VS020 SFO-LHR 18 May 09 (Upper)
Posted: 21 May 2009, 17:51This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
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The traffic was completely clear and we reached SFO around 1pm - 3hr30 before departure. Checkin looked pretty quiet and headed over to UC - only a single family group in front of us. Well, their checkin took forever, phonecalls being made here and there, assistant going off and checking things elsewhere. All the time the next desk (displaying PE/Upper) happily avoided glancing in our direction and instead cleared the PE queue and moved on to Econ PAX [n]. Being our first time at SFO she explained where the clubhouse is - I have to say my eyes glazed over about halfway through. Why not say 'go to the left of security and follow the signs'!
[img]http://s3kr4q.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pKKpc7E_2vxQcWN4VxkjWi6BXMfyw9fS9U4Hhb3XP_tJ63aIa84bUeJTbz92pHdRkPhpFM8sG_g6gJnvdl06Qug/IMG_2664.jpg[/img]
Nice pic of mum and the SFO clubhouse
Faith in VS was restored by the greeting of Claire. Now I understand why you all rave about her. Found a nice sofa and demolished a couple of Bombay Breezes and a bowl of Broccoli Soup. I'm not sure I've ever seen a menu that was almost entirely veggie like the SFO clubhouse before - I'm guessing it's the preference of the chef - weird.
[img]http://s3kr4q.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pXjWzGhdhUIdJYeetFZISQMzDOjvUvqOdcWBKzouxRMdx5-1A5czMZ58_MB5bZXPIufKgpMbdBIBBywgauqOHXA/IMG_2662.jpg[/img]
Security was painless, pleasant and had humour - weird again! Borading was a little chaotic with what seems like a departure lounge too small for a 747 but anyway we were soon on board and upstairs and into our seats.
[img]http://s3kr4q.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pMSjHoXgKU0R8nBZy_tK11mG2geZdyE-cA6gGUGWPDCrV11CBL_EGO-tmhMeje47A1KXRo2kKojZqqPlao9adYMmg7fIisH3J/IMG_2667.jpg[/img]
I don't know what it is but in UC time seems to fly and it was time to push back and watch the safety vid. The CC here were top notch and I certainly didn't notice them being down one. Only saw the FSM briefly during the bread service. We both went for the beef - the meal was pretty good although the beef was perhaps a little dry for our liking.
After that I went to bed and snoozed off and on through the flight. I remember it was a rough flight and I was impressed with the captain for not having an itchy trigger finger on the seatbelt sign. I decided to skip brekkie in favour of Revivals and the lights were on about 35 mins before landing. It was clear that we had a problem at this point - mum had lost an earing in the seat! The CC were great and tried their best but couldn't locate it.
We landed around 20mins early, left the runway and stopped. After about 10 mins the captain apologised and said another ac was occupying our stand. 5 mins later we moved about 200 yards and stopped again for another 10mins. He apologised again stating that it was a Heathrow and not VS issue. While waiting the CC got up and handed coats from the lockers - they also said they called an engineer for the earing. Eventually we were on stand. Almost as soon as PAX headed down the stairs up popped an engineer who took the seat apart and within a minute the errant earing was found [y] In fact it was so quick Y PAX were still departing as we came down the stairs!
The usual long walk to immigration heralded a pretty busy EU area - thankfully they doubled the desks and we were through quickly. Heading down to the baggage hall - I looked at the screens ... where was our flight? Heading down the hall I came across a whiteboard with flight details written on it! [:?] It said something like 'ignore the screens they're not working'.
With the luggage already on the belt we were quickly into Revivals where mum secured a manicure whilst I secured a cooked breakfast [}:)].
All in all an excellent journey - very poor checkin aside.
EDIT - added a few pics