This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Off to Port Salines (soon to be Maurice Bishop airport), 50EC$ (about 14) departure tax each and into security which was efficent and thorough. Good. Nice Virgin jumbo on the tarmac but couldn't see which one it was.
Departure lounge was OK, air conditioned (phew) and small but nice array of shops. PE and UC and AU were called on first and we walked out to the plain (there is a clue in the deliberate misspelling!!). That's right..or as my reaction actually was.... OH NO, its that Virginia Plain again!!!
Into the bubble and guess what, it had been cleaned, which actually made the conditions we had experienced on the outbound flight seem even worse. 77C had the tv surround in place, the seat covers were different and obviously recently washed, hence no dust when sitting. As a result the fizz seemed even nicer.
Left Grenada for Tobago with 252+2 on board including two people a couple of rows in front of us who deliberately sat in the wrong seats because they preferred the ones they sat in to those they had been allocated. They needed a slap, quite frankly, and I have no idea why the stewardess, who told them that the seats were taken from Tobago, didn't insist they sat in their allocated seats. Anyway we took off 25 minutes late from Grenada.
23 minutes to Tobago where the rest of the passengers got on, including, I am pleased to say and as predicted, the two who had been actually allocated 75A and 75C. 'oh, sorry, didn't realise' said the other two. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm, definitely slappable. I guess they hoped the new passengers would say..'oh you have them'...well they didn't..Ha Ha.
Anyway, up and away after an hour on Tobago, 450+5 passengers now, full. Captain announced that flying time to Gatwick was a vey quick 7 hours and 40 minutes and that we would be quite early, not bad as we were 30 minutes late leaving. At one stage the skymap showed our speed at 650mph.
Usual entertainment stuff, at the start the screen was showing V-Port instructions in Arabic and Indian..blimey I thought, Virginia Plain has had an upgrade, but no, it hadn't. Anyway watched The Reader (great)and dipped in and out of The Day The Earth Stood Still.
Food was ok, mains were: honey bbq chicken or beef cottage pie or vegetarian curry. We opted for the chicken which was followed by choc mousse with raspberry coulis, cheese and biscuits. All washed down with the Marques wines. I managed to sleep through the fruit and liqueurs. Breakfast was bacon or cheese rolls and muffins. 'Oh no, we don't want those' we said and then scoffed them. The dedicated crew twosome were great, fun and energetic.
We landed ten minutes earlier than our scheduled time and but for air traffic hold ups around Gatwick could have been another twenty minutes earlier.
Disembarkation was fine with priority given to PE and UC. Basically the crew just have to stand in the aisles to block them.. not difficult really. Quickly through passport control and all the cases were off early so from plane touching down to us starting the car in the long stay was less than an hour which was very good.
Homeward bound and a reunion with my dogs..Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.
This experience of VS was much better obviously and perhaps how both flights should have been. I have written to both VS and VH about the outbound flight so I will let you know what happens.
