This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Stopped overnight at the Hilton T5 – arrived there just as the executive lounge was shutting, so was able to grab some food (they have a pretty decent range of food in the lounge) and a glass of wine. After a good nights sleep, I headed off to T3 on the Hopper bus. Unfortunately one had broken down and therefore there was a bit of a delay.
Check-in was fairly quiet when I arrived, so quickly checked in bags, received boarding pass and headed off to the VS fast track security. There was a bit of a queue this morning, and as other have mentioned around this time airport security had been “beefed” up due to the poor review. This meant, of course, that my bags were pulled aside and hand searched. Not a huge problem, but I would rather they were doing this for an actual reason rather than someone imposing that they hand search more bags. Little bit of shopping en route to the lounge and then settled down for breakfast. Really busy this morning – pretty much full, but luckily managed to get a table (some people had come to the restaurant area but left bags on seats elsewhere, and they were politely asked to choose one area only as it was too busy). Breakfast was good as always – eggs Benedict with the Colcannon croquets – this time managed to just bring the croquets rather than the whole breakfast! Time seemed to fly by and the flight was called.
There was the dual airbridge this morning with someone checking that only Upper Class passengers went down the first airbridge. There were quite a few people already on board when I boarded – luckily this morning it was a B747 and I had managed to grab a seat in the nose downstairs. Seat was looking a little bit worn around the edges and the table didn't come out very easily, but at least it looked clean! One thingI noticed on boarding was that one of the toilets was closed off with the famous yellow/black tape as broken – odd that this hadn’t been fixed whilst on the ground. During the flight this proved to be very annoying, as there was then only one toilet for the whole of the lower UC deck (and so several people, including myself, often visited the two toilets in the upstairs UC area leading to queuing in the aisle upstairs which I am sure probably annoyed them). Disappointed that VS couldn’t sort whilst on the ground at LHR.
Champagne offered and accepted – now an acceptable time to start drinking (there had been lots of drinking in the lounge but a little early for me!). After a while there was an announcement that we were missing a pilot for the flight and so we were going to be delayed. Basically, one of the scheduled pilots was sick and so a replacement was coming from LGW on staff transport. Unfortunately there had been an accident and a significant diesel spill on the M25 and so the pilot, along with a number of other VS crew ,were stuck on the motorway. There was a replacement at LHR and so we had to just wait. The delay was around an hour and there was fairly regular updates, including an announcement when they arrived at LHR and we heard a big round of appaulase when they boarded the plane. At least we were offered more drinks whilst on the ground – who can refuse another champagne when in this situation??
Finally we were underway and after a shortish wait we were off to LAX. After take-off drinks were offered and I asked for a bloody mary. This came very spiced indeed – I went to the bar to ask to change as a little too spicy for me – the crew offered some extra tomato juice in it and also some extra vodka – apparently now they have pouring measures on the bottles to limit the amount given to passengers. This seemed to do the trick! I did ask for an extra bowl of crisps, which didn’t go down well, however I was lucky that I got the end of the bag as there is only enough for one portion per passenger apparently?
Tables laid for lunch – better without the brown bit to the table cloth (apparently it is going to come as an integrated part of the table cloth in the future) and noticed the return of the Wilbur and Orville but in black – much better than the cocktail shaker ones. I opted for the beetroor cured salmon (not bad), the grilled breast of chicken with gnocchi, spinach and truffle cream (very good), chocolate and salted caramel pudding (good as always) and then the selection of cheese. I had the US sauvignon blanc and then the S. African chenin blanc – much preferred the US one but I do like to try more than one. This time skipped the port and had a glass of red with the cheese instead. The crew were fun and friendly during the meal service – it was pointed out to me that I should stop working during lunch and relax, otherwise I would get indigestion!
After lunch I worked at my seat for a bit as had lots to do on this flight, but after a while headed to the bar as wanted to have a change of scenery and also as travelling on my own fancied a chat with some others. Bar was busy today, but managed to get a seat and continued to do some work with a glass or two of the Stone The Crows Shiraz/Viognier – very nice indeed (alternated with some diet coke / water as I was meeting friends in LA after arrival). After a couple of hours or so, one of the crew came up to the bar and asked all those there to return to their seats as there were passengers upstairs who wanted to use the bar and we were preventing them from doing so – I don’t think that this has happened before – suppose it makes it fairer for all, but oddly I hadn’t seen anyone come down to try and use the bar during the whole time I was there so wasn’t sure that this was the truth and maybe we had had our time at the bar. The only other slightly odd thing whilst at the bar was that one of the crew member was telling everyone about all the famous people he had flown with before, and also pointing out who was famous on this flight and which seats they were sitting in – not very professional in my opinion.
Went back to the seat to have a snooze before afternoon tea – in the end I slept for about 3+ hours as so missed the afternoon tea service. Not a huge problem as in reality I wasn’t actually hungry and also the sleep would have been better as I had dinner/drinks that evening. Changed before the huge queue developed with the only toilet downstairs and had some diet cokes to refresh myself. All too soon we were flying over the expanse of LA and landing at LAX. As usual, there is the need to stop, turn off engines and then be pulled into the gate – always gets some people who are desperate to get up when the plane first stops
Arrived to an empty immigration – much better than arriving at TBIT where there are always queues – friendly individual and bags were coming off very soon afterwards. Actually got through the whole process too quickly as my partner and their friend were planning to meet me in arrivals but they were still driving into the airport.Overall a good flight were VS delivered what they were suppose to do – in general the crew were fun and friendly, which probably reflected that the FSM was visible throughout the flight. Slightly odd that VS didn’t have a spare B747 pilot at their main base in the UK which led to a delay, but at least there was champagne available to make the delay more bearable
The usual ploy is to put the seat belts on..... 
There is a limit for those who can be at the Bar at any one time which is linked to the number of oxygen masks in the area
