This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
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Cabin Crew
I'll now start this TR way back last February, t'other half (who for the purpose of this TR I shall call 'Luke', a) because its easier to type Luke rather than tother half and b) because that's his name) and I had just completed a round trip in Y to Jamaica, we BOTH agreed we would never fly long haul economy again, happy days I thought.............we now move forward to May 24th 2007 when I found myself on the phone to flying club booking a Y outbound to MCO during the Easter holidays. Ok it wasn't a straight forward as it might seem, we were going with Luke's sister, her husband and their 3 kids, who don't like flying, have never flown long haul before. Throw into the mix the fact that they were being persuaded a little bit too much by me to fly Virgin so we could get some recommendation miles, plus of course the booking miles when VS happened to have the 6 x miles offer on for purchasing on the black credit card, 'no, of course I don't mind putting them on my card and you pay me back next month' I said to Luke's sister, trying to hide the huge grin on my face! They said they would feel more comfortable if we were all sat together, and Luke wanted to be with them for their first long haul flight, so being the kind hearted guy that I am, I agreed to fly outbound only in Y.
So anyway, that was that and I pretty much put the thought of my flight to MCO, in economy, during the Easter holidays, full of kids to the back of my mind until a couple of weeks beforehand when the sudden horror of what I was about to undertake hit me. Of course I did what any V-Flyer would do, first see if I could get an upgrade, but it was now too late and the flight was showing fully booked in all classes, so then I decided to turn to my fellow site members for support, which wasn't quite as helpful as I had hoped for, but I knew they were thinking of me [:?]
We had pre-selected our seats at the time of booking, Row 34, D thru K and I did OLCI exactly 24hrs before our flight, very easy apart from that fact that for some reason when I brought the bookings up (we had one, and Luke's sisters family had one) it decide to omit the youngest member of our party, something I only just realised at the last moment, so a bit of tapping and thankfully all 7 of us were checked in. 4:30am on Saturday morning arrived, I bounced out of bed in excitement (I can assure you I am being sarcastic), loaded up the car for the 9 minute journey to my parents who had so kindly offered to take us over to MAN, no point taking our car when we had a CDC to bring us home. Now when I say 'kindly agreed', what I mean is that after Dad said No for the 3rd time, I decided the best tactic was to ask Mum, who said Yes. She was maybe being slightly influenced by the idea I gave her of doing some shopping in the Trafford Centre whilst over there, although I maybe forgot to tell them it didn't open until 10am on a Saturday, some 3 odd hours after they would be dropping us off. It all ended up fine for them though and they enjoyed an enjoyable day shopping in Hull, after stops at Leeds and York!
We arrived at T2 at abt 6:50am at almost the exact same time as Luke's sister and family did. The VS check in area at MAN seems to be next to sort of mini construction sight at the moment, with lots of large boards blocking the area next to it off, making it feel a bit crammed in. Luckily as we were quite early, check in was quiet, and after 4 young women had tried to make us use the DIY check in, which are located about 3 steps in front of the security stands at the head of each check in queue, again making the whole area feel very small and close, we made our way to the bag drop. We got called over to the PE check in line as it was empty and were checked in very promptly by a friendly agent. I am glad we arrived early as after my parents had their pit stop of tea and toast, and they were exciting the airport some 30mins later they sent a text to say the queues were horrendous and now stretched right back to the airport doors.
We headed straight through security, which again was nice and quiet, slight delay as someone (which may have been me) beeped as they went through the scanner thing and had to be patted down, rather thoroughly I might add, and take their shoes off to go through the xray, although no explanation of what caused the beeping was ever found. Onwards we headed for something to eat in the ever so reasonably priced food hall in departures (oh, and yes that is me being sarcastic again), 4.50 for a couple of slices of bacon in a breadcake[V]. Having eaten up we headed to get some reading material but this was interrupted by the little bit of fun we had next as Luke's niece felt that 2hrs 30mins before our flight was a good time to start feeling most unwell and almost faint. Every cloud has a silver lining though and in her panic to get laid down she happened to do so on some poor mans newspaper, he quickly moved out of our way to give us more space but must have forgotten about his paper as it somehow ended up in our hand luggage. Luke and I, more I than Luke actually, decided that this would now be a good time to escape the masses and head to the Styal Lounge that we could access thanks to our Priority Passes where we enjoyed a couple of drinks and biscuits, it was no Clubhouse but a nice break away from the crowds of children downstairs, and we stayed here until we got a text from his niece saying that the tablets had started working and she was feeling a lot better. Whilst in the lounge I found out that we would be bussed to the aircraft, something that VS seem to make out is a one off, when in fact it is more like a daily occurrence and a very annoying one at that too.
After completing our pre flight shopping, we made our way downstairs to the 300's gate area, which was packed as there were 3 others flights boarding at the same time as ours. With no boarding even called there must have been 100 or so lovely English holiday makers in their white tracksuits with matching new white trainers crowded by the doors, all just itching to spend another hour in the oh so comfy VS Y seat as the 9hr flight was obviously not going to be enough for them. Boarding was called in the usual fashion, UC/AU/PE etc and then by row numbers, back to front, and thankfully with us being row 34 we were in the last batch of 'any remaining pax' which was about 20 rows, the whole process of boarding took nearly 1hr 30mins and looked like it has been organised by one of the 3-10yrs old that seemed to make up 97.5% of the load.
