This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
A typical day in the life of the HWVs.
We were returning from a deep sea fishing trip, having once again had some fun with tuna and barracuda and sorted the dinners for us and our chums for a few days.
The boat got engine trouble so we parked up at one of the smaller islands. Mrs HWV and I wandered a small beach while the boat crew tinkered with the engine. A man came out of a beach front guesthouse, asked what we were doing and then offered us a drink. We sat on the guest house veranda with a couple of cold beers. Idyllic. 
We were then joined on the veranda by a famous person.
I won’t use the word celebrity as it is probably a misnomer seeing as there are so many grades of such beings. This chap was many miles away from having had a bit part in Hollyoaks or failed an audition on Strictly Come Dancing. Having a name, face and voice that would probably be recognised worldwide I would imagine that he would appear on most people’s list of SVVIP (seriously very very important person). He was followed onto the veranda by his wife, a SVVIP in her own right. Mrs HWV and I had one of those whispered conversations “have you seen who is here, don’t look, don’t point” and then “bloody hell, she is coming over.”
And she did, Mrs SVVIP came over and said “Hi, how are you doing? I love your t-shirt, where did you get it? And do you?”
My t-shirt is purple and has written on it – dogs are like chocolate, you cannot just have one. It came from the Dogs Trust.
Mr SVVIP joined us. I was struggling as to whether I should bow, curtsey, kiss their hands or simply swoon. And then we all started talking about dogs.
Their interest in labs, ours in the hpr gundog breeds. At one stage Mr SVVIP went and got his tablet thingy so he could get online for me to access some pics of our lot to show them. Un-bloody-believable.
This extraordinary meeting carried on for a couple of hours until our boat was sorted. More drinks were consumed, the subjects broadened from matters canine. They were having a quick break from matters of importance. As we were leaving Mrs SVVIP asked for our contact details. When we arrived home there was a letter from them waiting for us here.
Yep, just a typical day in the life of the HWVs.
NOT!!!!!!!
My lawyers have just informed me that there are no super injunctions applying to my TR as long as I don’t mention Imogen so let’s get on with it. I apologise for its brevity but my love affair with temazepam continues – I slept for most of the flight.
Grenada is a beautiful little island.
Its tourism industry is obviously struggling as the recession continues to have an impact, occupancy levels in the hotels were quite low (not that that bothers us). 
The weather was fabulous, the beaches empty, the Caribbean that gorgeous blue and full of fish (although less so now!) and the people just simply wonderful. The hotel was fine and the green herons were again doing their very clever stuff at the lake. Our brilliant holiday was into that “going home soon” phase, something I actually enjoy as it means there will soon be a reunion with the girlie gundogs.
And then a chap appeared at the swimming pool. He was about 5 foot 10 inches tall and about 6 foot wide.
Blimey. He took off his t-shirt and it became apparent that he had muscles where I did not know that you could get muscles, even his muscles had muscles. Those of an age might remember a cartoon strip character – Garth – well, think Garth without the hair. The impact he had was considerable, three of the cabin crew fainted. 
What/who was he? Was he a bouncer on holiday? Was he a body builder? Was he Jordan’s next husband? Nope to all three – he was one of our pilots on the 052. I am not sure that I found that piece of information terribly reassuring. And on the subject of crew, as some know our hotel was/is a place for them to do stopovers, either for one night or longer, depending upon their respective schedules.
We have never had any problem with any of them before; we do not object to youthful high jinks, whether alcohol primed or not. This time was different as one particular crew had as a member the foulest mouthed young lady ever.
She seemed incapable of communicating sentences of longer than two words without resorting to the “F” word or worse, invariably at full volume. And she was a cabin supervisor. I assume that some standards are required by VS when the crew are on stopovers, if so she certainly needs to be reminded of them. 
Anyway.
