BA868 LHR-BUD 24 JUN 11 (CLUB EUROPE)
Posted: 02 Jul 2011, 09:24Part 1 - British Airways Hertiage Centre
we have been trying for a while to go to the BA heritage centre, but this is only open during the week. It is based at Waterside and you need to pre-arrange this to get passes. You can either drive yourself there, or get a pass for the BA staff bus. We did the latter and headed off early to T5. This confused the check-in lady as we were either too late or very early!
The journey to Waterside is very quick and we were issued with passes and then escorted to the Hertiage Centre. We had a personal guide around the key bits - there is a huge amount of memorabilia there to look at. It covers the history of BA and it's subsidiaries over time. It was great to see the planes, uniforms, seats, in flight entertainment guides and menus! The guide was extremely knowledgable and we also had time to wander around on our own. We had 2 hours there but you could have spent a lot longer there! Well worth a visit!
Part 2 - The flight stuff
Pre-flight
We had seen in business traveller that BA had a "pop-up cocktail bar" in the South Lounge. When we first got to the lounge the bar tender had gone on break. He returned later on and we had a very good but different Cosmopolitan. There was a limited menu of drinks that they would make. It was very underused - probably BA customers are not used to this kind of perking the lounge! Lunch was good - the garlic bread and jacket potatoes were very popular! All in all a pleasant time in the lounge!
Flight
Boarding was a little late - we wandered down to find a mass of people there, although they seem to have started using a fast track lane which was working well. There were lots of people having their bags tagged due to size / limited space on board (and som people not happ with this!). Club was fairly full but eurotraveller was full. After tae-off, drinks service was offered - rude nit to accept some champagne! This was an "afternoon tea" service. The sandwiches had been reduced to only two small pieces and there was the usual scone/cream/am and a large piece of Dundee cake. All very tasty but prob not needed as we had eaten in the lounge. One or two more champagnes meant the flight passed very quickly!!
Arrival
Although we were parked at the terminal, there was no air bridge so it was a bus for the short distance to arrivals. Immigration was very quick. Shame the bags, although tagged priority took al tie to come off I also had a tube with sow work posters in it - thought they wouldn't arrive, but they followed shortly after my bag on a tray!
All in all a good flight - would reall recommend a trip to the BA Heritage Centre if you have the time (and are interested in the history of VS's rival!)
