VS032 UVF-LGW 22 JUL 12 (Premium Economy)

This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

T minus 2400 my attempt at OLCI informed me that we were already checked in, it appears that Virgin Holidays had already checked us in, I eventually found out that despite the requests for special assistance my disabled mother had been allocated 80K after I had requested a lower deck seat prior to that.
A long phone call to the flying club helpline later I was told they would sort things out for my mother, the next morning when collecting our boarding passes from the airline representatives my mother was still allocated an upper deck seat, it turns out that the FC helpline could not get in touch with the people in St Lucia, a few more phone calls later and Mum and Dad were allocated a lower deck bulkhead seat so mother was able to stretch her bad leg. My wife and I were allocated 70H/K on the upper deck.

Push back and take off were on time and we were soon airborne.
We were aboard G-VROY Pretty Woman so a pre re-fit AC, I have never been a great fan of the old PE seats as I find them too upright compared to the newer ones, having only flown out of LHR for the past four years I had forgotten how bad they were, but having the bulkhead at least meant that no one would recline in front of us.

Preflight drinks were offered, my wife had a bucks fizz and I took a sparkling white.

Dinner was served within about an hour of take off, no mushrooms in sight which some V-Flyers would be pleased to hear, the wife and I both opted for the Grilled Chicken Breast witch was well overdone, I enjoyed the Caribbean Spiced Cake and a couple of glasses of the Shiraz. No sign of Orville or Wilbur as I had seen on previous PE TR's.
After dinner Coffee and Tea was offered followed by Brandy and Baileys somehow my wife managed to get a Hot Chocolate and Baileys before lights out.

IFE was the really old system with the control fixed to the arm rest which I did tune in to the flight map for a short while but was not really worth it so I stowed the screen and took to writing this TR.

I managed to get a couple of hours sleep before breakfast and coffee, I opted for the Full English option in which all components tasted pretty much the same, my wife had the Vegetarian option in which the Omelet was rubbery and the Tomato had disintegrated but we both cleaned our foil plates all the same.

We arrived a couple of minutes early and I went and collected the car from the long stay car park whilst my wife and parents collected the luggage and we were stationary on the M25 by 0630.

All in all the staff were great and the flight on time but the re-fits can’t be finished soon enough in my opinion.