This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
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Cabin Crew
This sector was upgraded from a paid S fare with miles, so no Tristar car for me.
Once the Addison Lee car was on it's way, they sent a text message with details of the car registration, driver's mobile number and ETA at the pickup point. All in all, I've been impressed with their service, and they are roughly 30 cheaper than the equivalent 'cash' fare for the same trip with Tristar, and about 15 cheaper than competitor Blueback.
So, I found myself at T3 check-in just before 7am, and even though I'd checked-in online the previous day, I opted to use Upper Class check-in to drop my bag off, as there was already a bit of a line at the DIY bag drop.
Securicor passport checker seemed nice and efficient enough, and I dropped my bag and picked up my boarding card from one of the most delightful LHR check-in staff I've come across in ages. Bag checked, and CH invite in hand, I headed for fast track, which seemed to still be fast at this time of the morning - though I dread to think what it might look like at about 10.30am. It looks like BAA have finally been able to speed up the security checks at LHR again, there seem to be less elastic barriers in evidence than previously to corral people into the security combs.
Despite all this, some people still don't understand the meaning of 'empty your pockets'!
Popped through duty free to pick a couple of items up, before heading to the Clubhouse, which was almost deserted so early in the morning. I checked my carry-on bag at the front desk - forgot to take the little red tag at the time, but the porter remembered me when I came back later after a shower and I'd woken up properly. Headed straight for the showers at the Cowshed, and had a nice refreshing steam shower. These shower rooms are seriously good!
Came out feeling quite refreshed, swung by the porter's desk to pick up the red tag for my bags, and headed for the Brasserie to get breakfast. They mark the booths in the Brasserie as 'reserved', which I think means to hold them back for large groups, as most of the other seating is 2-person tables. The waiter came over and offered me drinks and brought me a menu, saying something about 'This is full service here, and might be slow, but the menu is the same as anywhere else in the lounge', which I found quite funny, given that there were only about 6 people eating at this time of the morning. What about in the rest of the lounge - will I get served faster if I sit elsewhere? [;)]
Anyway, cappucino in hand, I ordered a bacon muffin and the salmon scramble. Both were delivered very quickly - hot, fresh and tasty. The kitchen must have been significantly enlarged during the rebuild.
With breakfast finished, and my haircut confirmed for 9.30am, I went for an explore of the Clubhouse. I was expecting three other people (two in J, one in W) heading for the same meeting in San Jose to show up, though not much before 9am.
The new library is a significant improvement - if only it was possible to keep the doors shut to keep out the noise of kids playing space invaders! The work desks are much bigger, so even if you're sat at a desk with an existing internet PC, there's still space for your laptop and other things. Looks like VS have taken on board customer feedback in the design of this space. It's also great to see the leather lounger seats which were a feature of the quiet area in the old Clubhouse have made a comeback!
When I first saw the idea of 'Multiscreen', I wasn't too sure. I wondered how you could concentrate on the thing you were actually watching. Turns out it was quite easy. Just a shame that the sound wasn't working for the first hour or so. I'm guessing someone reset something, because it was working again later.
The chairs in the Multiscreen area are really comfortable, BTW.
By now, it was after 8am, so I headed back out into the Terminal, not only to remind me what a hell-hole it is, but to go and enrol in the IRIS entry system. They have an enrolment office just to the right once you've passed through security in T3. There was no queue, and I was seen straight away, and they explained that I was volunteering to be a 'guinea pig'. The whole process only took 5 minutes, and I was heading back to the Clubhouse to check out what's left.
The Skylounge seems a nice relaxing area, but I think one thing was overlooked in the design, where the roof slopes down to the main floor, there is a waiter's serving station for the brasserie right below. This means that sounds of crashing cutlery are funnelled upstairs into the Skylounge area. Still, very relaxing, and very James Bond/Austin Powers...
Steps from the Skylounge lead up and out to the roof garden with it's warnings about 'no smoking' because of the cloud aviation fuel vapour which hangs around airports. It turned out to be quite a small area, but that could have been because it's dominated by the Jaguar car that has been craned up there as part of a promotion. It might actually be nice when the car is gone and there's space for people!
Beside the Multiscreen not working properly, it also seemed that some of the Nokia phone/mp3 player things that were dotted around the Clubhouse weren't working either. Either the batteries in the Bose QC2s were flat or stolen (probably by some traveller who's own QC2s had flat batteries), or the mp3 collection had been deleted from the phone. While I know these things are promotional, the fact that they don't work really takes the shine off.
Another rant while I'm here - it looks like the Clubhouse have stopped carrying Tanqueray No. Ten![n] They just had Sapphire and something else. (Thank God they still had Ten on the plane.) If someone from VS is reading this - bring back Ten in the Clubhouse!
Haircut time eventually rolled around, with no sign of my travelling companions yet - it would turn out that the person travelling in PE had rescheduled to Sunday's flight, so I made my way over to the Cowshed for the haircut. Contrary to other reports, the Cowshed people seemed quite nice and personable, and the same girl cut my hair as last time I had a CH haircut, back in January. I remembered her, and after a couple of seconds, she seemed to remember me too. So, I couldn't really do any other reporting on whether the staff there are more aloof these days. She seemed the same as before.
While I was having the haircut, my two travelling companions turned up, and phoned me to ask where I was - the stylist asked if I wanted to get the call. Of course I did, just for the humour of saying, 'Having my hair cut.' This, of course, got the reply of 'Errr... are you at the airport?' Haircut done, I headed over to find them sat in the Den, ordering breakfast, and a bunch of people who had annexed the Skylounge upstairs as a prayer room. Not sure what faith they were, but if they were Islamic, I just didn't have the heart to tell them they were facing the wrong way.
