This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
We arrived at the airport shortly after 18.10, which given the traffic was a pretty impressive feat for our driver. We'd checked in online, but with no printer at the hotel we had to ask for our boarding cards, which were printed with no problem. The agent also asked if we'd chosen the seats we were assigned online ourselves, or if we'd like them changed.
After a drink in the cafe (there isn't much else to do in EWR!) I thought I would enquire about the possibility of using my FC miles to upgrade one way. Unfortunately, due to being on an X ticket this wasn't an option, though the agent did offer to take about $350 off my hands for each ticket to upgrade to PE. Thanks, but no thanks. Whilst I fully get that VS might not want to let those on cheaper tickets use our points in advance, if there's availability at the airport on the day it would be a nice option. I've currently got just over 40k points (ok, no biggie I know), but I seem to be struggling to be able to use them!
After we'd exhausted all of the pre-security area (all of about 5 minutes then) we went through. The TSA agent was busy listening to music on his phone and waved us through, and the security scan only took a couple of minutes.
We were due to depart from Gate 55, and sure enough G-VFOX (Silver Lady) was there waiting. We passed the time by reading since there was little else to do - although must give credit to the chap in Hudson News who was kind enough to take our stamped post-cards and offer to post him on his way home. Boarding commenced around 20.20, with numerous calls offering people the chance to upgrade (take my points, damn it!) before we were onboard and settled in plenty of time.
The seats were the slightly older economy seats, but comfortable nonetheless. It was announced we'd have a flight time of 6h13 which should put us in well ahead of schedule.
Without wishing to be disrespectful, a number of announcements were made which sounded very clinical and obviously read from a script. A manual safety demo was also done (out of interest, is this done occasionally as a matter of course or does it mean the video wasn't working?), and we soon taxied off for departure.
Shortly after take-off, V:Port was switched on. Annoyingly, there was an insistence that we had to watch the trailers before the full system was enabled - which to be honest was somewhat irritating! A nice touch was that for the evening flight the drinks and dinner service was done at the same time. Unfortunately, Mrs Y's choice of dinner was unavailable by the time the trolley's got back to us, although I'm 99% convinced it was still being given the other side of the aisle. She did enquire as to whether any was available, but was given a very unsure-sounding answer. I went for the curry option which was pleasant enough, though we weren't exactly sure what the dessert was meant to be!
The lights were dimmed after dinner and we tried to get some sleep, only to be on the point of nodding off when the Duty Free came down the aisle with incessant chants of Duty Free, which as most people seemed to want sleep could have been avoided. I also forgot to mention earlier that during the dinner service the crew seemed a little more pre-occupied discussing the antics of one of the passengers amongst themselves. No great bother, but it seemed a little unprofessional.
After a spot of sleep enduced by some tablets we woke up just before the light breakfast was served. Having read the horror stories surrounding some of the choices known to be available I opted for the Muffin Top (after asking myself for a while what exactly one was).
Soon after the trays were cleared, we began our descent with views over South Wales and the Severn Bridge. We arrived into LHR nearly an hour early and were straight to the gate and off in no time. Passport Control was quick, but a bit of a mess with there being more lines than desks and the Immigration Staff making no effort to retain any kind of order. Bags were through quick and before we knew it we were wandering through arrivals, exiting, of course, through the BAA Gift Shop.
