This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Did both Universal parks for a few hours – which were both very busy, but we got on everything with the help of Express tickets. A word of warning to anyone planning an Orlando trip in January... we had expected the parks to be empty in mid-January, but they are way busier than when we normally go in May. According to someone we spoke to at SeaWorld, it is a holiday period in Brazil at the moment and all the huge tour groups you could not fail to miss are from there.
Headed out to MCO mid-afternoon and found that the security lines were very short – you could walk right up to the agent who checks your ID & boarding pass. I got the random ping on the metal detector so had to wait for secondary screening. After a wait of about 5mins and a swab of my hands, they were satisfied I had not been handling anything explosive related and I was on my way.
After duty free shopping and a pleasant hour or so in the Delta Sky Club, we headed down to the gate, when we got there the boarding announcement was just being made, so we were straight on. Am not sure the crew were quite ready for us, as they seemed surprised when we appeared at both the aircraft door & when we passed through the UC galley. Champagne and sleep-suits were offered and accepted. The crew went to open another bottle of champagne & produced a bottle of Bollinger... it would have been rude not to try it. Flight time is going to be a quick 7 hours & like the outbound flight, it’s another light passenger load of 168 + 16 crew. Again, like the outbound flight, Upper Class is full.
An uneventful flight followed. Had the beef main course followed by the cheese. There was nothing wrong with either, but I was not over hungry. Had the seat converted to a bed and there was no duvet available – so the crew member went to find one. He was gone a good few minutes – do they stash them at the other end of the plane / in the crew-rest? A duvet was produced and I had a few hours sleep of sorts.
Woke up about an hour out of Manchester so did not have to be woken. Had a reasonable breakfast as we started the descent over Dublin. The cabin was secured about 20mins out of Manchester – a pretty hard landing followed 20mins later. A short taxi to the stand followed and in we were landside within 15mins of getting off the plane.
All in all, a good UC experience on this flight. The FSM is one I have flown with a few times before and she was present in UC cabin during drinks & meal service. I guess the only comment I can make is the same one as on the outbound flight, i.e. very low-season and the UC cabin is full... and Virgin are reducing the UC capacity from MAN in a few months time.
