VS097 LGW-TAB 10 APR 16 (Upper Class)
Posted: 27 Apr 2016, 17:45This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
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Back to St Lucia and back to East Winds for the third time in eight months. we are obviously addicted. I book direct with the hotel and arrange my own flights. This time there was little financial advantage in us doing ex-EU with Expedia as I was buying tickets during the VS sale. I opted for a miles and money fare.
As usual the girlies were delivered to their hotel on the Saturday. This time one of them decided she would much rather come home..EEK. Numerous phone calls/texts/e-mails occurred over the next few hours/days to make sure had settled OK. She had.
Then to Gatwick, parked up in the long stay South, did twilight check-in and bought our provisions at M&S and then checked in to the Hilton for our picnic. The Hilton is fine, it is convenient and £126 for a one night stay for us and 16 days car parking was good value. If this sounds samey it is because it was, apart from twilight check, exactly as November!
The clubhouse opens at 6.15 and we were there shortly thereafter, security being a breeze. A full English was scoffed and I was pleased to report back at the time that the food, specifically the bacon, was better than on our previous visits in July and November. I would still prefer it to be hotter. The staff are pretty good so we had a relaxing couple of hours before our 9am departure. We wandered down to our gate (15) at the second call and straight onto the plane, other passengers were already onboard. The plane was full.
I am not a big fan of the herringbone layout on the A330, I prefer a proper window seat. However seats 5A and 6A were fine allowing for the issue shown in my photographs, the dusty and hairy tv screen and surround did not give an impression of cleanliness. Pity.
Anyway Gardet was soon being drunk and loading was so efficient that the captain endeavoured to get permission to leave early. That didn’t work out but we at least left on time. We circled Gatwick a couple of times, I guess because of incoming traffic, and then set off for St Lucia.
The flight was great, no issues with turbulence at all. The crew looking after us were also great, in particular the excellent Brian and the lovely Karen (permission given to name them) who were both proactive, fun and interested and interesting. We spent a fair amount of time at the bar chatting to them and other passengers.
Back at my seat I started to watch The Revenant and nodded off, I am uncertain whether that was a reaction to the dreariness of the film or simply because I was tired.
When I compare VS to other carriers' business class flights the food quality always means VS loses. This time things were a bit better mainly because I avoided the steak. Seeing the struggle others were having with it meant that was a good decision on my part; I have said elsewhere it felt at one stage that I had dropped in to a Uri Geller convention as cutlery seemed to be bending all around me. There was a lot of wastage. I really don't know where VS get this beef from but it really is consistently poor.
Fortuitously, based on my previous experience, I opted for the "Free Range Roast Chicken on a fresh potato cake with pea puree, baby carrots and sage jus”. It was very good. Sadly that meant I was over confident and ordered the chicken salad on the return VS98 and it was awful...a lump of chicken on top of some leaves, far to dry and far too cold. It was also as tough as old boots or even as tough as a VS steak. I am not sure which is worse.
Back to the 97. I opted out of a pudding and went for the cheese which was fine but once again served far too cold. Later I had afternoon tea at the bar and the sandwiches were stale. The cakes were yummy however. The wines served onboard were nice; the Vondeling chardonnay and the Bodegas Cuarto Dominio Malbec were both very much to my taste.
The flight continued smoothly and we landed half an hour early. Priority disembarkation was in place, we were third to immigration, our luggage came off quickly and we were soon outside, meeting our driver and then we were East Winds bound.
And that is it.
Thanks for reading
David.
