V-Flyer

as indicated in my greetings from the outback things pre flight went well. OLCI the night before produced the legendary SEQ1 and a seat change to 78A which showed empty in B. on arrival at MCo after a great drive up (just over 2 and a half hours) i found a deserted check in and was directed to an UC desk where a polite but stuffy guy informed me row 75 had gone depsite me being there just under 3 hours in advance. he then informed me 78B was now taken but 79 H was empty so i switched back to 79K.
security was abreeze although the expert flyer quick lane has disapeared to be replaced by something called quick me ??

due to no lounge access I decided a beer and blooming onion was in order at the Outback whislt i used the free but incredibly slow WiFi.

around 6.30 i wandered down to the gate and sat surfing when all of a sudden a few names were summoned to the desk including me .... i held my breath in hope -the people in front got an upgrade and then .....'sorry Mr FB we were asked to change your seat - to the one you already have ' -was i gutted

Boarding onto Pretty Woman started around 7 and it became apparent it was a light load (later revaled as 295 pax). straight on and upstairs to a glass (just one ) of bubbly
before push back at 7.40 and take off at 7.57.

Flight time announced of 7.30 with the promise it would be smooth....oh no it wasnt.

Pretty woman looks less than pretty these days, the seats are tatty, 2 were missing head rests and one had the TV monitor ripped out. a make over is needed pretty soon.
Towels arrived -stone cold and after 55 mins food service (no drinks run but then given the time not expected).

being last but one row to be served i wasnt suprised when told my choice of Lamb Biryani was sold out so settled for the pasta. however the very nice FA suddenly appeared with the curry which she had kindly hunted down for me. and nice it was too -washed down with a couple of glasses of red and then a Baileys.

watched Wall St 2 on the crap IFE and then plugged in my Sony MP3 and listened to some music and Paul Mckenna telling me to go to sleeeeeeep. dozed on and off until about 1.30 out of LGW.

had a coffee and a banana which again had to be hunted down by my lovely FA and then landed just before 830 this morning.

3rd off the plane and through a deserted immigration - there was no-one literally not one person in front.

then my one and only bag decided to be one of the last onto the belt despite 2 UC labels (from last trip)

through an unmanned customs to be greeted by my son and a cold grey English day :-(

arrived at my mummys to be welcomed with a full english brekkie -one of the very few things I am missing - and then down to some work as i have a busy 5 days before going 'home' to Florida next friday


summary -good flight -not much to report apart from a few big bumps.
Ground staff ok.
FC - excellent in what they did
Plane - shabby - not a good advert

as so to next week (and the hope of a fellow VF member being at LGW the same day in the lounge HINT HINT )

Thanks for the trip report.

Sounds like lots of people think the LGW/MAN fleet are in need of a make over (I think there is one coming...), this does put me off flying these routes and will go a long way round to leave out of LHR

Congrats on the SEQ1!

Glad the flight was "good", shame it wasn't great.

flabound wrote:
then my one and only bag decided to be one of the last onto the belt despite 2 UC labels (from last trip)

lol just goes to show that you can plaster your case with as many UC labels as you like but it is the bar code that matters

Thanky you for the TR.