V-Flyer

I was just checking our February flights, and noticed the outbound is now at 08:00 instead of 13:50 on Tuesday 10th. No notification from VS, so a leisurely morning is now a very early start!

Even more annoying, the return has disappeared from the booking... Is something going on? I know schedules do change but the very early start seems unusual to me.

I will them call on Monday and find out what is going on.

Flew the 8.20 departure to Orlando a few weeks ago. Would proactively avoid that early morning departure now. Coming down from Scotland meant an overnight in Heathrow before the flight which meant a very early rise to try and get some clubhouse time.

A 1 o’clock landing into Orlando sounds like a bonus half a day but your that tired by 6pm that night that you tend to doze or fall asleep and wake up in the middle of the night and it takes days to get into their time zone. It a great departure time.

David

David wrote:Flew the 8.20 departure to Orlando a few weeks ago. Would proactively avoid that early morning departure now. Coming down from Scotland meant an overnight in Heathrow before the flight which meant a very early rise to try and get some clubhouse time.

A 1 o’clock landing into Orlando sounds like a bonus half a day but your that tired by 6pm that night that you tend to doze or fall asleep and wake up in the middle of the night and it takes days to get into their time zone. It a great departure time.

David

After a couple of early starts for our last two Caribbean trips, one of which was for a 9.30am-ish flight, I agree with the take about feeling knackered by 6pm.

We live in Sunderland so we are travelling down by train the day before, and I have the Hatton Cross Garden Inn booked. I am not pleased that what was going to be a pleasant relaxed morning in the Clubhouse is now a very early start leaving by 6am to get over to T3. And my return train tickets are now 5 hours too late, fortunately advance first class on Grand Central isn't exorbitant like LNER can be so it's not a great loss. One benefit of the senior citizen Railcard!

With an 8am departure do they serve breakfast, or is it lunch at 9:30....?

deep_south wrote:We live in Sunderland so we are travelling down by train the day before, and I have the Hatton Cross Garden Inn booked. I am not pleased that what was going to be a pleasant relaxed morning in the Clubhouse is now a very early start leaving by 6am to get over to T3. And my return train tickets are now 5 hours too late, fortunately advance first class on Grand Central isn't exorbitant like LNER can be so it's not a great loss. One benefit of the senior citizen Railcard!

With an 8am departure do they serve breakfast, or is it lunch at 9:30....?

So remember that an 8.00am departure will start boarding around 7.15 so your 6.00am departure from the hotel will barely give you an hour in the clubhouse. Not great.

My flight to Orlando should have had lunch being served at 9.30 as you said but the crew did realise that that time was very early (especially for some of the curry options) so delayed lunch until 11.00 which wasn’t too bad especially with the very early start. Caribbean flights could be different.

David

We were on the LHR > MCO 8:20 flight two weeks ago. They were boarding group 1 at 7:20. 7:30 I have a photo of us sat down with a drink and all sorted out!

Really disliked having lunch at just gone 10 though I did like the early arrival and managed to keep going!

Jonathan

Our flight to Antigua on 4th Dec has also changed to 8am departure from LHR.

We were already going down the night before and looking forward to a leisurely morning, and now having a 4:30am start is a bit of a pain, as when we get there it's doubtful our room will be ready so more hanging around, and yes, knackered by 6pm !

No point to my post, and the airlines can't win as some will love it, some hate the time change, I'm just in the latter camp, who doesn't want an early start or curry at 9am in the morning !

If you’re in a Heathrow airport hotel, I’d be aiming to get to the airport at 6:45am. The clubhouse is a great airport lounge, but it’s still just an airport lounge. I wouldn’t literally be losing sleep over it.

I am diabetic, so I will need to eat some breakfast even if it's a little early for my normal schedule. So I will inject my insulin at checkin, or when we arrive at the clubhouse so I can enjoy the breakfast!