VS109 MAN-ATL 6 FEB 24 (Upper Class)

This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

It was time for our annual trip to Naples. As usual we stayed overnight at the Radisson Blue even though our VS109 flight now didn't leave until 1pm.  We checked in about 8.20 thinking we could then have breakfast in the lounge. How wrong we were as we were unaware that security won't allow you into the terminal until 3 hours 50 mins before flight time. Security wasn't too busy so we were soon in the lounge. The lounge  was about half full but emptied soon after as passengers went for the VS75 and faced a very wet bus ride to a remote stand.

Boarding was called about 12pm and, thankfully we were on gate 206 and our ride was G-VGEM, a first time on her for me. Pushback was right on time and with a very light load of 122 of which 12 were in Upper and 15 in Premium. Whether this is the result of the afternoon departure with an arrival in ATL at 5.45pm I don't know but we were having to overnight for the first time at ATL as the only flight to Fort Myers was 11pm with arrival just as car hire closed.

Overall a great flight with a very attentive crew, the food, smoked salmon then herb chicken was better than I expected given recent reports. The afternoon offering of a cream tea was fine but nowhere near as good as when it used to be called the Mad Hatters tea party and included sandwiches not just 2 scones like today.

Arrival into ATL was 55 minutes early so we could have made a 7pm departure to Fort Myers but we erred on side of safety and overnighted in the Marriott at the airport.

Check in next day was fine and our ride down to Fort Myers was uneventful other than this was the captain's last flight before retirement.  He announced flight time of 1 hour 10 minutes but I'm going to do it in 1 hour 9 minutes to great applause.

Flight was fine and then came a problem. We always book our rental through Virgin Holidays but they have now changed from Alamo to Hertz. I had booked with VH by phone as the rental is too long to do on line. At the Hertz it transpired that the agent had booked the car from a different off site location which required a 25 minutes taxi ride. Eventually picked up car and arranged drop off to be changed to Fort Myers Airport. Partly my own fault as I didn't check the address on the documentation properly but assumed Fort Myers meant airport. Helpful lady at Hertz explained that Alamo tend to have only 1 depot whereas Hertz could have a number in any town. Think the VH agent just picked the first one she came to and I didn't check properly. Won't happen again and will write to VH to make them aware.

Now for a few weeks r & r in the sun.
 

Thank you for your TR. Another one where the food is good and service at MAN wasn’t a disaster- long may it continue. Shame about the car hire but you got it sorted out eventually. Enjoy Florida!

[mitchja]

Thanks for the TR. The MAN based VS crews have alway been up there with great service. It's just the ground facilities and silly schedules that let VS down now at MAN.