VS071 GLA-MCO 12 JUN 11 (Premium Economy)
Posted: 29 Jun 2011, 20:18This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
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This was our first ever flight with Virgin from Glasgow to Orlando International on VS071 and had 8 adults and 1 child (5 year old) in our party. I was very organised and did a lot of research mostly with the aid of this fantastic site and made use of all the items available in the toolbox.
We started off with some good news, one of our party has a family member who works for Virgin at Glasgow Airport, we were informed that the economy section we were booked and checked into (using OLCI) row 35 & 36, was overbooked by 14 and that we were to arrive early to get an upgrade to PE.
We would like to thank horburyflyer who checked availability and confirmed the economy section was full as we were told and also confirmed that it was Beauty Queen we were flying on.
We arrived at the airport at 06:45 (Terminal 2) for the 10:05 departure and as confirmed we were given a free upgrade to PE sitting in rows 22 & 23 for our complete party of 9.
Our bags were tagged up and we were on our way through the duty free shop to gate number 29.
At 9:35 boarding commenced and we had the experience of being first on the aircraft due to our upgrade and within 3-4 mintues we were offered and had a drink in hand.
The first impressions blew us away on the new A333. We found the leg room and seats more than adequate. The mood lighting was also a nice touch.
To my surprise the doors were closed which seemed very quick but maybe we lost time admiring the cabin on the new bus
To my surprise there were only 24 people in the PE cabin which included the 14 overbooked from economy.
Once we were in the air the brilliant JAM IFE was activated and we were warned to let it settle as all 238 pax on board were trying to access it at the same time! For me this is the best IFE I have seen I had mine set to show the status map on the game console screen leaving me free to scroll through the dozens of music, tv and movies available. I also found the fact you can play a fellow passenger on board quite interesting.
There was one major error which happened on the IFE when a cabin crew message came up, which freezes anything you are watching and has a box on screen, the message said cu*t that is all. The cabin crew did not have a clue how it got there nor who wrote it but they visited every seat to apologise but we did overhear a few unhappy passengers and we were unsure of what the outcome was. We never made a big deal of it as we were so overjoyed still with our "freebie"
One dissapointment we experienced was when it came to meal time. We were issued with an inflight menu which offered chicken or chilli con carne. I settled for the Chicken but by the time they got to serve us they were all out of chicken and I Had to settle for chilli, which I do not like! I thought this was poor as there was only 24 people in the PE cabin and we were not even last to get served!
On the other and the cabin crew were excellent and inparticular **** who looked after our area could not have done any more to ensure we had everything we requsted from the bar and snack menu.
After 8 hours and 25 mins flying we landed into MCO 15 mins early, for the first time in my life crossed over an active runway until we reached gate number 81.
We passed through US immigration quickly as we were first off the aircraft, picked off 7 of the 9 checked in bags which were off quick as they were tagged with PE labels but 2 bags were not tagged and we ended up waiting nearly 45 mins after the first 7 came off till we got the last 2.
Overall I would give this flight and experience 9 out of 10, only point being lost due to the dinner shortage & bag reclaim mix up.
The A330 is a marvellous aircraft and very modern compared to our return flight on Jersey Girl (TR to come) and is probably the level of comfort and IFE you should expect flying with a top carrier across the Atlantic. Based on the outward flight I would recommend VS to anyone and will definetely travel to Florida again next year. One member of our party was recently in Oz with BA and Qantas and he said VS was much better than both of these services last year.
Jordan
