V-Flyer

This is my 1st TR so please be gentle and apologies for the rambling

I did online checkin on sunday so that arrival at LGW for twilight checkin for the bag drop was a breeze - And it WAS! Only a few people in front of us.

Went on to Marriott Courtyard for the night. Nice hotel.

The fun began next morning. There were 4 of us travelling, 2 in PE (me and partner) and 2 in Economy, which got the checkin staff a bit flustered as the economy passengers wanted to checkin their overnight bag as a 2nd bag! The 1st agent flatly refused! (They were coming back PE and the ETicket from VH showed 2 bags each for each sector.).
We then discovered that their ETicket had been accidentally left at the hotel!(luckily I had scanned all of the VH documentation and had a copy on my tablet). I was then summoned by the economy passengers along with said tablet and copy of eticket to visit another checkin agent, and after waiting in line again for 20 mins, he checked the extra bag in without any objection without even looking at the eticket - consistency does seem to be an issue here, but at least we got the bag dropped

Onwards and upwards to a quite busy VRoom. - Always worth it for the lack of hustle and bustle though - not to mention the great breakfast offerings

We boarded Jersey Girl on time, got to our seats 18ac in PE and 63ac in cattle class and even left a minute early !

Service on board was what you expect, with the usual food and drink offerings - how pleased i was to have had breakfast though :-) There did seem to be a lot of gluten free meals ordered though (i counted 18 for the downstairs PE cabin - whether this need is genuine or just so that they can get served first, i don't know. Cynical or what )

Seatbelt sign came on for about 10 minutes on what was a very smooth flight.

We arrived on time at MCO and the benefits of 18ac showed straight away - entering a half full imigration hall with the remnants of VS75 from Manchester.
Queue lines were expanded to cope with the influx, and people started to be sent to the new kiosks after navigating the maze to the front of the queue. A visit in the last 6 years was the time frame for using the kiosks. It scanned my passport, took my fingerprints and a photo and then printed out a copy of the photo and passport details onto what looked like a supermarket receipt. We then promptly joined ANOTHER queue and, after having this printout checked, passports were stamped and we were off to collect luggage which was waiting on the carousel for us. It does seem to speed things up, but they don't seem to use them all of the time.
Through customs, where the receipt was taken from us, bags put onto 2nd belt, off up the escalator and into the terminal for out trip to the "A" side of the airport to collect bags and car.

When we collected the car, the other 2 in economy hadn't even made it out of immigration, so we waited in the alamo garage for them to appear, which after an hour, they hadn't done. Luckily we both had phones with "3" sims in them and were able to use their feel at home option which worked a treat - not bad for £15 addon on a PAYG sim.
We finally found out what their delay was - they had not taken their bags up the escalators ond gone to the Alamo garage on the "B" side of the terminal - even though we had told them, and all of the announcements on the train said, that VA used the "A" side of the terminal !!!!!!
So, after we took the car out of the garage, which was so easy after doing Alamo on line checkin, paid for a tank of fuel, we finally got to kerbside pickup on the "B" side of the terminal to meet the rest of our very stressed party.
As i said thank goodness for mobile roaming !

And with that we began a very enjoyable 3 weeks in Orlando.



To Be Continued........

I would doubt people are ordering GF meals to get served first! They are a very bland option even in Upper (a boring salad, very plain and dry chicken and an apple. Excellent wines though!). May have to bring my own food next time. Good to see US immigration seems to be getting better.

I would doubt people are ordering GF meals to get served first!

That's probably my cynacism But there did seem to be a lot.

Yes, 18 in one cabin is very strange, at least you ate better than them!

ISTBC but I think the "special meals" are the same in all cabins. They're just served differently (ie in UC they take them out of the packet and slap them on a plate with a garnish!).

And I also suspect despite the seemingly large array of "special" options, there are actually very few different meals. Halal, kosher, low fat, low salt and gluten-free can all be a grilled chicken salad, for instance. It's all about keeping costs down ...