I had warned my colleagues to arrive nice and early in order to (ab)use the facilities, but they had a long car journey down to Heathrow, and were out late the previous day, so they only managed a full English breakfast with a couple of glasses of champagne to kick start the day, while they enjoyed the whole 'Dr. Evil's secret lair' ambience of the Clubhouse.
By now, time was rolling around to when the flight should be called, but I'd not heard anything. I checked with the Concierge desk, and she said that the crew were slightly late getting access to the aircraft, but we can expect to be called soon. That left enough time to sit at the bar and have another glass of the bubbly stuff!
One thing I didn't see in evidence in the Clubhouse is the V-Flyer award on display! I wonder what's happened to it?
Eventually, the flight was called around 10.35, and we were on gate 32, so that meant a long trek out to somewhere near Slough for boarding, through one of those gates which doesn't do Priority Boarding very well at all. Indeed, the announcement in the Clubhouse basically said 'Push to the front of the queue'. However, when we got there, there wasn't that much of a line, and we didn't feel right pushing, so we just waited our turn. Before long, we were all turning left to take our seats on G-VFAB.
Drinks were offered, and the crew introduced themselves. The crew member looking after my aisle was really good. I noticed that the water bottle wasn't the usual 'designer' Ty Nant bottle, but a regular bottle of Buxton Spring. No problem with that, it's all water, but just a difference, and they were still billing Ty Nant water on the menu.
Despite the late boarding, we were buttoned up slightly early and pushed back dead on 11am. The taxi out to Runday 27L seemed to be very quick, it almost seemed like planes were being held to let us past, and we were off at 11.16 local time.
Seatbelt signs were off pretty quickly, as we climbed Northwards away from London. The welcome video was quickly gotten over with (just 5 mins now the news has gone) and v:port fired up.
Our routing took us North through the Midlands, and then over Manchester and my home town of Blackpool, finally leaving the UK behind somewhere near Islay.
The FSM came around and introduced herself after the first drinks round, and apologised if she seemed busy today, but they were a crew member down in th J cabin, so it's fortunate we had a light load.
The dinner service started, and I have to say, the salmon salad starter from the 'Best of British' menu was really good. The Chicken Tikka Masala was a bit plain to be honest, and the chicken didn't seem to be Tikka (i.e. it hadn't been marinated and cooked in a tandoor first), it just seemed to be chicken in a curry gravy, which seemed a bit thin and lacking. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either.
Didn't fancy rhubarb today, so I opted for the cheese selection, which was okay.
I didn't feel in the mood for a film, so I watched an episode of 'Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares' over dinner. I wonder if Gordon Ramsay could help VS with their on-board food? I know he advises SQ. Maybe they could lend him to VS for a while?
Adjourned to the bar with my colleagues after lunch, met up with V-Flyer member 'rod10' and his partner, and had a couple more drinks.
The current chocolate selection on the bar is Bendicks mints. Snacks are crisps or twiglets. It's nice that they keep changing them about, but it would be nice to have a little variety.
The fruitbowl was also brought out, which had apples, bananas and peaches. I asked if there was any grapes today, you know, maybe they hadn't put them out, or they were hidden away in some other cart, and was given the curt reply 'Do you see any grapes?'[V] Bad to hear that from a CSS. Let her fellow crew down, as everyone else seemed quite nice.
The rest of the flight passed uneventfully, I took a couple of hours sleep, then woke and ordered the Goat cheese 'toastie', which turned out to be a panini-ish sandwich. It was okay, but just seemed to be a bit too experimental for my liking - the filling seemed to have just turned into some sort of slush.
Checking out the map, our routing was much further South than is usual, it was almost like we were following an Eastbound track rather than Westbound. Obviously, the winds made this routing favourable, but I think it's the first time I've been this far South on an SFO flight. For example, it's common to enter US airspace over Spokane, or even further to the West, near Seattle. This time, we entered US airspace somewhere near Glasgow, Montana.
Afternoon tea was served, and as I didn't fancy the sandwiches, I had some more cheese, followed by scones with jam and cream. I didn't see the advertised cake selection being offered from the cake stand, yet I later saw at least one of the crew members scarfing down cakes in the galley. Maybe I had just not been paying attention when the cakes were offered, and I know it's okay to just ask if you need something, but my point is that you shouldn't have to ask if something is shown as being part of a meal service.
The different routing also meant that we got a different arrival route into SFO - we came across the Central Valley, overhead Modesto, and then up the Bay from the San Jose end.
We landed a few minutes early on Runway 28R, and started our taxi in to the gate. I could see that the BA flight had landed in front of us, and I was hoping we'd get to be parked before they were, and we were lucky. We were parked and unloading before BA, but we did run into the back end of the Air France and KLM flights. It seems crazy that four widebodies full of people - so that's about 1500 people if the planes are full - all arrive at SFO within minutes of each other. It took well over 30 minutes to clear US immigration, but that did mean that the bags were going around on the carousel once you'd got through.
A crazy thing was that no-one was unloading bags from the carousel, which meant that bags were stacked three deep, making them very hard to unload.
The real killer on this trip was then waiting over an hour for a rental car, and then having to swap cars before I could leave the rental car garage.
So, not a bad flight. Food and drink still a little iffy - such as the loss of No Ten in the CH, bland Tikka Masala, the gooey hot sandwich, and limited choccie and fruit selection - but it seems to be going in the right direction. An otherwise good crew let down by one or two members.
Cheers!
Mike
