This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
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I'd slept about 6 or 7 hours in the past two days. We had a general meeting of the members of our co-operative on the Monday and Tuesday, Monday night was a late one, Tuesday morning was an early start, and I still had to get packed and finish things up before leaving for SFO. All of the above conspired to give me about 2-3 hours sleep on Tuesday night.
This was an S fare upgraded to Upper, and still being inside the newly reduced award CDC pickup area (they've restricted the free CDC area now, apparently, people were getting very good value for their 10k miles, coming from Cornwall), I splurged the 12.5k miles for a Tristar pickup and drive-through check-in. I'd deliberately requested an early, 6am, pickup from home, as this makes all the difference between a 60/70 minute journey to LHR and a 2 hour journey. Sure, the Volvos are comfy, but 2 hours in a car when I could be spending some of that time in the Clubhouse just doesn't add up!
Anyway, 06.15 rolls by without sight of the familiar Volvo. I wonder if something has gone wrong? I phone the VS number, but of course, it's closed! Fortunately, Tristar are open 24x7, and just as their phone is ringing, my cellphone rings - it's the Tristar driver 'waiting outside'. Actually, he was waiting outside one of the other blocks in the development, out of my eyesight.
By the time we hit the road, it's almost 06.30, and most of the headstart has been lost. The driver is puzzled that I didn't get a text message with details of the car arriving. Maybe this is only for jobs booked directly with Tristar? Despite this, the driver still manages to get me to Heathrow for about 07.45, and be nice and chatty at the same time. Good job. My haircut is booked for 08.00! [;)]
Drive through is great, as ever, though of course I forgot to bring an itinerary copy with me (I was actually still waiting for one to come through because of the VS habit of reissuing the ticket when you upgrade), so I got to sit in the 'waiting area' of the drive-through/drive-in while this was sorted by the friendly staff. I'd not actually looked at this for more than 30 seconds before! It's quite a nice setup, and not bad for a temporary facility. Walking past the main VS desks on the way to Fast Track, they didn't seem that busy either.
Fast Track was reasonably fast, though only one scanner open, and I got a random pat-down search. I can't for the life of me remember if I got coralled into the secondary shoe check.
Admittedly, I was now worrying about losing my haircut, so I hot-footed it to the Clubhouse, and when I went to check-in, there were about 15 instances of my name down on the touch screen for the VS19! Hmm... I wonder how those got there? Checking with the Cowshed reception, I was told there was no rush as they were running a bit late. One woman had been in the hairdresser's chair since 7am, and was still there, receiving tea and whatnot while having her hair cut!
Didn't bother getting breakfast until after the haircut was sorted - had my haircut next to Mrs Stoneman, and I met Mr Stoneman after the haircut, and headed for breakfast in the brasserie - had the salmon and scrambled egg - pretty good, but the eggs seemed a bit tasteless, and needed a fair bit of seasoning to bring the flavour out. Thought the service in the brasserie area felt a bit hit and miss, and quickly relocated after eating, initially to the area behind the bar, where the service was also a bit hit and miss, finally settling on the bottom 'den' area, on the far side of the Multiscreen, where I was looked after in true style by one of our favourite Clubhouse staff who shall be known as 'P'... some of you will know who I'm talking about.
Knowing I had the Worst of British menu to look forward to onboard, and that I wanted to get some sleep during the flight, I decided to load up on food with a bacon roll and a couple of those infamous Clubhouse mojitos to help me off to sleep! Andy 'Stoneman' dropped by with some cocktail that had Southern Comfort in it... can't remember what it was, but it was surprisingly nice!
Final check of mail using the now free wi-fi service, which annoyingly seemed to drop the connection every 15 minutes, but was otherwise serviceable, and as it was costing nothing, mustn't grumble. Flight called at gate 1, so I collected my stuff and headed off to the gate, where I found the new 'Priority Boarding' sign, which basically says 'Barge to the front of the line'. Fortunately, there wasn't a line, so there wasn't any barging to be done, but really, is this VS' best attempt at making priority boarding work?
