VS012 BOS-LHR 16 Nov 07 (Upper)

This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

After arriving at BOS, we were greeted by a pre-check in security employee who barely spoke English and whose little English was unintelligible. After finally getting to the check-in desk, there seemed to be some confusion over the fact that the security employee was placing security stickers on the passport with the prior day's date. Once that was straightened out, the check-in went smoothly.

TSA was a scrum, but we eventually made it through in reasonable time. Then it was off to the bowels of the airport to the Aer Lingus lounge (the Virgin lounge will not be ready until the end of the year, supposedly). The Aer Lingus lounge was intimate, comfortable and (when we arrived) uncrowded. Such was not the case about an hour later, when it was standing room only with passngers from Aer Lingus, Icelandair and Virgin all playing musical chairs. Virgin must open their Clubhouse soon!

Finally, we went upstairs and boarded the plane. I have not travelled Upper Class since they introduced the suites and have instead taken Continental's Business First to the UK. Wow, what a difference! The suites were fantastic. Not being in the snooze zone, I had dinner in my girlfriend's suite. The food was excellent and was only surpassed by the friendliness and professional attitude of the flight crew. In fact, it is no exagerration to say that the crew made the flight.

My only complaint with the suite (and I gather from other posts that this is a known problem) was that, during dinner, I kept 'catapulting' my girlfriend towards the table by accidentally hitting the bed button. Aside from that, no complaints, the crew made up my bed and I got a couple of hours (the BOS flight is too short!) good sleep after a nightcap.

I was woken up for a nice breakfast and then we were descending into LHR. A soft landing was followed by a long taxi.

After clearing immigration and customs (the UK line took longer than the Fast track non-UK line!), we went to the Revivals lounge where the service and amenities were excellent. After a shower and massage, we had some breakfast, read the papers and relaxed for a couple of hours before continuing on our journey.

Overall, an excellent flight - the crew were superb and could teach a lot to the old warbirds that you find serving in the US airline business classes. In this regard, Continental's Business First does not even come close to Virgin's product.

Great TR! Thanks for posting! You'd think they could do a simple fix on that man-eating-seat by installing a weight sensor (similar to that which triggers the seat belt chime in one's motorcar) that shuts off the bed conversion...

GJ

that would be a good idea! have done it once or twice when sitting on the ottoman to speak to someone in the next seat! Oops!!