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#237796 by newby
07 Sep 2005, 12:54
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
After the end of a very rainy and humid week in Disneyworld it was time to make our way back to an apparently sunnier England. I did the whole OLCI again (after the success on the outbound) both for my flight to LGW and for the rest of the family flying back to MAN some 30 minutes later than my flight. Again this worked like a dream and so no sweating required over seating. We also all took advantage of the check in and chill out option at Downtown Disney which was great got there at 9am and our bags were taken away with little fuss and a friendly VA welcome. The service is free for Gold Card holders and for those booked with Virgin Holidays that said I would have been happy to pay the $5 charge if I had to just to get rid of the headache of lugging everything around MCO airport!

We arrived at MCO around 4:15pm and proceeded straight to security and a thorough search of all of us by TSA (which is no small mission when you have a 3 and 5 year old in tow with all of their comfort aids!) by the time I got through this it left just enough time to nip to the duty free store (which is pretty poor in Terminal B around gates 80-100) and to say goodbye to the rest of the family before my flight started to board so no chance to visit the shared access lounge ;-(. Priority boarding was working well with a separate line for this so I was on the plane within a few minutes. The plane was the 747-400 LGW suite as normal and this time I managed to get the name of the plane too Barbarella!

I received the usual warm greeting from the cabin crew after boarding and on settling into 8K was offered champagne and an unusually large amount of reading material. I thought at the time the latter offer of lots of magazines was slightly unusual until a couple of minutes later the FSM made an announcement to all passengers (which she had to keep repeating every 5-10 minutes as more passengers boarded) that the IFE was not working AT ALL and there would be no entertainment during the flight (either audio or visual). Clearly this was slightly disappointing especially given the performance of the IFE on the outbound flight (see my other trip report for the VS27) but given it was a night flight it wasnt the end of the world for me as I wanted to sleep anyway and at least this way I could try sleeping without feeling I was missing out on a great movie / tv channel - other passengers however were understandably less than impressed and starting to moan audibly! The captain tried to make light of the situation informing all passengers that it wasnt all bad and that the plane still had its wings firmly screwed on and lots of food aboard which I thought was pretty funny but that didnt seem to raise much of a smile around the plane!

Upper Class was again pretty empty with only 4 other people with me until a couple of minutes before push back when a celebrity family of 5 boarded and sat at the front of Upper Class. I was pleasantly surprised to see this famous radio and tv presenter and his wife and 3 kids were not at all pretentious or prissy and were treated like any of Upper Class passenger on board the flight and kept themselves to themselves for the most part in-between bouts of entertaining the rest of UC with their happy banter. The children were also possibly the best behaved children I have seen in Upper Class given the fact that they had no proper IFE to watch.

The plane pushed back ahead of schedule and we were wheels up right on time at 17:50hrs with a schedule journey time of 7.5 hours.

The crew were again outstanding on this flight, especially given the attitude of the passengers around the lack of IFE, and in Upper Class once again the crew came up trumps and offered their own individual IFE systems which they have in their crew rest areas for us to use if needed this was gratefully received by some of us especially as the DVD players were either broken or suffering from flat battery syndrome (for those of you that havent seem them before (I hadnt) the crew IFE systems are a bit like mini laptops and replicate what would normally be on the V:Port system).

Service after take off was very prompt and it was another new dinner menu for me which was refreshing to see, and although it was a night flight because there is no dedicated VS lounge in Orlando I didnt have the joy (if that is the right word [8D]) of the Good Night Service so it was the regular Freedom Service for us all.

The menu was as shown below and although it was new in terms of choice of things to eat I am afraid it wasnt up to much taste wise. I opted for the spring rolls which were soggy on the outside and uncooked on the inside (not sure how they managed to do that) and then the poached salmon which to be honest was nice enough but did taste exactly like those boil in the bag menu master fish things I used to eat as a kid! The ice cream though was absolutely gorgeous and I could have quite happily have ate a whole plane load of it if allowed - I would highly recommend it to anyone with a sweet tooth and a taste for all things chocolate (I now just need to find out where I can buy it other than at 40,000 feet and I will be happy!).

Starters
Leaf salad with grilled shrimps, asparagus, palm hearts and honey & Dijon dill dressing
Oriental vegetable spring rolls with sweet chilli sauce

Main Courses
Poached salmon with a medley of julienne vegetables, red bliss potatoes and Napa valley sauce
Crusted lamb served with parsnip fries, green beans and Merlot & thyme sauce
Thai green curry with jasmine rice and toasted coconut

Cheese
Aged cheddar
Double Cream Brie
Buttermilk Blue

Dessert
Fresh summer berry sponge with mascarpone
Dulche de leche ice cream with chocolate sauce and nuts


I decided to put on my sleep suit and get into bed after dinner and managed just over 3.5 hours of really deep sleep and was woken for breakfast with a nice glass of fresh orange juice and a smile from the FSM who must have got the fright of her life seeing me with my bed head hair and my rabbit-in-the-headlights where the hell am I look [:)]

We landed ahead of schedule at 6am although they had problems with the passenger bridge to the plane which meant we couldnt disembark for another 20 minutes. As compensation for the lack of IFE we were all handed a letter on leaving the aircraft apologising for the lack of IFE and offering all passengers one of the following options (a) 25 in duty free vouchers (b)25 off a booking with Virgin Holidays (c)10% of the next fare purchased from VA for a flight or (d) 5,000 flying club miles. I opted for the later [:)].

