This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
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A week later, the return leg:
Having had what we happily acknowledge is one of the best holidays we've ever had, TOMM and I headed back to Orlando airport in the hire car. We left plenty of time to return it in case the arrangement at MCO was like the pick-up a week earlier in Miami, where the car rental place is actually a couple of miles shuttle bus journey from the airport. At MCO, it's actually in the airport multi-story car park, so we were in plenty of time - around 15:00 for an 18:05 departure.
Got to check-in and walked pase the handful of people at the BA desks, to be confronted by the horrifying scrum at the VA area - that's three flights worth of people checking in at once then. We'd used online check-in, so just needed to drop off our bags, and did so at the UC desks. All along I'd been working on the principle that there'd be no room in UC to upgrade with miles, as the flight had been showing full for weeks, and I assume that a lot of the UC traffic on that route is VH passengers who've upgraded, and so are very unlikely not to show up. I did check at the desk though, and was told it was unlikely, but that I should check again at the gate.
The check-in agent was lovely; smiling and helpful and apparently entirely sincere in apologising for the fifteen minute delay. She put UC tags on the bags even though we were in PE, and wrote out an invitation to the Delta lounge while telling us that we should get in there and make ourselves completely at home. Brilliantly, as TOMM's boarding card was on top as she was doing this, she wrote it out in his name, +1, which made him feel very important.
Security at MCO was very straightforward, with screening staff who were actually able to share a joke with the passengers, a rarity in US airports.
As I'd asked about the Delta lounge on V-Flyer and been told there was no food there, we stopped in the departure lounge for a late lunch, then headed up to the Delta Crown lounge. To be honest, I've been in significantly worse airline lounges in my time, and we got a couple of seats by the window and settled in. The lounge was pretty busy, but not crowded, and we had our corner pretty much to ourselves throughout. We were slightly disturbed by two elderly, rather posh sounding couples at a nearby table discussing the respective merits of various cruise lines at length, but otherwise a couple of runs to the bar kept us stocked up, and the time to the flight being called went very quickly.
At the gate, with the VS flight showing a 30 minute delay and on the gate opposite the BA depature scheduled for the same (delayed) departure time, we went beyond scrum and into melee. I checked again on an upgrade, but nothing doing, so we waited to board.
Priority boarding was announced, and was actually very rigorously policed, with several Economy passengers returned to the crowd. We went through and got on board, with TOMM finally getting to fly on the upper deck - we settled into 78H&K and the two male crew were soon round with drinks and helping people get settled in. There was a surprising number of people who were asking if there were any flight socks to be had, which aren't included in the return kit - TOMM was bemused, as was I - they're not *that* impressive, surely?
Flying time was announced at 7hrs 30, though headwinds might impact that, and we eventually pushed back for a swift taxi and take off at about 18:45.
This was my first go at the new PE (though in old seats obviously), and everything went pretty much according to the book. Menus were brought round, with chicken, beef and veggie options, and the drinks round brought the first pleasant surprise - actual glasses.
It was the night of the lunar eclipse, so as the seat belt sign went off the pilot pointed out that passengers on the right hand side of the plane could see it just coming out of eclipse.
The food round was managed quickly, with an announcement to the effect that they would do so in order to maximise sleep time. We both had the beef, and I had both our starter salads, while TOMM had both our tirimisu desserts. The presentation of the PE meal now actually does feel different enough from Economy to be appreciable. Neither of us wanted to get into any big films before trying to sleep, so we whiled away dinner time with some sitcoms, and after a brandy, got our heads down.
We managed what felt like halfway decent (for aircraft seat sleep) rest, and woke up with the cabin lights for breakfast. This is one area where new PE doesn't seem to have caught up - apart from the china cup it's the same old mini tray of muffin, fruit salad and juice with a plastic spoon and knife. It really didn't feel like there was much 'emphasis on the premium' there, even with a round with the fruit bowl to follow.
The flight landed more or less on schedule, but once we hit the gate there was a delay as 'there was no one to meet us', which started to cause some worries for people with onward connections as we all queued on and at the top of the stairs to get off. Eventually the pilot announced that they'd 'got someone out of bed' and that we'd be off in about five minutes, which was pretty accurate.
Once we got to Immigration, the scrums at MCO were put into context, as the crowds of people at and lining up for the non-EU desks packed the hall and wound back onto the pier. Fortunately we were able to bypass them and get to the baggage hall, where we waited for over twenty minutes before the belt was displayed, then a while longer for baggage to start appearing. As TOMM said 'They did know our flight was coming in, didn't they?'. Bags were off in the second large batch to hit the belt, and we cleared customs without any further delays.
And that was the end of the holiday, and this trip report. These are fun :-)