'Straight on board' from the person collecting boarding passes equated to 'go join the tailback on the jetway'. At least I didn't get picked for secondary searching at the gate. I wish VS would use two jetways where possible to speed up boarding for Upper. The tailback crawled along and eventually I was welcomed aboard G-VHOT, Tubular Belle, and I settled into 18K for the trip. The IFBT came around to introduce herself, and offer her services. When I said I'd already had a treatment in the Clubhouse, she said 'Well, if you change your mind and want a treatment on board as well, find me and let me know', which I thought was interesting given recent discussion on here.
I was slightly concerned because there was a family sat in row 17 with a little girl, though she didn't seem to noisy.
We pushed back on time, and headed out to Runway 27R, zig-zagging around the construction works for the new runway holding areas. The Captain introduced himself during taxi, and apologised for not speaking sooner, but we had a fairly tight slot time to make so it was important to get pushed back punctually. We were airborne around 11.20 on a WOBUN departure to take us North toward Scotland, and fairly quickly the crew started doing their stuff, with warm towels and drink orders taken. The little girl fell asleep very quickly, which made me happy, even if she was in 17K.
I declined the main serving of lunch for two reasons, firstly because I wanted to sleep for a while, and secondly because of the menu's potato-tastic-ness, which I pointed out to one of the crew members, who was sympathetic, but realised there was nothing she could do right now to help, and hadn't realised how samey the food was.
I let most of the meal service get started and then settled down to sleep, and I managed a good four to five hours of my usual 'airplane sleep' - i.e. a little fitful.
I was eventually woken by the little girl in 17K who had finally woken also, and had taken to slamming the window shade open and closed. Unfortunately, by the time the parent stopped them, it was a bit too late, and I was already awake.
A crew member noticed and brought me some water and an ice cream. While the ice cream might be from the Royal Farms at Windsor, it's 'vanilla flavoured' - i.e. not real vanilla. What would you prefer? The cache of Her Maj's own cows, or real rather than artificial vanilla?
I went and sat at the bar had a few drinks to wake up, and one of the crew (the J CSS) asked if I wanted anything, as she knew I hadn't eaten earlier. I explained that I didn't 'do' potatoes, and after looking at the menu, agreed things were a bit limiting... what, with the potato soup, the haddock and potato stack, the sausage and mash, and the potato-topped vegetable pie, there wasn't really much left (all the chicken curry had gone, and I didn't fancy curry anyway). We ended up going to the galley to see what was left, and unfortunately not much other than sausage and mash, some soup, and the afternoon tea service.
At this point, the J CSS got another one of the crew decided to go and see what else she could find, and came back with some uneaten flight crew rations, which had some rice rather than potatoes. So, I had one of the flight crew meals - a salmon fillet with some rice, and steamed veggies. Wasn't as polished as a J meal, but perfectly acceptable! Seems like a fair trade, as some of the flight crew had eaten leftover J food! I enjoyed the scone, cream and jame from the afternoon tea, as I was doing my customs paperwork at the bar.
Got some good pictures of Mount Hood, as by now we had entered US airspace, passing to the east of Portland, and then past Klamath Falls, toward Point Reyes, with run down Silicon Valley - nice view of the coastal hills and Crystal Springs reservoir - before making a left turn near Palo Alto to set up for a smooth landing on Runway 28L, almost 30 minutes early at 13.25.
We taxied into the usual Virgin gate, A8 where both jetways attached, and by beating the BA flight, we had no lines at all at Immigration - the Air France and KLM flights having arrived an hour or so earlier.
Brief wait for bags, and I'd say my bag was somewhere in the first 30 or so - seems that priority bags worked pretty well. I was out of the airport and in a rental car by about 14.15, with a United 747 roaring over my head just as I was leaving the airport in the rental car. Wish I'd got a convertible and my camera to hand!
Not a bad flight, and managing to rest for so much of the flight meant that I managed to stay up quite late, until after 10pm Pacific time that evening.
The crew were good, definitely above average and quite on the ball, but not the best I've flown with. I'm going to mark the seat down slightly, as one of the overhead vents was stuck, and the holder for the IFE controller was broken, but otherwise was in decent condition.
Food and drink, well, I wasn't expecting much, and I wasn't disappointed. The fact that one of the crew dug out a passable crew meal for me, lifts it from a 'Very Poor' to 'Below Average'.
Overall, a decent flight, apart from the lacklustre food, which I was already expecting.
Mike
