This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
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Cabin Crew
Only another couple in front of us for PE check in, although the Economy queue was long. Got our usual PE seats upstairs of 79A&C.
Waited around the small area which is quieter in McCarren Airport opposite the security area so we could look at the strip for the last time and nearer to boarding time, took a stroll up to the gate area Virgin use.
The US staff are so much stricter than in the UK. Wheelchairs and families with small kids were called first, upper were called and then PE but by rows (which I didn't hear them say rows) so went up and was turned away as they had only called rows 71-75 and as we were sitting in 79, were sent back. Error on my part, as I didn't hear the announcement fully. Oh well, didn't wait too long and were finally in our seats for the next 9hrs 30mins. We were on Virginia Plain so at least we had a couple of games and the control was able to be removed from the seat and left on the arm rest.
Pre-boarding drinks were served (only one this time) and following take off, a drinks round was offered quickly too. The meals were swiftly served and I had the chicken and pasta option with hubby having the beef and garlic mash option. Had a small white to go with that and baileys followed the meal too. I was given a thimbleful of Baileys as they were at the bottom of the bottle but did ask if they had anymore and they went downstairs to get another bottle. I'm certain if I hadn't have asked, the thimbleful would have been it as they didn't really want to get another bottle from downstairs.
Settled into the movies and watched 'I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry' which was quite funny and then Hairspray but really nothing much took my fancy and ended up flicking in and out of films. Had no sleep on this flight for some reason and watched a bit of Mr Brooks and a bit of TV and playing a couple of games. The IFE system stopped and started itself a couple of times which was quite annoying and a few of the games and films weren't availablel when you tried to get into them.
At least this time the booklet offering the films was the December one whereas on the outbound on 1 Dec, the November booklet was still in place so no one really knew what films were on until they started flicking through the channels.
NB. There were no PE packs on this flight as they had forgotten to load them so the economy packs were put out instead.
As I was awake throughout I noticed that the FAs weren't offering drinks up and down the cabin as I had seen before, but just left a few juice/waters on the static area behind our seats for anyone to help themselves to as required.
The usual muffin and hot cheese/egg hot breakfast were served about 1 hour in from landing.
Landed in an extremely rainy LGW and caught a cab to the Copthorne to retrieve the car as we would have waited ages for the shuttle coach to the hotel as the timings were out of sync with the VS flights. Cost of 11 which was worth it, rather than waiting nearly 50 mins for a coach.
The one thing I did notice about this flight on Virginia Plain compared to the outbound on Pretty Woman - when the seats in front were fully reclined, there was absolutely no space to squeeze out from the window seat to go to the toilet. I could do this on PW but not on this return flight. I'm not sure if the seats in front had broken so the recline was a lot lower, but they were so close, even me at 5'2' seemed to have my knees in the back of the seat. Looking down the upstairs section, it only appeared to be these seats and not the others, so I really don't know what has happened.
