V-Flyer

This was the boys 'Thanksgiving Weekend' away in New York.

Arrived early at check-in (around 4pm) to maximise time in the lounge for our non-gold card travelling companions. Check-in was a breeze and very quick, although not given the US immigration and customs forms at check-in. Security, as always, was easy. Straight off to the lounge.

Noticed that it was relatively staff depleted compared to normal. Waited for about 15 minutes before anyone came to ask if we wanted drinks! Two of us had haircuts, then it was time for dinner. Got a table and waited....and waited....and waited....nearly 25 minutes to be asked if we wanted to order food or drinks. We had almost decided to head to the bar to do self-service drinks! There seemed to be loads of people bringing out food and drinks, but no-one taking orders. There seemed to be one table that was getting personalised service and everyone else was being ignored. Once orders taken, food and drinks came fairly rapidly. We had only gone for champagne (glasses seemed much smaller than before). We asked for a second drink, and should have asked for a champagne chaser top-up as the cocktails seemed to take for ages to appear. Not impressed with the service in the clubhouse today, particularly in the restaurant!!! Even our travelling companions thought it was very poor!

Boarding called, and headed off to the gate...to find a huge queue trying to get through and being able to hear that priority boarding was now open. Did notice that they had separate lanes for priority and non-priority to get through but the scrum was too big to get through.

Let on time, and there was a single drinks round before dinner (although we did manage to ask for a second one).

The menu is as follows, with what was actually available next to it:

Salad starter:
Seasonal leaf salad with seeds and Italian dressing

Main course:
Chicken piccata with fettuicne pasta, vegetable ratatouille and parmesan cheese (Actually was chicken in mustard sauce with veggies)

Sausages and mashed potato with braised red cabbage (actually was beef stuff with cabbage and potato)

Spinach and mushroom risotto with pesto

Dessert:
Fru flirty berry pot

The starter was hardly worth putting on the tray - about 4-5 small leaves and a pile of sunflower seeds!! Can't believe that the menue didn't resemble what was put onto the plan - the stew was 'ok' but nothing special.

The entertainment was the main problem on the flight - had to be rebooted for everyone after take-off. However, a number of screens wouldn't reboot properly. This included our travelling companions in 21H/K, who were offered a DVD player to share (and no other compensation). Mine worked fine, so managed to enjoy vPORT. Noticed that there is now a remainig flight time when you use it, so that you can figure out if you have a chance to get the whole film/programme watched before it gets turned off.

Pre-landing service was tea/coffee/juice with a chocolate brownie or cookie and a piece of fruit. It seemed that the fruit bowl going round inflight, has now been moved to the pre-landing snack to make it look better (it needed something otherwise a cookie or brownie seems a little poor!). There was no ice-cream served on the flight....no idea why!!!
Arrived a little early, and immigration was very empty as it was the last flight in.

All in all a good flight, let down by the strange meals uploaded and the hit-and-miss inflight entertainment. However, the whole experience was let down by the lack of people working in the clubhouse and the slow / non-existant service. Maybe it was a bad day in there, or maybe to save costs by reducing the number of people working in there, then it is a slippery slope to be heading down!

Thanks for the TR, hope these things are not slippery slopers ... and that your return is better!

The reason for the change to service are from VS and not the crew...Ice creams no longer on this flight as a late departure so seen as a night flight and customers are usually sleeping. Fruit is still mid flight however again on night flights its usually done with breakfast/pre landing as most of the cabin miss it otherwise if asleep!

Thanks for the TR!