This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
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First thing to note is that The Other Mr Morgan (TOMM) had never flown Virgin before, so I was hoping to give him as much of the treatment as possible.
Second thing to note is that this is my first one of these, so it's more detailed than you'll probably ever see in the future :-)
As we were flying out of LHR but back into LGW, driving to the airport and parking wasn't really an option, and the cost of a cab all the way to the airport was rather more than a cab to Paddington and two half-price Heathrow Express tickets, so that was the route we chose. Because I never usually use the Heathrow Express I have plenty of upgrade vouchers, so even though it's only 15 minutes I decided they might as well be put to good use. We set off from home at 7am, were at Paddington in plenty of time for the train at around 7.55, so we were in check-in zone A by around 8.15/8.20.
I'd checked us in online the previous night and got the seats we'd originally pre-booked, 74A and D on the upper deck (again, TOMM had never been upstairs on a plane before, so was keen to try it). We had bags to drop off though, and as is often the case the PE check-in queue was shorter than either the DIY Bag Drop or UC ones, so we joined that one. While we were waiting, the check-in agent we ended up being dealt with by created a rather unfortunate first impression of VA by being unbelieveably patronising to the passenger in front of us. When we got to her I explained we'd checked in online, but I wanted to check if there was any capacity to upgrade with miles. She said that the flight was fully booked in Upper, so no, there wasn't, printed boarding cards and tagged the bags. I was thrown enough by her rather dismissive attitude (I'm not remotely status conscious, but shouldn't the Flying Club Gold help with the level of treatment just a little?) that I didn't check she was putting priority tags on the bags, which in fact she didn't, so thank goodness I'd put FC Gold tags on them and someone in baggage handling understood what to do with them.
We fast tracked through security and went straight to the Clubhouse, getting there by around 8.35, dropping off our hand luggage and stopping by the Concierge desk where I thought an enquiry about upgrading might get a little more serious attention. It did, but I was told that there wasn't much chance as they were only expecting one no-show and there were 5 suites out of service for one reason or another. But we left a boarding card and went to get some breakfast in the Brasserie ahead of TOMM heading to the Cowshed for a treatment (I'd originally booked it for me, but I needed to do some work before getting away).
TOMM, by the way, was blown away by the Clubhouse in every respect, even down to the architecture, which I hadn't really noticed before, but which I'm now seeing in a new light.
Once he emerged, glowing, from his treatment, we had another 45 minutes of just chilling and exploring (in his case), and indulging in a Bellini (in mine).
The gate (5) was announced, and we headed off, stopping to pick up the boarding card from the Concierge. The very friendly person I'd dealt with there took another look at the flight and said 'sorry, Upper is full', so we set off to the gate, which had a small queue to negotiate, but nothing minor, and no priority boarding. Happily, however, when my boarding card was scanned, the system beeped, and my new Upper Class seat number was written on it :-) Pausing to check that TOMM had a similar experience, we wandered on through the lounge heading towards 15A and D 'on the main deck though' as I said 'well then take them back and demand our original seats' he joked. My guess is that we'd been upgraded at flight closure, but the Clubhouse person literally just looked at the flight a few seconds earlier and didn't realise that the full UC actually included us.
Once on board we settled fairly quickly. Then swapped seats so that he got the window and resettled equally quickly. Pre-flight drinks were delivered, and TOMM had the workings of the suite explained to him. Flying time was announced as 7 hours 45 minutes, and there was a small delay in pushing back, which gave the IFBT extra time to come round and take our orders, though as it happens neither of us got a treatment on that occasion.
We took off at around 11.50, and pretty much as soon as the crew could get up the IFBT came round with the Snooze Pack - the shoe bag was an unexpected hit with TOMM, and I don't have as much of a problem with the cut-down kit as some people - the bonus basket of extras now includes Cowshed products or course, and very good they are too.
The drink round was handled quickly, though because the crew went up one side of the aisle before coming back down the other throughout the flight, I was always about ten minutes behind himself with everything. I had red wine initially and then shifted to apple juice for the latter two thirds of the flight as I was due to be driving our hire car in Miami. This led to an exchange with the FSM when I went up to the bar for an apple juice refill at one point when she complained 'You're travelling in Upper Class on a transatlantic flight to Miami, and you're ordering an apple juice? You should be ashamed.' We had a chat about driving in the US, life, the universe and everything - she was lovely, but I realised afterwards that she's the first FSM who hasn't made a tour of the UC cabin to introduce herself on any UC flight I've taken. Not a complaint, as I really don't think it's essential, but definitely a first.
Another first was the explanation that there's an airbag in the UC Suite seat belt. I'd always wondered about the odd padded bit, but never realised before that that's what it is.
Lunch was the Best of British, and we both went for the crab cakes and hotpot, followed by the cheese for me and the crumble for him, all of which got the thumbs up - the hotpot especially.
After lunch I settled in with V:Port and TOMM had his only significant (but very significant) problem with the VA service. He needed to do some work on the flight, and I'd checked ahead of time on the VA website whether there were still restrictions on Apple laptop battery use. The site says that batteries should be checked by the crew and that they can be used if they're not on the problem list. Dutifully obeying the instruction, he asked, and was told that he was only allowed to use the laptop on in-seat power. The problem of course is that Virgin don't carry adapters for the latest generation of Mac laptops, so he couldn't use his machine. The fact that this was contrary to the process given on the site and that the battery was never actually checked annoyed him enough, but the fact that the man sitting in 14D behind me took out his identical laptop, didn't bother asking, and wasn't challenged by the crew when he started working on it really hacked him off. It actually created a negative feeling about the whole VA experience that the rest of the service wasn't enough to overcome, so while he enjoyed his first flight with Virgin a lot, he was left far less impressed than he probably would have been.
I got an inflight survey to complete, and was generally able to be pretty positive about the service, though my other half being so disgruntled didn't help.
Afternoon tea came along and went, and pretty quickly we began the descent into Miami. We were off very quickly, but the scrum in Immigration was appalling, and picking separate lines he got stuck behind two non-English speaking families in a row, so I went through to get the bags and wait for him. As noted they hadn't been priority tagged, but the Gold FC tags had got them into the priority bin, and they actually hit the belt one immediately after the other.
Once TOMM had battled through to the baggage hall we got out of there pretty quickly (how grim is Miami airport Arrivals?) and onto the Budget shuttle bus to go and collect our Mustang convertible :-) Tip for anyone who needs it by the way - a week's rental of this, picking up in Miami and returning to Orlando was a guaranteed rate of 169 including all the extra insurance and waivers, which I think was a serious bargain.
Sorry it's been a while since the flight before I've posted this, but I was trying very hard not to be online any more than was absolutely necessary while we were away.
EDIT: Only occured to me days later that the other thing the check-in agent messed up was that we paid our excess APD in advance but she didn't give us our discount vouchers. That saga clearly still isn't straightened out.
