V-Flyer

I've just been sorting through my PC, as you do on a dreary Sunday afternoon and noticed the TR I completed for my return VS6 flight from last year. I had completed the write up, saved it in word but not uploaded - didn't want to waste all my efforts!!

Anyway, here goes.....

We left our lovely villa at around 10am following an amazing 2 weeks in the Florida sunshine. The weather had been fantastic, with most days full of warm beautiful sunshine...ahhhh!

We took our time driving down to Miami, stopping off at a service station on the way for an Earl of Sandwich mmmm.

Our original plan had been to drive down on the Friday night to spend 1 night in a local hotel and our last day in Miami on the beach, however, we later decided to stay another night in the villa and drive down on the day.

We still had our reservation at Howard Johnson near Miami (NW 103rd st), I had called to move it 1 day forward, even though we wouldn't be staying the night, so thought we may as well head there to shower, get changed and chill for a few hours before the flight - a sort of mini CH I suppose!!

Despite getting a little lost when trying to find the hotel, we made it for around 2:30 giving us a couple of hours before we needed to leave for our 7:25 departure.

Just a quick note, this hotel was awful and we were VERY pleased with our decision not stay here! Avoid!

Anyway, it got to 4:30pm and all refreshed we headed to MIA, firstly to the car rental center to return our car. Traffic was good by Miami standards and we were handing the car back to Alamo in no time. I do love the new shared car centre, very efficient. We were in the shuttle bus and checking in for our flight by 5:30pm.

The check in area was fairly empty and we walked straight to the PE desk for check in. A very pleasant lady checked us in with no problems,handed us our boarding passes and asked us to take our cases over to the scanning machine. The family next to us were trying to "barter" a reduced fare to upgrade to UC. The staff were having none of it, telling them that it was a fixed fair and not open to negotiation - I did have to give the family credit for their efforts!

Security was very quiet, apart from the idiot who left a bottle of drink in their hand luggage, don't you hate people that do that?? Oh wait....it was me!!! TSA saw the funny side and panic on my face!

Through to the departure lounge! This really let MIA down. Firstly, there was 1 toilet in service. When I say 1 toilet, I mean 1 single toilet in the mens room. Just 1 cubicle, huge line! I had to ask a member of staff, who confirmed this was it!

We headed to Burger King and had a quick drink and snack before boarding.

Boarding commenced around 6:35pm, we decided to wait and boarded around 6:55pm.

On board to a lovely cool A346, G-VWEB Surfer Girl - I must say she was looking very clean and tidy. Crew were very prompt with welcome drinks and asked how our day had been.

From what I could see the flight was fully booked, definitely no seats in PE or Y and from what I could see of UC, none there either!

After take off, menu's were handed out and v port started. This is where an issue occured. On the outbound flight, my partners IFE hadn't worked correctly, now it was my turn! I plugged the headphones in but there was clearly a connection issue because the sound kept fading in and out, resulting in me being unable to watch v-port, I mentioned to the crew and was offered a dvd player.

Food - having looked at the menu, I was going to have the veggie option and my partner the beef. Unfortunately the beef had run out by the time the CC got to us, so we were offered an economy beef instead - not particularly happy especially as you are given a menu with choices on, which should be available. Less than half of the cabin had been served by this point so a lot of unhappy people!(Did get some FC miles as comp for this following a letter to CR on my return).

Managed to settle down for a few hours sleep, found the seats really comfortable and actually slept right through until breakfast. Only really wanted a cup of tea so can't comment on the breakfast.

Arrived early into LHR and bags out within the first batch.

Overall a good flight, let down by lack of preferred food choices and issues with IFE but service made up for it.

Better late than etc etc, Luke . Shame about the IFE and grub - still sound like an OK flight though.