This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Concorde is now only open to pre-booked tours as unfortunately people who had no respect for these things began to graffiti the inside of her. She’s looking a bit tired now and is in need of a re-paint which apparently is on the cards but no known date.
Following the tour of Concorde it was time to get my first glimpse of the Space Shuttle Endeavour in what was a quiet exhibition space. I seemed to have picked the right day, mid week, off season and late afternoon. I left there just after 5pm and jumped on a bus back to 42nd St / Port Authority Bus station and the Subway down to the World Trade Centre where I had a ticket for the One World Observatory. The views over NY City at night with clear skies were amazing and well worth doing. That was it for today and time for a walk back to my hotel.
Saturday 15th November was another clear but very windy day. Today was going to be all about my actual reason for going back to New York, I was last there in 1999 and had marvelled at the views to be had from walking around on the observation deck of one of the Twin Towers, then 911 happened. If you had read my outbound trip report I mentioned that I was a retired London Firefighter and this trip was my chance to pay my respects to those fellow firefighters who along with everyone else lost their lives on that day.
I had booked two guided tours for that day, the first being around the 911 memorial which I found to be very moving and despite the large number of people their relatively quiet and peaceful - everyone with their own thoughts. After this tour it was onto the 911 museum and another guided tour and a chance to see the various artifacts from that day that have been preserved there and again I found it very moving. I then had a long chat with the guide after the tour finished before having a quiet walk around on my own in the museum and then back outside around the two memorial pools that are within the footprints of the twin towers.
Following those tours I was going back up the One World Observatory to see things in the daylight. I was so lucky with the weather and it had the most amazing views. The lift ride is amazing 102 floors in about 50 seconds before getting out and seeing a short film, I'm not going to say anymore than that because it's something you need to see. They say it is a very solid building built to prevent any possible repeat of the past but given the very strong winds of the day you could feel it moving gently in the wind.
If you are going to either the 911 museum or One World Observatory buy tickets in advance, I did and you just go straight to the front of what were rather long queues before you go through airport style security and scanners.
Around 4pm I collected my bag from the hotel and got the E train from the World trade Centre to pick up the Airtrain and then onto JFK.
Upper Class check in at JFK was empty unlike the Delta queue and there were a few glances as I strolled straight up to an empty check in desk. Greeted by very friendly staff and boarding pass in hand I was off down the empty priority lane to security where within 5 minutes I was through and heading downstairs to gate A5 and the Virgin Clubhouse.
This was my first time at this Clubhouse and I was warmly welcomed and informed that my flight was running approximately 40 minutes late due to the late arrival of the inbound aircraft. I then found myself a table overlooking the gate area at A4. A waiter quickly approached and asked what I would like, he seemed slightly taken aback when all I said I wanted was a large orange juice with ice, which soon appeared, followed by another shortly afterwards. After an hour or so I decided it was time for something to eat and had an extremely nice Chicken Madras, boiled rice, naan bread, poppadum, mango chutney and a raita, all washed down with a bottle of beer.
Just as I finished my name was called over the tannoy to go to the desk, as I was booked on an award ticket I immediately thought I had been bumped off the flight. When I got to the desk the agent apologised and said my flight had been delayed even further but there was a seat available on a flight leaving now and would I like to take that one. After a quick think I declined the offer unsure as to where I would be sitting on the plane and decided to stay with my original flight.
When my flight was called I made my way to the gate and straight onboard to be warmly welcomed and a glass of bubbly was happily accepted whilst they stowed my coat. This flight was on an A340-600 and after my outbound flight on an A330-300 where the crew made it quite obvious that they hated the layout and were glad it was going the width of the aisle made it so much easier for them to get past each other.
The crew were extremely efficient and very friendly with the Cabin Crew member who was working my aisle coming round and introducing herself to everyone and taking orders for after departure drinks and asking if we would be eating, wanted waking for breakfast and would be wanting any duty free.
Shortly after the Captain made his welcome aboard announcement and said it may be a bit choppy after take-off as it was so windy and that we may be a bit delayed as JFK was very busy as a result of the weather.
We taxied away from stand and about 10 minutes later the Captain was back on stating that there were currently 3 different queues and that we were in one of them but as to where we were in the line for departures he didn’t know. In the end it was just over 60 minutes after pushing back that we lined up on 31L, despite being windy the skies were clear and the view over Jamaica bay was great as we started the sharp left hand turn immediately after departure as part of the Canarsie departure procedure, sitting in 12A I had a great view of the bay and later on JFK as we completed our 180 degree turn. The cabin crew soon got quickly to work and delivered drinks as well as taking orders for dinner which was delivered almost immediately allowing people to settle down for the night.
I decided not to bother going to sleep as we only had a 6 hour flight and feeling peckish again I decided to eat, the offerings for this flight were:
Starter:
Mesclun salad
Mains:
Beef fillet
Chicken with mushroom and parmesan
Radicchio, walnut and mascarpone ravioli
Pudding:
Vanilla cheescake.
I settled on the Chicken with mushroom and parmesan which was very nice and just enough, I didn’t go for the starter or pudding.
The lights were soon turned down and most settled down for some sleep whilst I put the seat in full recline and with mp3 player and headphones on spent the rest of the night hours reading. Later I sensed the crew getting breakfast ready so took advantage of most others being asleep and got up for a wash.
The cabin crew member for my aisle soon came round asking if I had completed the breakfast card which I had to admit to having forgot to do, not a problem she wrote down what I wanted (cooked breakfast minus the egg, along with orange juice and coffee) and was soon back with it.
Our descent started not long after and was smooth all the way down before we had about 15 minutes of holding, it was then down to Heathrow and a smooth landing on 27L before a short taxi to the gate and we were thanked by the cheerful cabin crew as we left the aircraft.
This was another great flight with Virgin both outbound to New York and back had really friendly crew who seemed to genuinely like their job and took pleasure in seeing that passengers were taken care of.
Next flight with Virgin is in a month and a bit to San Francisco and I really hope it’s as good as these have been.