This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
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To the trip report....
We had spent a fairly eventful couple of weeks at the lovely Royal Pavilion up on the west coast of Barbados. I say eventful mainly due to the fact that Mrs ReggieB had suffered a severe allergic reaction not long after we got to Barbados. The culprit was not some exotic foodstuff, nasty insect, poisonous plant that she had come across – but rather a perfumed hairspray she hadn’t used before!
Consequently this took the edge off the annual bucket and spade jolly as she was bandaged and dosed up on all sorts, preferring the cool of our air conditioned room rather than the 90 deg. 80% humidity of the beach. Can’t imagine why she would prefer the room...
For the few stalwarts on this forum who have noticed and remembered my inputs, you may recollect that this was my first experience with Virgin Airways. I’d used some of the tips gleaned from this forum to try and ensure that our experience was as enhanced as possible – a big thank you to all contributors! Flying out PE we had been quite impressed with the overall package so were anticipating our return leg in UC even more.
On our last night in Barbados we had enjoyed a very nice meal in The Tides restaurant, as the heavens opened just as we were having dessert, we decided a crawl around Holetown’s bars was probably not the best of ideas and we headed back to the Royal Pavilion for an early night and for me to try the OLCI. Great – front of the house, seats 6A and 6K were reserved. Checked what had been flying the MAN – Orlando route and realised that English Rose (VROS) should be taking us back to Blighty.
After a very hot last day, we were picked up at the hotel by our courtesy CDC (E series MBenz). Driver was no maniac and we had a nice drive through the middle of the Island towards Grantley Adams. Just as we were approaching the airport, VROS was coming into land, and we had a fabulous view of her as she came down.
Dropped off right outside the terminal, we walked past the long line of Y pax to the UC check in. One couple in front of us were quickly dealt with and we were soon issued with our purple boarding cards for seats 6A and 6K and lounge pass. A 30 minute mosey around the shops, including 5 minutes in the ‘Cricket Legends’ shop (which had been completely trashed 2 weeks before by drunken Irish and British cricket ‘fans’ by all accounts), and then up to the lounge. Lounge is quite large and reasonably comfortable for the number of customers. G&T in hand and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc for the now much better Mrs ReggieB and we settled in for the 2 hour or so wait that we had. I was still running around for Mrs ReggieB, servicing her every need, and was backwards and forwards to the snack station about a dozen times when I heard the dreaded announcement on the PA system...’Can Mr ReggieB please come to the reception desk as he has a message’.
Now, my Blackite’ had not been going off, neither had the wife’s phone so it was a fair guess that no catastrophe had happened at home. So I dreaded the walk round to the Lounge reception desk. Met at reception by two ground staff, one holding some boarding cards. ‘We have a problem’...(I thought – great, overbooked, will have to return to Royal Pavilion for another week at Virgin expense of course) – not that lucky – he went on to explain that a family was travelling in UC and that they were not seated together. Tough I replied, what has that got to do with me? The guy then went onto to (lie) state that the family had in fact been allocated 6A,6K and 7A previously but that a ‘glitch’ on the system had occurred. Not buying the blatent lie, I told him exactly what I thought of his plan. Luckily I hadn’t had too much Tanquray at this stage so resisted planting one on the guy (all bravado – I go sleepy after a couple!). Guy announced that UC could not board plane until this issue was resolved – interestingly I asked him if he could force us to move and he said that he could not force UC pax to move once boarding passes had been issued. The seats they offered us were 10A and 11A. I knew they were close to the bar – ‘But the bar closes 2 hours into the flight’ he lied again. Anyway, further negotiation with said family resulted in them accepting that they did not have 3 seats right next to each other (seemed a very nice family actually). No further contact with lying ground crew.
Greeted by FSM as we boarded VROS. Boarding uneventful though the cabin was full, which suggested that there was either another family of 3 or a single pax – so I don’t know why the airline could not have pre - organised the seating accordingly.
Anyway – glass of Fizz in hand and regularly topped up. Settled into seat and dutifully started to look for signs of red nail varnish, what was wrong with suite etc so could report on this site (I really need to get out more). No sign of nail varnish and happy to report that 6K is fully functioning – just a small amount of trim damage around the TV screen. Seat even clean of crumbs – was beginning to think everyone reads these reviews! Seat was quite comfortable and enjoyed the fact that I could talk to Mrs ReggieB without having to resort to sign language or spin my neck like a Barn Owl while she talked at me. Goody bag issued, nothing special – though the much maligned shoe bag came in handy err, for putting my shoes in funnily enough. No sign of gold bar, fragment of Turin shroud etc and as I’d purchased a Breitling I had no need for the complimentary one unfortunately.
