This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
We had upgraded our Virgin Holiday economy seats to UCS as a treat [:D] so we did not have limo transfer to LGW. We drove down nice and early to maximise Clubhouse time and arrived at check in just after 7am. Purple boarding cards in hand we headed through the security Fast Track lane, only slightly hampered by the large American gentleman before us in the queue who seemed to be removing much of his clothing in an attempt to get through the scanner without a beep. Having cleared this hurdle we shopped briefly then headed for the Clubhouse.
At this point we ran into the one let down - following the fine example set by others on this board I asked for a blue drink with my Englih breakfast (my better half opting for a sausage sandwich and a Bloody Mary - very nice, properly spiced) and was amused to watch all four Clubhouse staff cluster round the bar with the Big Book of Cocktails in hand trying to assemble a Blue Lagoon. Then - horror of horrors - it seemed there was no Blue Curacao [:0]. I was then handed the Big Book of Cocktails and invited to pick something else. There was a hand-written Long Island Iced Tea recipe inside the front cover which looked nice so I chose that - heavy on the Long Island, easy on the Iced Tea...
After a pleasant period of time had elapsed our flight was called. Priority Boarding worked as planned and we were onto G-VROS (English Rose) and into our seats/suites in a few minutes. Very happy with the suite (my ottoman/visitor seat had a few scruffy edges but apart from that all was good), also very happy with the glass of champagne which appeared almost instantly. Push back was 11:05 with take off at 11:25 (scheduled departure was 10:45) and we made up the time on the flight to St. Lucia, arriving on time.
At this point I want to highlight the level of service we received on this flight from the Cabin Crew - top marks all round [y]. Champage/wine glasses were topped up without prompting, all passengers were introduced to the suite facilities, the crew were all smiles and happy to chat (a pleasant hour was spent at the bar at 38,000 feet chatting with the CSS and sampling some of the beverages on offer).
Food selections were made (me - gravadlax salad (very good), steak (OK), cheese & biscuits (yum); her - gravadlax salad, chicken pancetta (very good), cheese & bics) and the meals were served about an hour after take off. My steak was OK - not tough, properly cooked, looked good but perhaps a bit bland. All was washed down with a few glasses of a very pleasant Pinot Grigio.
In amongst all this eating and drinking I found time to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on the IFE which I enjoyed a lot. I've always liked Tim Burton's work and I think he did a great job of capturing the spirit of Roald Dahl's book.
The rest of the flight continued in the same pleasant manner. Once we arrived at St. Lucia (UC luggage appearing first on the carousel) we found the Virgin Holiday rep and were directed to our private taxi transfer to the Le Sport hotel which was a huge improvement over the minibus that non-UC passengers have. A splendid two weeks was had at Le Sport (I'll do a hotel report in the appropriate forum) and we returned tanned, relaxed and alarmingly overweight to the UK on 9th December - TR to follow.
19/12/2005 - edited to put correct date in subject field. D'oh!
Ken
