This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
We had checked in on line and weighed up the shortest queue, bag drop or PE. Bag drop won. Enquired how full the plane was and was advised it was virtually full which was different to what I had been told by VA on the phone a couple of days before (only 50% full apparently!).
Hung around in the T3 shopping area for a while (with the other half had a whisky tasting session and bought some champagne at a reasonable price). It took ages for the gate to be announced and off we headed for the long hike. The queue there wasn't too bad when we arrived but it seemed to take an age to load the plane. Found out later they were short of security staff at the gate and we missed our take off slot due to this.
Found our seats 41A&C which were three rows in front on a large toilet in the centre section of the plane. The seats themselves were fine and not too much disturbance from the crew rest area which was just tothe right of us. I felt sorry for those in rows 43/44/45 in the centre section as they had the toilet door opening onto them all the time.
V-port worked fine and watched Jim Carrey in Number 23 (which really didn't do it for me) and then Happy Feet for a bit of light relief. The drinks round arrived about an hour after take off followed by a meal of meatballs and rice which was rather nice or chicken tikka. Ice creams were handed out later and after that a chocolate brownie with tea/coffee/water/juice. Didn't get much sleep - tried to with headphones on and music playing but a baby's screeching unfortunately kept penetrating through so just rested my eyes for about an hour.
Had one of the smoothest landings ever at JFK but the worst ever immigration queue as an Air Jamaica and Cathay flight had landed at about the same time as us. Arrived in the queue at 9.30pm and half the staff decided it was clock off time at 10pm and left approximately 4 desks open for 3 flights! By 10.45 they did allow us to use the US desks and we made it through by 11pm. The baggage belt had stopped rolling and we just picked up our static cases ready to grab a car.
Hopped into a nice Lincoln town car which took us to the Millenium Broadway hotel and consequently had an upgrade to the Premier section of that hotel offering inclusive breakast and free drinks between 5-7pm - always helps to have an upgrade to improve the mood following a nastily long immigration experience [:)]
Unpacked and walked around Times Square for an hour before retiring to bed for a nice relaxing sleep [|)]
