This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Priority boarding was in place and we were quickly on board V-WKD. Oh dear! The last time we had seen her was in HKG with a hole in her tail. [:0] Obviously she was all better now! Again I was welcomed with a Good evening, Mrs honey lamb. Your seat is to the left. Enjoy your flight and again that was the only time I was addressed by name. The FSM was in evidence and was clearly based in the UC cabin but he did not approach us and I did not see him talking to any of the passengers.
We were in 11 and 12A and if I had been on my own I would have said that the cabin crew assigned to us was excellent. However I did notice that when she came to me and asked me if I wanted a drink and later to take food orders, she then passed over Aer John and went to the person in 10A, only coming back to him when she had reached the end of her assigned passengers. I found this very strange as at the end of the day he has paid an adult fare (or more correctly, I have paid it) and if she had looked at her manifest she should have seen he was Au. Also when she offered me champagne, orange juice or water, she only offered him orange juice or water and no champagne. OK, he is 17 (18 in five weeks time) and would have chosen water but this is the first time it has happened and he was a bit miffed by it.
There was a long queue for take-off and it seemed ages before we were airborne. Once on our way Aer John elected to sleep and converted his suite. I however wanted to watch The Queen and so tuned in as soon as V-port was switched on. I chose the lamb to eat which was OK and certainly not as tasty as other morsels of lamb offered on previous flights. I rather think I had an ice cream after that as well. Well fed and watered (although I do admit the current wine selection is a bit indifferent) I snuggled down to watch the rest of the film when the FSM announced that many people were having difficulties with the IFE and they were going to have to re-boot the system. Boo! Hiss! Since it was taking ages to reboot and since the champagne (not forgetting the two glasses I had quaffed in the Clubhouse), the rather nice G&T and the wine were beginning to take effect I decided I couldnt wait till the system was back on stream and so I converted my suite and slept till it was almost time to begin our descent. I quickly changed out of my sleep suit jut before the seatbelt sign came on and roused Aer John. At that point one of the cabin crew came around with letters apologising for the failure of the IFE and offering a 10% discount off any published fare on a VS aircraft or 25 discount for a VH booking or 25discount off pre-ordered duty-free or 5000 FC miles. Aer John is totally charmed at the thought of 5000 miles just for sleeping!! [^]
We seemed to have a straight run in to LHR having flown east of the city turning just after the Thames Barrier and were on the ground some 30 minutes late. As we were making our way towards Immigration and Baggage reclaim we passed the queue for the Flight Connection Centre which was the worst I have ever seen. It stretched way down the corridor from the turn off for the FCC. If I had been using it I certainly would have gone down the Immigration/walk to T1 route rather than wait. As it was there was no-one waiting at the EU desks for Immigration and we were through within minutes. The carousel started up shortly after we got to the baggage hall and for once priority baggage seemed to work even for Johns golf clubs. Within 30 minutes of deplaning we were nicely ensconced in Revivals under a refreshing shower before breakfast and a quick hop over to T1 and our flight home
