This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Check in - very speedy, including a friend who was travelling economy to Miami that morning as well. Headed off through security channel and then straight off to the lounge. Was fairly empty when we got in around 07.20, but it started getting busier later on. Headed off to grab some breakfast - oddly they had no bread as the delivery hadn't arrived yet. Then relaxed in the lounge with the usual facial and a quick glass of bubbly before being called. The only slightly annoying thing was that there is no-one in the left luggage bit of the lounge until after 9am!
We seemed to be called very early, especially as the plane was at Gate 23 (I think) - right in front of the lounge windows. However we trotted off to find a completely full gate lounge with no where to sit down, and we had to stand for about 15 mins or so - not very good co-ordination between the gate and the lounge.
Once on board, it was up the stairs to the suite for the 10 or so hours to SFO. No one to greet and ask if people knew how to use the suite, and no glass of champagne for a while (and when mine did turn up it contained some lovely dried on orange pulp inside the glass). The crew were very apologetic, and i think the delay is that one member has to stand by the door, and the other one was sorting out the champagne etc.
After take off, the crew were really good, but I think that they need an extra person when it comes to the meal service! The meal was served at just about the right time, and the service of the food was very good. The lunch service on this route is the same as on the East Coast flights, so it was an easy choice for me - baby gem salad followed by the beef. The desert of the day was 'lavender panacotta' - really nice indeed. The wine service lacked a lot today - basically there was no wine served to anyone on the upper deck with their starters (well I grabbed someone's attention not long before I finished and asked for a glass of white). The FSM then came up to do a further water round, and noticed a lot of empty wine glasses, and after that the wine became very free flowing. This is the second upper deck flight where the service of drinks to go with dinner seems a little slack - they really need to get on top of it (I think there must be more crew downstairs to ensure that this isn't a problem, and the upper deck people have to rush around a bit more and so the wine gets forgotten).
It was then time to catch up on some films, before a well earned couple of hours sleep. The seat felt very bumpy when it was put down into the bed mode and made a lot of cracking noises everytime I moved....having said that the couple of glasses of wine helped with the sleep!!
All of a sudden it was time for afternoon tea! I opted for the chicken ceasar salad with the cakes (cranberry slice and banana and walnut muffin) - the salad was really really nice, and a much nicer alternative than the sandwiches.
On the approach to SFO flew over the city - couldn't see the bridge due to low cloud, but did get a really good view of the rest of the city. After landing it took a little while to taxi to the stand but the immigration hall was fairly empty (probably not so when the BA flight arrived not long after!) which is always nice. Baggage was fairly quick off and then it was off to the BART for the journey into town.
All in all a pretty good flight but a couple of minor problems:
1. Being called to a full gate very early for no apparent reason
2. Not having enough staff upstairs to do a proper meal service
