This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Anyway, got to check in, nice agent did the formalities, and started going on about us being split up, which didn't gel with the 31H and K (PE 747 seats) which I had selected online.
I then noticed that one boarding card was purple, and the other red. It turned out there had been an aircraft swap from a 744 to a 346 and I had been given an op-up, while the gf was back in a middle PE seat - despite being a group travelling on the same PNR.
A quick phonecall also got permission for the gf to be upgraded to UC as well (I'd wouldn't have been chuffed, but I would have happily given her the op-up if we had to be split up), but then there was a right farrago getting the boarding cards to reprint correctly with the right seats on them.
Upper Class Wing security was quite easy, no queue, but we were made to remove shoes there.
Bit of shopping and we headed up to the Clubhouse, where it was pretty busy, so we ended up taking a seat near the bar. I've noticed that some of the furniture in this area, 'phase one' of the Clubhouse, is starting to show it's age now, some of the seats are looking a bit grubby and worn, and hinges on the flaps concealing the power sockets are wobbly.
However, the service around the bar area was great, and I had a mojito in no time, and the gf with a 'proper cup of tea' (according to her). Shame this didn't keep up in the Brasserie - because the tables around the bar are low, we moved there to eat lunch. Very slow and ropey service, ages to get water offered (and never topped up), side plate cleared away, no bread offered - even though I was having soup. When the food arrived, portions were definitely smaller than I remember. I've also noticed that the menu selection seems a bit smaller than previously, and there's no 'all day breakfast'-type items offered anymore - i.e. seems you can't get a bacon roll outside of breakfast time now!
I've noticed that in the Brasserie area, water is no longer branded bottled water, but is the vivreau water (i.e. locally filtered and carbonated in a machine in the kitchen), which is more environmentally friendly, as it saves trucking bottled water around. However, thankfully, the 'serve yourself' area still has Ty Nant in plastic bottles in it, so it meant that when the waitstaff didn't refill us, I could go down to the fridge by the pool table and get our own water to top ourselves up.
Basically, we seemed to 'disappear' between the neighbouring tables - they got served while we were passed over. We didn't bother getting dessert, and moved back to the bar, with it's better service.
Eventually, somewhere during mojito number 3 (or was it 4???), we were called to gate 24E, which meant we would be bussed out to the aircraft. On the way to the gate, I noticed that in BAA's eyes, the gate had gone to 'closed' and was no longer displayed on the screens. I'll bet that caught a few people out.
No priority boarding at the gate, but hardly worth it, so we just sat to one side while the queue went down, and then headed through onto the bus, which then seemed to drive us around the bowels of Heathrow until we pulled up in between G-VYOU (which was to be our aircraft) and G-VFAB, over near the control tower.
Little bit late getting underway, the captain explained there was some disruption and there had been an equipment change - making us feel thankful that VS had managed to come up with an aircraft - and part of the reason we would be delayed pushing back was because of the regular 3pm runway rotation at Heathrow. The cabin crew were nice enough, and were prompt with boarding drinks and welcomes, before long we were blasting off from 27L, thankfully, because there was a woman travelling with two small children sat in front who just continually moaned about not being able to lie flat and go to sleep during taxi, and kept asking the same questions over and over again. Ten and Tonic, with lime, were duly supplied once airborne and little did I know it might be one of my last on VS metal at the time.
After departure snacks are now plain pretzels or some sort of chill rice crackers.
I didn't notice any slowness in the service, but that was probably because we were flying with a Boeing sized crew following the equipment change - there were two crew members working each aisle. Did take a little while to get lunch served. I went for the salad and the coq au vin. Both were edible, but disappointing, the coq au vin especially. The coq au vin was just the coq au vin, plus some rice pilaf, slopped on the plate, with no vegetables and nothing else. It looked and tasted like a medium quality supermarket ready meal.
Compared to the fantastic tasting and impressively presented meal I had on Gulf Air a couple of months ago, this looked so lame.
The vigonier was pretty disappointing too, didn't bother finishing it, and adjourned to the bar, mostly because the two kids, having moaned about not being able to go to sleep during taxi and take off ('are we in the sky yet?'), now don't want to miss a thing, and are being fidgety, wandering up and down the aisles, and generally trying to leg up cabin crew during the meal service. I'd keep finding a little hand exploring my table and ottoman! Sadly it made it difficult to relax, and they were watching some dvds or media player a bit like a PSP but without headphones, so you could faintly hear this stuff too. Bit out of order playing this out loud, and the crew didn't do anything about it, but then again, I don't know if anyone said anything to the crew.
The other reason I wanted to move to the bar was to escape from the 'coffin-like' Airbus UCS config. Those seats are way narrower than on the Boeings, there's a distinct lack of elbow room and the side table seems to be designed for freaks with their arm coming out of the middle of their back. The other thing I don't like about the Airbus is that you can't get out of the seat with your table out, like you can on the Boeing.
So had cheese and some more Ten at the bar, and chatted with the crew, compared notes on how we seem to prefer the Boeing config more than the Airbus configs.
The FSM helped with the meal service (doing water and bread), and seemed to work hard to motivate and organise his crew, but he didn't do that much pax contact. Not a bad FSM, but not one of our 'special' FSMs that we like to rave about on V-Flyer.
I'd managed to snooze through afternoon tea service, so all I managed to get was a pastrami sandwich, and we were descending into Boston - having taken a slightly more Northern route due to headwinds.
We were probably around 15-20 minutes late landing, but there was no queue at immigration, and the bags came fairly quickly.
Virgin's misfortune - operational aggro which led to an equipment change - turned out to be my good luck with the op-up, which is definitely appreciated when it happens.
Overall, not a bad flight.
Check-in: Good. A bit of a queue, but otherwise okay.
Seat: It was clean and in decent nick, but there's no way that the UCS on the Airbus is the same product as on the Boeing, because of the narrow, constricted width of the pod. Below Average.
Food & Drink: Very poor. Even consoling myself in Ten couldn't hide how dire the inflight service items were.
Entertainment: Average. It worked. It didn't need rebooting. Nothing leapt out at me though other than one of the new series of Flight of the Conchords.
Cabin Crew: Good. They did a great job.