My career as a Seqs Bomb (thank you, Tom Jones) came to an end – this time we were 60/61. However, in mitigation, I plead Check-In and Chill-Out where we are actually checked in by VS before OLCI is available – so nothing to do with me, your honour. I like that service, VS staff came to our hotel, collected hold luggage and issued boarding cards. They arrived at 10.30am, we were heading back to the beach at 10.40.
So after another few hours of sunshine and cocktail drinking we were collected at 4.00pm for our flight.
Security at Maurice Bishop airport was efficient.
I was selected for a full body pat down – it was so thorough that at one stage I thought I was going to be asked to turn my head to the left and cough (it’s a boy thing). I obviously looked a bit shady because my hand luggage was also given the once over although the security agent seemed to lose interest when he found himself holding my wet speedos. (and it was sea water before you ask). 
The departure lounge wasn’t too busy.
Its acoustics remain appalling, its air conditioning remains very efficient. Jersey Girl was on the runway and looking good. We had time to buy some rum and quite a bit more of the Grenada Chocolate Company’s excellent 82% cocoa product before being called onboard with UC passengers (there was no mention made of Au). When we got into the bubble it was shrouded in mist, something to do with the air con I guess.
There was actually so much mist I wondered whether the Hound of the Baskervilles was about to appear or, even worse, Paul Daniels and Debbie Mcgee! Fortunately none did. The mist cloud reappeared while we were at Tobago. We had asked VS for 74A and C so we could recline without concern. Bizarrely an 81 year old deaf chap was in an exit row seat.
Jersey Girl was scruffy, the carpet was dirty; the storage surrounds were filthy. There was detritus, empty crisp packets etc, in the seat back pockets. Oh dear. 
There were 208 passengers and 17 crew from Grenada to Tobago and 376 passengers and 17 crew from Tobago back to Gatwick. The flight was smooth with no requirement for seatbelts other than on landing approach.
It was an abbreviated food/drink service.
We had a glass of sparkling wine at Grenada, another when the Tobago passengers got on. We then had the food/wine service, again I refer you to the excellent Tinkerbelle's post, with a later wine top up. We both opted for the chicken – it was fine. However the chocolate bread and butter pudding encouraged the use of several adjectives, the most polite being “disgusting.” I do not know whether it is the norm now on these inbound flights but there was neither a Baileys/brandy nor an ice cream round nor, for that matter, hot towels nor pretzels (BOO). The two cabin crew looking after the bubble were fine, fun and friendly. I actually made use of the entertainment system,
once again it was the version with the controller attached to the side of the seat. However, if I got out of my seat I found the controls easier to a) see and b) manipulate. I watched “You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger” and all it did was remind me of the decline in the quality of Woody Allen’s output – it is time for me to revisit the wonderful Annie Hall again. Entertainment was however much boosted by watching what is I think the best Glee episode so far – Britney/Brittany - the Britney Spears one. Wonderful stuff. And then I went to sleep.
I woke to the breakfast service, about an hour and a half out from LGW – omelette or Spanish frittata. I went for the omelette - it was a tad greasy to my taste.
Mrs HWV went for the frittata (an egg/onion/potato pie thingy) and said it was delish. Mrs HWV also said the cup of tea was the best she’d had since the outbound, although the tap water in Grenada is ok to drink you notice its saltiness in tea and coffee. The flight time to Gatwick from Tobago was 7 hours 45 minutes and we landed at 8.25 am. Once again, disembarkation was organised so that the upstairs PE passengers could get off before economy – do I sense that some practising has been going on?
Apart from a few passengers off an Irish flight both security and baggage reclaim were empty and our luggage was off within the first few minutes. Within an hour of touch down we were on the M23 and on our way home. The girlies were very pleased to see us and us them.
And now, my liver is slowly recovering from its failed “drink all the cocktails” task (
apologies to Tinks and Tonty ) and my diet has restarted. It could be time to book another holiday. Regards,
David
Last edited by HWVlover on 04 Jun 2011, 09:50, edited 4 times in total.
spoilt by a lack of emoticons to enhance the atmosphere created by the narrative. 
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