Glad to see that the TV screen was bigger than the postage stamp sized offering in PE, and with nice ‘noise cancelling headphones’ issued, decided to try and catch the start of a SJP / Hugh Grant film. I’m quite technically minded, but struggled to get the sound on. Mouthed to Mrs ReggieB if her film was ok – she had no sound either. Called FA – who promised she would reset the system. 5 Minutes later, she came back – still no sound. Turns out that all of the ‘noise cancelling headphones’ were faulty – “they must have been stored close to a strong magnetic field”. Great – cheap Y headphones issued with 20 minutes of the film gone.
Service was initially quite bizarre, as we had 3 FA’s servicing the UC cabin. 2 different FA’s asked me what I wanted to eat. Chicken salad duly arrived, though me and one or two others could simply admire the offering for about 10 minutes. Could tell that FA’s were perplexed that no-one at the front was eating, then realised that they had not furnished us with pre-requisite cutlery. When eating irons arrived, I duly tucked into salad offering and was pleasantly surprised. Can’t for the life of me remember what the main course was – but I do remember that it was edible. Both the wife and I then had a passion fruit cheesecake, which to be honest, looked better than it tasted. Cheese and a pile of crackers arrived, along with cup of Netto instant coffee (thanks to mdvipond for identifying said gross coffee!). Turbulence was sufficient that I could not finish the cheese (too much of a risk of everyone else seeing it again).
FA’s finally organised themselves and I think one of them was dispatched off to economy. Plates and glasses cleared quite quickly and I was then able to renew my acquaintances with several other pax who we had met flying out. The Y cabin was a sea of mainly dozing bodies, a few watching Nova’s finest offering. In the almost pitch black, I managed to find the just married couple and was happy to view their wedding photo’s etc and hear how it all went (much to the annoyance of a few pax around us – Sorry!).
Back up to the front and was bitterly disappointed to find no one at the bar. The Mrs was bedded down and the pretty FA was offering to sort my bed out for me. With PJ’s in hand I went off to the toilet to change. At 6’3” and 15St. I thought that the large size PJ’s may be a little on the neat side. This correspondent can happily report that the large size was obviously designed for someone on the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team who had since doubled in weight since his playing days. Slack material taken up, I climbed onto the bed and tried to sleep. I must say that at best I only dozed on and off, mainly due to the temperature of the cabin, I’d thrown my duvet off me within 10 minutes but the amount of slack material on the PJ’s was equivalent to about 15TOG. The room for my feet was a bit restrictive as well, as your feet rest on the ottoman, there isn’t masses of space on that and I felt a bit restricted foot wise. About one and a half hours prior to landing, FA duly woke us for breakfast and I sampled the bacon sandwich (iffy), fresh fruit (ok) OJ (nice) and Netto’ Coffee (horrible).
Landing was smooth and we were 40 minutes early touching down. However, we parked remotely and were bussed to the terminal (more penny pinching?). Very strong Customs presence in the baggage hall – just as we landed an announcement about bringing foodstuffs into the Country was broadcast.
Waited for the ‘priority’ baggage on the conveyor, and waited and waited. After 40 minutes, most of the pax had been and gone with their luggage in tow. As there were now only about 10 suitcases on the carousel, but about 20 pax still milling around, I was readying myself for a visit to lost luggage. When, low and behold, I spotted our cases with a small pile of other UC and PE labelled cases in a corner of the baggage hall. At this point I would really like to use some strong expletives, but am resisting in case any under 18’s read this report. Why do the baggage handlers do this? If it is the norm – why don’t they tell people?
Finally, with luggage in tow, was able to head through Customs – sniffer Spaniel was virtually unzipping the case of the woman in front of me, but Customs lady with said Spaniel was too busy having a craick with her colleague to notice.
Into the arrivals hall and Tristar driver, ready for us – pleasant drive up to Lancaster railway station in a new Volvo S80.
Boarded the chugger chugger to Barrow in Furness, then on up to a very quiet Whitehaven. It was a sunny and warm Bank Holiday Monday and our lift home along the quiet West Cumbrian roads was a nice end to our Journey. Little did we know what chaos was going to ensue two days later....
