: no room for a fat 'un, V-Port splendid as always, even with the dodgy controller and imap not working half the time, food much better than six months ago (Key Lime pie rather good, beef/mash/broccoli tasted fine, but no cheese for the biscuits. Hm), decent view out of the window except for approach to London because we flew the westerly approach and I was on the wrong side of the aircraft, no ice-cream... Cabin crew were pleasant but working too hard to do much more than the basics, while the FO was one of the verbose variety who enjoyed giving all the details of the route over the PA. I don't mind that, but it came after the IFE had been going for about half an hour and so most people would be stuck into their films. The seat was OK: I ignored the amenity pack and used my own headphones, and I've now done the trip often enough that I just slip into a Zen state of semi-consciousness without being aware of time passing.
The aircraft itself - didn't get the registration, alas - wasn't too well, The APU had packed up before take-off, so we had a lot of extra faffing at both ends of the flight. This was worse after landing, as we apparently needed some ground support to plug in before we could exit the plane (one engine running until then), and as this came on top of a 20 minute wait for a gate on the ground plus the usual Heathrow taxyathon it meant we spent a very long time not moving but with seatbelts on. I also noticed during the flight that the lighting/ventilation panels above my head were grubby and the lights were covered in quite deep fine grey dust. Nobody had given them so much as a wipe over with a damp cloth for at least a month, which I didn't take as a good sign. Also, after landing there was a swarm of yellowjackets crawling over one of the engines - so I guess something else had gone a bit haywire during the flight.
All that aside, it was a decent enough trip. The staff were professional yet human, the food acceptable and in 22 hours (including the flight over the week before) I got nowhere near exhausting the IFE. Can you ask for more on a Y? I think not.
R