This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Check was pretty quiet, certainly at the UC desk anyway there was a very bored chap behind the desk doing two more weeks for the APD money stuff I'm sure he was almost asleep standing up!
I decided to upgrade using miles as I was informed that comp upgrades were unlikely, the flight still had one space in PE and with a lot of work to do there really was only one option to get that magic seat up front.... (and I'm worth it)
Bit of a queue at the fast track security, and at one point the x-ray machine needed resetting as it had given up the ghost so that process felt a bit painful, managed to dodge the shoe x-ray queue, not really sure how, but they didn't seem to be funnelling everyone that way, so I chose not to have the hassle of taking my shoes off (although I would agree with the posting I saw elsewhere saying that it does seem a better way of doing things with the secondary shoe scanning)
Had a quick stroll around the shopping mall that is T3 as I was after a couple of books, but it all became too much and I went and hid in the CH...
Dropped my bag and shoes off (they really needed the TLC this time around, I actually apologised for not cleaning them myself prior to my dropping them off) The clubhouse felt busy but not that full as the NY people were still waiting for their flight to be called, once they headed off it was a lot emptier.
Had my usual breakfast of the Eggs Benedict, great as ever, had it at the bar and washed down with a bucks fizz or 3, all in all a good start to the day, I was booked in for a haircut at 09:30 so making full use of the CH, the one thing I do object to is the WiFi, it would be nice if there was free WiFi in the CH (or if there is I keep connecting to the wrong network. Haircut was great, got rid of my hippy like flowing locks, so looking a lot smarter and busyness like.
After that I noticed the signs were up saying the flight was boarding, although it hadn't be announced yet so I thought I'd take a stroll down and get settled in to my home for the next 11 hours or so early....
Flying on VHOT from gate 3, and it was my first time using one of the new gates, I have to say they are very nice, the whole area is light and airy, as I'd left the CH a bit early I managed to avoid the boarding the aircraft scrum by being at the gate when they did the first boarding call, although on previous flights I've managed to use the priority boarding the whole process never seems to work as well as it should (certainly SFO has it cracked) and as we were using one of the new gates I was surprised that they weren't taking advantage of the two jetways to help with the loading of UCS / PE folks.
So into the air at 11:25 and after the usual climb out (I even managed to spot my house!) and the crew started on the post take-off drinks. 19A I realise can be a bummer of a seat for getting that post take off drink, you're near the bar, so are teased but the crew work from the front of the cabin! I like the old system where they used to come around before taking off and ask you what you would like as your post take off drink, but then this was when they flew out of LGW and before the UCS was invented...
Lunch was Cream of potato and Double Gloucester soup followed by Chicken Tikka Masala with basmati rice, mini naan and mango chutney, I'd also asked for cheese and the ice cream desert but after the main decided I'd had quite enough (so hopefully only 20 minutes on the treadmill in the hotel tomorrow!) food was very nice, the curry I thought was especially tasty.
IFE seemed to work fine, thought mine was broken but repeated stabs of the stop button got me back to a menu (rather than showing a red cross in black box) and all was good from there, watched a couple of movies and generally worked (all work and no play makes Dave a dull boy!)
Was just offered a manicure while the seat belt sign which was a bit of a problem as I'd requested a head / shoulder massage (not a big deal) but more of a show stopper was the fact that I chew my nails.... got my massage just before afternoon tea though (sandwiches and pork pie.... very nice, I do love the fact you can mix and match the food a bit with UC)
Spent some time working at the bar as well and chatting with the crew, all in all a very pleasant flight with no complaints landed at SFO 15:15 local time (7 hours time diff at the moment) managed to pick the slowest queue to get into the US of A and after that was all good, stepped out of the airport into nice warm sunshine
[:D]
(and yes I got a shoe bag!)