Immigration was pretty mad at 6:30 on a Sunday morning and then the luggage was delayed by a further 30 minutes so I pretty much got through customs on schedule at around 7:15am ready to use another GEX voucher to get me on my way home (via Victoria) in some style.

All in all another good trip with awesome cabin crew. IFE was non-existant so scores badly and the food wasnt great (apart from the ice-cream) but it was good to get a nice cup of tea and a decent bit of rest on the plane after a hectic week of ferrying my family around everything Disney has to offer!
#311234 by Bazz
07 Sep 2005, 15:11
Thanks for an interesting TR Newby, shame about the IFE and the food, well it didn't sound too good did it? Glad the Cabin Crew came up trumps and the service was what you should be able to expect.

Isn't it a pain when you can't get on the gate, by then all you want to do is get off and you waste another 20 minutes!
#311276 by Richard28
07 Sep 2005, 19:59
Thanks for the TR Newby!

Originally posted by newby

The crew were again outstanding on this flight, especially given the attitude of the passengers around the lack of IFE, and in Upper Class once again the crew came up trumps and offered their own individual IFE systems which they have in their crew rest areas for us to use if needed Ð this was gratefully received by some of us especially as the DVD players were either broken or suffering from flat battery syndrome



I'm suprised that VS do not have DVD players in reserve that plug into the Empower sockets. This of course would not be of help in Y, but would benefit UCS pax no end.

Maybe one for the VS suggestion box!
#311278 by Milliemoo
07 Sep 2005, 20:08
Great trip report! Thanks

That'll Mr Ross & Family I take it??? [:D]

Milliemoo
#311281 by mitchja
07 Sep 2005, 20:13
Good TR thanks [:)]

IFE problems yet again on LGW Flights [:(!]

Regards
#311288 by slinky09
07 Sep 2005, 21:21
IFE problems may be worthy of a poll???

However I thought it was fantastic that Virgin offered all the passengers some recompense for the IFE problem ... yes I would have been pissed off but still there was obviously recognition from the crew and the ground management team. Good for them.
#311333 by mcuth
08 Sep 2005, 00:54
Originally posted by slinky09
However I thought it was fantastic that Virgin offered all the passengers some recompense for the IFE problem ... yes I would have been pissed off but still there was obviously recognition from the crew and the ground management team. Good for them.


On my very first VS flight, the IFE was out in a good proportion of the seats - those vouchers were handed out to all affected without question [y] After my BA experience the very next transatlantic flight, I remember thinking about how well that treatment had been when choosing VS for all the rest of my transatlantic travelling [:)]

Cheers

Michael
#311345 by newby
08 Sep 2005, 09:13
Originally posted by Milliemoo
That'll Mr Ross & Family I take it??? [:D]


It certainly was!
#311510 by ChuckC
09 Sep 2005, 15:05
Newby,
Thanks for the informative TR. The menu sounded good. Did you happen to notice whether Gate Gourmet trucks were catering the aircraft in Florida?

Chuck-
#311513 by newby
09 Sep 2005, 15:12
Originally posted by ChuckC
Newby,
Thanks for the informative TR. The menu sounded good. Did you happen to notice whether Gate Gourmet trucks were catering the aircraft in Florida?

Chuck-


Sorry Chuck I didnt to be honest - and you are right the menu did sound good - it was just a pity that only the ice cream tasted as good as it sounded [:)]
#311573 by buns
10 Sep 2005, 12:21
Newby

Thanks for another nice TR[y][y]

I am surprised that UC was so empty given that this was the last weekend before children returned to school in the UK.

With some many breakdowns of the IFE, one wonders if it is becoming appropriate to have an ipod (or similiar) readily to hand.

all the best
#311578 by sky
10 Sep 2005, 13:14
Originally posted by buns4vs
Newby


With some many breakdowns of the IFE, one wonders if it is becoming appropriate to have an ipod (or similiar) readily to hand.



I never go without my ipod and my powerbook (soon to be replaced with an ibook).

I have my own portable IFE with all of Coupling and up todate Battlestar Galactica and Stargate [:)].

Cheers
sky
#311739 by onionz
11 Sep 2005, 20:44
My regular flight routine these days seems to be eat, ipod, sleep - with ipod still plaing when I wake up. Rarely does the IFE get a look in.

I'm surprised to see problems with the Nova IFE being mentioned in this and other threads - it always seems to be the most reliable system (probably because it's the most basic [;)]).

I've never seen non-functioning IFE on a LGW plane, nor heard anyone mention it until recently. Perhaps we should try to pin down whether it's just one LGW plane that has a problem?
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