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#866338 by Rabbit
10 Feb 2014, 17:43
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Having flown mostly EC in Virgin as well as several flights in UC over the last 9 years, I was rather pleased to be experiencing PE for the second time (the first time in 2005 I had paid £60 on a staff flight to Miami and there was no way I was going to complain about that!)

Unfortunately the PE experience did not live up to expectations for multiple reasons. Firstly I was travelling alone and ended up sat next to a very inconsiderate passenger who did not understand the little drinks table on the end of the arm rest between us was to be shared so spent the whole flight hogging it as well as the arm rest. Nothing to do with Virgin but got my flight off to a rubbish start. I was happy with being greeted with my bubbles as soon as I had sat down, but upon reaching for the inflight entertainment magazine, the holder came away from the seat and I ended up with the various magazines, sick bag and safety card at my feet :(! So I had nowhere to put my bits and bobs and the virgin gumpf just ended up at my feet getting in the way for the rest of the flight - crew member just said 'oh thats not very good' when she noticed it had come away.

When mealtime came around, I could not figure out for the life of me where the tray table was! Everyone around me had theirs out and I was like ermmmmmm where is mine? Finally I figured it out (I swear I am not blonde!) and I was again disappointed. It was tiny and the placement very awkward. Anyway I got my choice of meal, a nice pasta salad and beef meal which I enjoyed. I was looking through other trip reports and saw a pic from PE where the person had the miniture salt and pepper pots but I did not get these v(

In-flight entertainment choices were great, I had already checked the film listings before my flight and was excited to catch the latest films! Unfortunately my system let me down, it kept skipping/stopping every minute or two so I wasn't sure if I had missed parts of the film. When I went to complain, it appeared all the seats around me were also complaining about the same problem. The cabin crew reset the system and it worked for all of five minutes and then the same issue occurred. We all complained again and it was reset again but same problem again! After this the crew offered some people to move seats, which some did but the only option I had was a middle seat in my row of 4 where the man sitting in the aisle has been asleep as soon as the doors were shut, I didn't want to get stuck next to him needing the loo so I didn't move and they gave me a DVD player. Unfortunately they did not have the DVD of the film I was watching so I picked another. Settled into the film and was thoroughly enjoying it when the DVD started skipping ARGGGGGGHHHHHH :(! I swear this was a sign that I should never have upgraded in the first place and stuck to economy. I didn't dare ask for another film and instead put the DVD player away.

We were offered a pizza as a snack, but I felt this was way too soon after our main meal so I declined. After the pizza they gave a Fab lolly which I thought was hilarious but tasty all the same! Where are the GU puds? - easily the best bit about Virgin flights! There was some other food offered before we landed which I did have but I can't remember what it was.

The flight was a little bumpy in places but nothing too bad. We landed early which I was happy about but it took ages to get off the actual plane. When we hit the immigration hall I nearly cried, the lines were huge! I guess if we had arrived later, the queue may have not been so bad. Anyway, I stood in that queue for close to 1.5 hrs :(! Luggage was waiting next to the belt waiting to be collected and I was soon on my way.

This flight definitely put me off ever flying PE again, I think Virgin do EC so well and UC is simply great so I am not sure PE was worth it. On my EC return flight CUN-LGW, I realised that the plane I had travelled to SFO in was extremely dated compared to the CUN-LGW plane where the premium seats looked so much better and the economy seats were amazingly comfy and new!

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