This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
(As a side note, that place really was something else! I’ve stayed at some nice hotels in my time but personally I’ve never been anywhere like that and I’d highly recommend it)
We were lucky enough to be travelling in upper class this time as I bagged a great upgrade price through Sandals directly and I’d selected seats 6A & K.
Check in was uneventful, and we headed straight through the club Mobay security line and then lounge which was included in the ticket. The lounge really wasn’t much of an offering at all in my opinion. The food looked inedible. It’s only advantage was that it was nicely air conditioned.
Boarding was supposed to start at 17:40, and by this time this gate area was packed, but soon an announcement came over the tannoy to say boarding would be 20mins late. Boarding turned out to be half an hour late though, and my only criticism here is that the ‘premium’ line just doesn’t seem to work very well at all. It actually seemed busier than the regular line, and so it wa another 15 mins or so before we found our way to our seats.
This is where it got interesting - upon getting on the plane I headed straight for the toilet, only to be approached by 2cabin crew who asked m why I hadn’t gone in the terminal building. I found this a bit odd but they were quick to explain themselves. Apparently the water at Montego Bay airport was contaminated and therefore they couldn’t uplift any on to the plane for the return leg. The cabin crew had asked for an announcement in the airport that people use the toilet before they get on the aircraft, it this never hadn’t (or maybe I just didn’t hear it). They said it had been touch and go whether the flight would actually go ahead as they were worried about running out of water. To combat this, they loaded 720litre of bottled water, but more on that later.
Running with the same theme as my last TR, this was my first time flying in upper class. First impressions for me were just how roomy the cabin was. This was aided by the fact we were on a 747, but I was amazed at the room there was. The seat itself I found very comfy and it was such a treat to be able to put my feet up! The only criticism I could possible give, and it is minor, is that when reclining the seat I found it awfully loud, which made me a little paranoid about waking the baby that was fast asleep in the next seat.
Drinks and dinner orders were taken before we took off and then the captain came on the tannoy to say he could share the delay off of the flight time so hopefully we land on time.
I skipped the starter and had the beef main followed by the chocolate mousse for dessert. Both excellent in my opinion and really filling. I do have pictures but god knows how to get them on here?
After dinner pretty much everyone put their seats into bed mode for the nigh flight. My plan was to do this and watch a film before dropping for a few hours. It’s quite likely that I was grinning like a Cheshire Cat at this point - a bed on a plane - madness!!
I had a couple of whiskeys, put a film on and then tried to get some sleep. I’d say I managed about 2 hours of proper sleep and about 2 hours of semi consciousness, which is more than I could have hoped for in any other part of a plane. The girlfriend on the other hand slept like a log or about 5 hours. To say I was jealous would be an understatement.
I was woken with about 2hiurs to landing, and one of the CC. Converted my bed back into a seat before serving me breakfast. I went for the bacon roll and croissant high we were both great. There was about an hour left at this point and I spent the time enjoying the views as we went over the sout coast of England. We did indeed land on time, but, there was no stand available due to an aircraft with a technical issue so we sat in the tarmac for a good 25 minutes. When we finally did get on a stand, we were some of the first off and the upper bags came onto,the carousel almost immediate, which was nice!
Back to the water issue - whilst I was glad we did fly and weren’t put up in a hotel for the night, the water issue impacted us in two ways. No tea or coffee -which is fine, I can deal with that. But, the second issue was no running water in the toilet later on in the flight, and just bottles of water in the toilet instead. This resulted in a strange situation when the sinks didn’t seem to drain. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad to be home, but the whole thing was a little strange.
Overall, first time in upper and it lived up to expectation. I found seats 6A and K to be great and sitting right in the front of the nose really was an experience I won’t forget. From a money point of view, going forward, I’d have no issue doing premium for a day flight, as I think the product is more than adequate. For a night flight, if I could stretch to upper then it would be a no brainer!
