This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
En route I got an email from London Heathrow Cabs, confirming the name, vehicle type and colour (blue) etc for the DTCI. Great stress free start.
Arrived at the Premier Inn on Bath Rd, a model of efficiency, luggage carts aplenty, 2 min check in, drop bags off in the rooms and off out for dinner.
Wanted to maximise our first UC experience, so had arranged the DTCI for 6:30-7:00am
Thing got off to a bad start when our cab driver calls me to say he is outside in the green mpv. That ruled out the DTCI experience. Went to normal check-in at about 6:45am, a quick call upstairs to cancel whatever they had prepared for us and we were checked in within 5 mins.
Went up the lift, scanned the boarding pass (plain, not purple) and the magic doors opened.
Had a few incidents in security, my watch set the alarm off and we had to take out the kindle and the kids DS's as they were confusing the operator.
All this meant was that we reached the clubhouse at 7am on the dot, only to see one person going in just before our feet hit the top steps - so it was SEQ2-5 for us.
Went straight in and booked treatments - hair cuts for the girls, shaves for the boys.
Had some breakfast (bacon sandwich), then as the girls went for their hair-cut, I started my journey thru the cocktail list. Ginger top first then followed a directive from @DragonLady and had a mojito - very nice. After the shave, went down to duty free to pick up some gifts, back up and had a little bit more to eat.
I have to say that the club house is amazing, so many different areas. I have only been in business class once before, that was with Emirates last year on MAN-DXB-BOM return and while their lounges are good, the Virgin one blows it away.
Few more drinks - redhead, another ginger top and a g n t - also blagged 2 limes for the plane.
Boarded Cover Girl with minimum fuss, glass of bubble and settled into my seat - 7A.
I felt weird in the seat, while it was all very nice, I feel some basic functionality was just not there. The little drinks tray on the left was way too far back for me. There was also no armrest on the left apart from something poke with a button on it (which I never did work out what it was for)
Our cabin crew introduced herself to us, told us the basic seat functions and we pulled off on time..... for about 10 feet. The pilot then announces that a computer has stopped working and that we are going back to the stand. About 30 mins later, he announces that they can’t get it to work and are getting a new one. At this time the cabin crew started taking lunch orders - the guinea fowl was still on the menu, so I opted for the risotto and salmon. We got one or two water/OJ runs and a little tray of crisps. After about 3 hours, and several attempts to integrate the new computers (they tried 2) failed, we were asked to go back to the gate where we will collect our boarding passes to let us back in the lounge.
While at the gate, had a good look at the other passengers and did a bit of celeb spotting.
The wife swears one was Madonna, we also saw Lorraine Kelly and 3 of the cast from Merlin.
Anyway, we all troop back to the lounge, time for another drink and something hot to eat - I had the chicken pie which was tasty, and another mojito and a G n T.
The worst bit was hearing the afternoon LAX flight being called while we were still in there.
Both Madonna and the cast of Merlin sat near us. It turned out that Madonna was not actually Madonna, but the cast were the real deal, we have James (Arthur), Colin (Merlin) and Katie (Morgana). They were sat in seats just 2 ahead of us on the plane.
We finally got called again and pushed off at around 6:30pm.
A drink of bubbly and the meals were confirmed. I switched from the Salmon to the chicken (not the fowl) and settled down.
The risotto was nice, the chicken less so - someone here described it as having moss on it - this is an accurate description. My wife and son had the Asian Veg meal and loved it - paneer, chickpeas and rice. The puds went down well too.
After dinner, the girls converted their seats and went to sleep, me and my son tried but after about 5 mins of fidgeting, we both converted them back to seats and got on with watching some TV.
I bumped into to Colin Morgan at the loos and asked him if you could say hi to my son who is a big fan - he did and my son was chuffed.
Got bored with the TV, so went to the bar to see if anyone was there, there were a few staff there so I had a drink and started to chat with them. I gave them the limes, thought they already had some on board. At this time - Bradley James (Arthur) came to the bar so we started having a chat - they were coming over for comicon. He was really down to earth and actually went to say hi to my son on his way back to his seat too. While we were talking (not loudly), LK came and asked us to be quiet
We landed "on time", the pilot announced that we will be given a letter re compensation for the delay on our way out. On our way out, no letter was given, but by then, we were too tired to care. Immigration was very quiet, so we were in the baggage area before any bags came. Bags started coming and we waited. There was no priority unloading of UC bags, so by the time the first of our 6 arrived, the place was heaving.
While waiting, the kids grabbed the camera and were taking photos with the Merlin cast (after asking them of course) - I think they were the only ones who recognised them.
I think we finally left LAX at 11pm - so had been on the go for 24 hours by now. Our final destination was my sister-in-laws in Bakersfield - we got stuck in road works so didn’t make it there until 2am, and then sat talking for a further hour before finally hitting the deck.
It has taken me 4 days to get in sync, hence the delay with the trip report.
I dropped Greg a quick question on the FB page re what was in the compensation letter, and he replied saying that we are offered 10K miles as a goodwill gesture.
You can't expect that every time