Our a/c was Hot Lips, which I instantly knew meant Nova IFE, and once onboard I was kind of pointed in the direction of my seat by the CC member who looked as p*ssed off at the amount of time boarded had taken as I did. Found my seat, 34G, had blanket and amenity kit on it, both just put in the overhead locker and never touched again. After much bag passing (I had been made the official bag person for our party whose job it was to stand it the aisle, being knocked by everyone and their new Donnay rucksack as they passed, whilst our party all decide which bags and what items from them they wanted). I eventually got sat down and realised the ever so nice young chap (aged 13-15, chav looking with a Elizabeth Duke stud in his ear) seated in 33G had decided that he needed his seat reclining, what with 5ft body and all, oh and not just reclining, he also though it necessary to throw himself into the seat every time, making it bounce and recline even further than it is meant too, only I could pick this seat 10minths in advance[:(!]. I am sure something else happened but I decided to try and take my mind off the situation by reading and we eventually took off abt 45mins or so late. Throughout the whole flight, including before take off and after landing, not one announcement was made from the flight deck so wasn't sure what flight time was going to be, haven't the foggiest which runway we left from, what route we took, I know we went West and that's about it, so sorry for those of you who like that info.
IFE was booted pretty much straight away, the film selection was ok actually, but I didn't watch anything apart from a Simpsons episode I have seen 20 to 30 times previously. A drinks service was done, and small pretzel type things were handed out too, nothing really major to report here, crew were friendly and the FSM was helping out with the service down the other aisle. My young chav friend had reclined his seat again after being made to put it up for takeoff and this made reading my newspaper very difficult, thankfully the meal service was now being offered and the very nice CC member serving us asked him to put it up whilst we ate. His ever so cool earring had obviously affected his hearing as he looked at his equally chav looking dad and then just totally ignored it, I very helpfully pointed this out the CC member who most helpfully just pressed his button in, pushed it up and said very sweetly to him 'that's how you do it sir' (reason alone for me giving the CC an excellent rating). The meal was ok actually, a choice of chicken and wedges, a steak stew thing and a veggie curry. I opted for the chicken, which looked to be the best choice, of course there was the usual cold pasta thingy with Feta [:$], bread rolls, GU chocolate pot and cheese and crackers. The crew were very quick at clearing up afterwards so I decided to take a wonder and stretch my legs. It was now that I decided that a good way of getting out of my seat was to haul myself up using the back of the again reclined 33G as my lever, something that got a look of disapproval from its occupant, which in turn made my decision to do it every time I got up much easier (remember I was the official bag person for our party so this was quite often[}:)]). The a/c was very full with only 2 or 3 empty seats in Y, and none in W or J according to the CSS I had a little chat too during my stroll.
Went back to my seat, read and chatted some more, nothing too eventful until the oldish lady sat in 33K decided the she didn't like the food and was sick all over herself and her seat. This was dealt with very very well by the CC when they were finally notified of the problem by her hubby, a good 5 or so minutes after the event and after they had tried to sort it themselves with a small paper napkin and a clear food bag placed in the empty 33H, with its contents left for all to see. A UC sleep suit was given to the lady so she could get changed and all the cleaning products and contamination bags were wheeled out, regular checks were made afterwards too, including one by the FSM, ensuring everything was now ok. Nothing else really of any significance happened now, ice creams were handed out, a juice and water run done, the only one of the flight although there were large jugs of them both at the bottom of the stairs with cups so you could help yourself throughout the flight and then the afternoon snacks. As usual, all sandwich options had some sort of source/dressing which not only seem inappropriate for a plane heavy with kids but also not everyone likes these, how difficult can it be to do plain fillings with sachets of sauce etc as an option? A cookie was also part of this service.
Time actually passed quite quickly, even without using the IFE, and soon enough the announcement was made that the IFE was going to be turned off etc, much to the disappointment of Lukes nephew who was half way through watching Alvin and the Chipmunks for the 4th continuous time (who needs V-Port hey!). This was done way too early in my opinion, especially as skymap was not working and was showing us as still in MAN so meant nothing to look at for the best part of an hour. We landed at MCO just before 3pm so only about 30mins late, and on touchdown, for some reason, a good % of the pax decided it was necessary to give a round of applause, just like they had after take off at MAN, an interesting event, one I have no idea why they felt the need to do, but then again, I really didnt want to, as by now my patience with chav boy was now very very low.
I had already organised a very prompt movement off the a/c and down to immigration, which meant this process was very quick and all of us had a very friendly, chatty/jokey officer, a first for me in the US. As usual, MCO had two belts, one for Y, one for PE/UCS, this however got complicated when they decided to just split all bags between both belts meaning we had bags coming off in 2 different places, not the easiest thing to watch for when everyone seems to have a black suitcase. We took our bags with us on the train over to the other terminal and another quick walk ensured we arrived at Dollar before the masses, and then we were off for 2 weeks of fun at Disney (sarcasm again? Ill let you decide!)
So how do I rate the VS Y offering, ex MAN, on one of the so called 'CC hated routes' well not too bad at all. Of course it doesn't compare to UCS, but, I guess the best people to give their opinion would be Luke's sister and family. All of them thought the flight was excellent, they loved the IFE, enjoyed the food, thought the amount of food/drinks provided was very good and that the crew were top draw. I could be picky about certain things, but I think that would be harsh and I have excluded a couple of bits from my TR because it the main, I thought they crew were excellent, they were constantly visible in the cabin, almost always smiling and helpful and for me, that helped make the flight bearable. I think the fact the FSM/CSS were so hands on too made a big difference. Yes some things need sorting, like the boarding problems and a bit more legroom would be nice, but I guess that is what PE is for but overall I would certainly say that VS still offer a very good Y product, at competitive prices backed up very good crew.
But............ I AM NEVER FLYING LONG HAUL ECONOMY AGAIN, it is now in writing for all to see (including you Luke!), after flying UC you realise that there really is only one way to fly, of course more of that in the return TR.
