This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
We arrived at MCO two hours before departure and check in was painless (OLCI never seems to work for us for the inbound flight) and happily we had held onto our allocated seats in the bubble
. Headed straight off to the departure gates and started queuing for security. It was extremely busy and extremely slow 
. I had asked the check in agent if there were any additional security checks following the death of Bin Laden and she said “no”, but the security lady was being very diligent in checking passports and boarding cards, hence the long, slow queues. They even had signs up saying “Wait time from this point 15 mins” etc. Reminded me of being back in the parks. 
Finally got through security and headed off to Duty Free. Happily I found the Tanqueray prices very competitive
but unhappily was told that I was too late to purchase aforementioned bargain as our flight was now closed for DF purchases 
. Bother. Still, made time for a large T&T in the Outback bar before heading off to the gate 
.Boarded pretty quickly and straight upstairs to our seats. There were three CC upstairs, two buzzing about doing their stuff and one just stood by the CC seats chatting to the couple in the bulk head seats. This was not just a “Hi, how are you, welcome aboard” kinda chat, it was a full on “Let’s put the world to rights” kinda chat. If I had been one of the other CC, I would have given her a kick and told her to get on with some work
Slightly disappointed that only one glass of fizz was available – we were told that they only had two bottles – a bit mean methinks
Drinks service was fine and the meal was good – we both had Stir Fried Chicken – very tasty.
Neither Mr B or I bothered with the IFE – there was nothing on that we particularly wanted to watch and the quality of videos on our iPad is just sooooo much better so we settled down to a couple of hours of recorded TV, popped a couple of pink pills and tried to sleep. I never sleep very well on flights but did manage a few hours despite the plane being really hot and the inevitable “restless leg syndrome” – does anyone have any tips for avoiding that?
We landed at LGW bang on time – it still amazes me that the captain can land one of those big birds so gently – mind you, how they get into the air in the first place amazes me more.
As we were taxiing to the stand, the FSM made an announcement that Virgin and Gatwick were working together to ease the passage of VS customers through customs and that we should follow the signs to the “Smart Zone” but in order to use this new channel, we would need to have our boarding card stubs. Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but once I am on the plane, I pay no attention to those little scraps of paper – more often than not, they just seem to disappear. Hence, I spent the next 5 minutes frantically searching for it and finally found it lurking in the bottom of my super sized travel handbag
. This was just as well, as there then followed an announcement to the effect that there was no choice in the matter, we MUST go through the “Smart Zone” channel – might have been a good idea if they had made this announcement at the beginning of the flight, rather than at the end. The “Smart Zone” worked really well and we were through in no time. Not sure if this is just a VS / LGW thing or is available elsewhere but I am sure there are others on this forum who will know all about it and can fill us in on the details.Our bags were off by the time we had cleared customs and we had collected the car from valet parking and were on our way home within an hour of landing – I think that was some kind of record
All in all a good flight for a night flight.
So much for the shorter TR...
Cheers,
MrsB
