This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
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I do like VS73's departure time of 1.10pm, it makes for a nice relaxed start to the day and I especially appreciated that element on this journey as it was to be my first time travelling with my 7 month old son.....eeeeek!
I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive about taking the nipper into Upper Class, not because I previously used to be one of those people who would visibly and audibly groan if a baby came into the cabin but because I am conscious of the fact that no matter how good the child (and I considered mine to be pretty good usually!), there was no way of being sure whether on the day of travel, the nipper might suddenly turn into Damien or be afflicted by some random illness whose symptoms included 9 hour fits of screaming!
Certainly, I had no desire to have to subject anyone to a screaming child, whether they were in UC, PE or E but I felt it would be worse if Nipper 'kicked off' in UC knowing full well that you don't see that many infants in UC and that many people spend a lot of money to travel UC not just for the UCS but also for the service and peaceful cabin (well that's the theory although I've seen my fair share of shall we say 'exuberant' characters in UC, business and First!). Anyway, when I made the decision to take little gringo (gringrito?) in UC, I did it because I'd (a) never had a problem with other infants in the cabin and (b) I thought it would be the best option for US as a family to travel and I'd be damned if the naysayers would let me worry about it TOO much!
In case you're now hoping for a disaster story, I'll put you out of your misery and tell you that it was the best decision I could have made, the boy was as good as gold (bar the last 30mins or so when he had a bit of a meltdown before promptly falling asleep for the first time in 10 hours 5 minutes before we landed!)
But anyway, back to the beginning! As I mentioned, the late departure time meant a relaxed trip to the airport and an efficient check in. When travelling with an infant, you are allowed your usual baggage allowance plus an extra case for the infant as well as either a car seat or pushchair. We checked in a car seat and took the pushchair to the gate where it was taken off us and put in the hold. The check in staff packaged the car seat in a protective plastic bag and gave us another one for the pushchair to take to the gate.
Whilst I said I've never been one to tut at babies on planes in any cabin, I don't have as much patience with 'ill-prepared' people at security so I was horrified when the wife was ordered to take the little one out of the pram and through the metal detector and I was left alone to fight with the baby paraphernalia, extra bags and a travel pushchair we'd bought the day before and I had no idea how to collapse!
Despite that, I don't think I delayed the rest of the queue too much(!) and once on the other side of the metal detector I was selected for additional screening (my profuse sweating from trying to collapse the pram probably arose suspicion). Additional personal screening passed but next came the demand for additional baby screening!
Although we had pre-ordered infant milk from Boots on the other side of security (I never knew you could do that...although why would I have done?!) we had brought 4 cartons of pre-prepared infant milk with us on a 'just in case' kind of basis. Security made us open and taste 2 of them (yuk!) which therefore meant we were left with only 2 useable cartons as you (a) can't really successfully carry 2 open cartons around and (b) they say you should use them within an hour of opening or discard them for health reasons. Fortunately, our pre-order was waiting for us at Boots and amazingly at a cheaper price than my local Boots in town! My advice? Just pre-order and avoid the hassle of security!
Pre-Order Details with Boots - http://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/manweb.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/Boots+Pre+order+Service.pdf/$FILE/Boots+Pre+order+Service.pdf
We went straight to the Escape Lounge which from previous trips I knew full well was no LHR CH. If you're desperate, you can get a passable coffee and a pastry but when you have a 1.10pm departure, you can probably find more privacy almost anywhere else in the terminal (which resembles something of a ghost town at that hour!)
So, after a quick coffee, we headed downstairs and paced the terminal in the hope that the little one would catch a bit of sleep before boarding...haha...he was still bright eyed and bushy tailed even though we were the very last ones to board!
Once onboard, I was happy to see not even the slightest indication of displeasure on the faces of the other pax when they saw the little one. In fact it was quite the opposite and we had a good amount of cooing and 'ahhing'
A glass of champers and the last of my anxieties seemed to melt away.The plane itself was G-VLIP (Hot Lips) and for an ex MAN aircraft it was in pretty good condition. When I say that, bear in mind that the standards I expect from ex MAN planes these days are not that high (which is why I also use other airlines!) but the IFE screen did at least work and the seats did operate so all in all, I guess you'd probably call it 'acceptable' if 'tired'.
The Cabin Crew were very good throughout the flight. Aware and attentive of our needs with the little one at all times but not in ours (or his) face. There were one or two minor things like forgetting a drink, telling me that they didn't have my choice of meal (steak) and so I chose the Thai chicken curry instead, but the steward came back 10minutes later to ask what I'd ordered....lol. I don't mind things like that though to be honest, we're all human and the crew were always extremely polite, attentive and helpful throughout the journey - I'd rather they asked than brought me the veggy option! As it was, the Thai curry was delicious and I suspect far nicer than the steak I usually go for which is generally cooked to within an inch of it's life!
The rest of the journey was turbulence free and passed uneventfully and the converted UCS was the perfect play place for the little one as evidenced below!
Once we had landed and disembarked I was surprised to learn that our pushchair which was checked at the gate at MAN was not available until after we're cleared immigration. Having never travelled with a child before I just presumed that as I had seen on other flights (albeit not necessarily this one) the pushchair would be at the plane door when we disembarked. Fortunately it wasn't a long walk to Immigration and being in UC, we were amongst the first in the queue. If I had been last to get off the plane with a small child though I would have been disappointed at not having use of the stroller whilst waiting in the queue!
Immigration was it's usual farcical affair and after probably 15/20 minutes of interrogation about previous visits, work, old Visas and so on, we collected our bags, stroller and car seat which were already on the belt and cleared the Agriculture checkpoint without being subjected to a further screening despite admitting to carrying baby food and milk!
For the first time ever in MCO and because of the ridiculous quantity of luggage the little one had demanded we take(!), we 're-checked' our bags onto the terminal transfer belt, hopped on the monorail and made our way downstairs in the main terminal to the car hire desks (which is also where the re-checked baggage carousel is.
Alamo did their usual attempt to get us to take a much larger car than we needed - what a joke! Despite having a SUV for just the three of us and our 3 cases, the Alamo rep hummed and ha'd, told us that we'd never fit in just the regular SUV and 'looking at our baggage' we would definitely need the large SUV! I was impressed he could tell given our baggage was still on the carousel and we had only a rucksack, handbag and baby bag between us!! Needless to say, we stuck with the more than adequate standard SUV and were soon waving goodbye to the hard sell Rep and collecting our bags from the adjacent carousel.
The car collection is on site at MCO and just a few yards from the terminal exit so even with the boy and the bags it was easy to get to and choose our car. In no time we were heading out on the 417 towards Naples and the boy's grandparents who we were visiting. 4 hours is a long drive after the flight and with the time difference and it is not one I would necessarily recommend doing if you're unfamiliar with the roads or driving in the US. It is however a journey I've done more times than most and soon enough we were at our destination and cracking a well deserved (in my opinion) cold beer!
