This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
My friend and I had made the choice beforehand to try and make the journey to LGW (from Cambridge) in the morning rather than fork out for an overnight hotel. I usually panic about these sort of things... what if the train is cancelled? What if we arrive too late and the whole trip is off?
The day started at a lovely 3am, took the motorbike to Cambridge where I met my friend and we hopped in a taxi to the train station. It was a fairly easy (and very quiet) journey to LGW. We arrived at around 6:45am. No troubles fortunately!
It had been five years since my last trip out from Gatwick. Courtesy of my Gold card we were both able to use the Upperclass checkin. It's very smart and has lovely ambient lighting. The checkin lady was quite distant. A smile would have been nice. Though I suppose I could forgive her as it was first thing in the morning. Both bags coming in at a mere 7kg (I guess we pack light!!) and off we went to Premium security.
The line was fairly quick and we were through in no time. Followed signs to the Clubhouse, which were a bit of a maze. Parts of Gatwick look like a building site at the moment...
If my current plans are anything to go by this will be my one and only visit to the current LGW Clubhouse. We were warmly greeted by the lady at the desk and she offered to give us a quick tour. We joked that this was my first time and she asked if I was a "Heathrow bunny" which made me chuckle. Granted the LGW CH does not have the same amenities and scale of LHR, it was still a very welcome haven from the stag parties and hen do's in the departure lounge.
Keeping with the trend of previous reports, the CH staff were fantastic. Smiles all round and nothing was too much trouble. We skipped spa treatments as it turned out that they didn't offer haircuts.
I had a chance to speak to one of the staff about the north terminal move and what kind of CH to expect there. She reassured me that the space available was slightly bigger, but there wasn't too much that she knew or could reveal. The giant "stone" will sadly not be making the transition. Something about kiddies climbing all over it and falling off were her words!!
We spent a couple of tranquil hours in the lounge before heading to Gate 21 at just after 9:30am. The gate wasn't too busy and we were just settling down when a mass migration began to the jetway. I didn't hear any announcement and there certainly didn't appear to be any priority boarding taking place. Not that I could tell anyway.
And so on we went, G-VROS would be taking us to the middle of the Nevada desert today. For those who have read this far - I present to you a handy tip. For both legs of the journey I found that about 4 rows PE seats in the Upper Deck were opened around 36 hours before the flight, specifically the left side of the cabin (except the bulkhead seats). I'm working on the assumption that this is the seats held by VH being released. I managed to swap my friend and I to 24 A & C just before checking in. Score! All the recline for us.
This was my friend's first time in PE as he's used to slumming it in Economy for his trips to the states. We're both 6'4" so he was in heaven!
A total of 405 passengers on board, and 16 cabin crew.
Menu's were handed out, though before I got a chance to read them they were taken back as they were wrong! It turns out that they were menus for the VS26 which had been incorrectly loaded. Nonetheless, I made a note of the offerings, they were:
Ham Hock
Chicken Tagliatelle
Vegetable chilli
I believe the salad was a feta cheese salad, I'm afraid I don't remember the dessert. I opted for the chicken which was very tasty. The food was very good and up to the usual PE standards. Offers of Brandy were made and accepted as at this time Amarula was still off the menu due to some production problems.
There weren't any movies or TV shows that took my fancy this time, so I've found myself gravitating more towards the games. I don't think I've ever spent so long playing Sudoku and Zuma!!
There were 2 CC looking after the upper deck. Both were fantastic and worked really well together. They were always happy to chat to passengers in the rear of the upper deck, and it served as a handy social spot for people to gather and talk to each other.
A couple of incidents on the flight. One of the ladies in Economy decided to pop to one of the toilets for a cigarette. She did a terrible job of hiding it as several people came out of the same toilet complaining to the crew about the smell of smoke. This prompted the captain to make a further announcement reminding passengers about the rules of smoking. I found out a couple of interesting facts off the back of this:
- If crew suspect a safety breach of this nature they are permitted to knock and immediately unlock the toilets to see what's going on
- If someone is smoking they must be caught by two cabin crew in order for it to be acted on.
Alas, she decided to heed the captain's advice and didn't head to the toilet again...
There was also a chap in the PE cabin who was horrendously drunk he decided to try and sleep on the floor. I do sympathise with CC to a degree for having to deal with this sort of behaviour on the LAS route. I can't be rare. But then at the same time, this was 7 hours into the flight and he was presumably intoxicated through alcohol served on board. How did he get into this state?
Alas, they didn't put a downer on what was otherwise a very good flight. We landed in LAS on time, but then had to endure an immigration queue of around an hour. It wasn't until we got right to the end that they started pulling out passengers who were eligible to use the automated kiosks. Immigration poorly handled in this instance.
This was also the first time that I have ever been asked a total of zero questions by the CBP officer when entering. Just stamped and went through.
All in all, a good flight indeed, and a worthwhile use of a companion ticket in this instance, for those wondering.
Thanks for reading.