This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
The beauty of leaving on a Sunday is that traffic is much better, so I only had to leave home at 6.30am, still that is far too early for my liking, but hey more time in the lounge
There was basically zero traffic and by 8am I was making my way through an absolutely deserted upper class checkin, security channel (staff looking very bored), and into a very quiet lounge
Those of you following v-flyer will know I wondered about having a haircut - I wasn't brave enough to risk it, and had already had it done, so opted for a shave instead, so after booking that it was off to do something about breakfast. They could really do with some black pudding in the english breakfast, but other than that it was great!
I can recommend the shave, very relaxing especially the hot towel, and it avoided having to shave myself which always goes down well with me
By now it was nearly 9.30 and I hadn't touched the alcohol yet, not very v-flyer, so I found a nice little seat in a corner by a power socket, behind the bar, and promptly ordered a mojito, barely 2 minutes later I'm told they don't have any today
So onto the backup of a glass of champagne As this was only my second time in the lounge I went for a little look around, and got a nice view from the roof garden (I gather it isn't actually open that often?).
Bording was a bit painful, they seemed to be selecting some passengers (but not UC passengers!) for a search of their hand luggage, but that just left a big queue, grr
Once on board the seat was in pretty good condition, although the IFE did have the common problem where the handset doesn't quite operate until you push the cable back into it firmly ...
The FSM made his presence felt all the time, he came round with the wine over the meal, and re-fills, and was generally a good presence.
I had the lamb pie, and despite other comments here I thought it was very tasty
After converting the suite to a bed I tried to get a couple of hours sleep, but for some reason I couldn't get comfortable despite having slept great before in the suites. Oh well, I gave up on that idea and went to the bar which was packed, fortunately I could grab a seat, and chatted to everyone else about the election amongst other things.One of the people there had an iPad which I had a play with (too heavy IMO, and made by a company getting more and more evil every day).
After realising afternoon tea had been served I rushed back to my seat and found the cabin crew who was looking after my little bit (she was excellent as well). She served me quickly, and managed to get it all eaten (great scone!) in pretty quick time.
By now we were nearly there, but air traffic and weather would make the last bit interesting. Firstly we slowed down to basically minimum speed, which means the engines spin up and down as the auto pilot keeps the plane in the sky, that coupled with really quite severe turbulence (I don't mind it at all), and one lady in the A zone not liking it at all, made it really interesting landing.
I have flown into SFO quite a lot over the last few years, but this was the first time flying over oakland and landing on the east-west runways, very strange! We also landed in the middle of torrential rain, which was fun
Taxiing was swift, except for waiting for a plane to do a 180 ahead of us (he had missed his gate), and then we were off, rushing to beat the swarms of Y from the just landed BA plane.
Immigration was busy, but head to the right, and there were about 10 empty lines that they were letting 'aliens' use. So I got to one of those, and was through probably first of the entire flight
My bag was off quickly, and then a quick taxi and it was off to the Westin Market Street for a couple of weeks. I'm now fed up of that hotel - you can't open the window, and it is pretty soulless, so I'll be staying somewhere else next time.
All in all a good flight
