This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
The wife any I were looking to get to Orlando for some chilling out Florida style in the middle of May; weather is always good and it ain’t too busy being after Easter but before Spring Break.
Booked the flights in January; bit of a faff.
See, we had an AMEX voucher for a PE upgrade and wanted to use it. So that was the missus sorted, however I was going to have to buy my PE seat because I wanted the Tier Points, (although that's now gonna be a waste of time – but there's a whole thread dedicated to that elsewhere!!).
Flying direct was going to be a problem; my seat was going to cost the best part of £1000, and the redemption fare for an Econ ticket for the wife was 50k.
However....NYC redemption sale; 29,500 and PE seats for only(!) £645. This seemed more doable; we're not big fans of LGW, slightly further away for us and I didn’t want to risk not having bubble seats – especially for £1000. At the time I don’t think there were any rewards seats on the new A330. We prefer the newer purple seats by a mile.
So, we had to figure out how to get to MCO from JFK. Had a look at Jet Blue after reading good things on these pages; loads of flights down to MCO each day – brilliant.
We had to fly on a Tuesday in order to get the earlier JFK bound VS003 – no redemption seats on Friday or the weekend but this was cool. I wanted to make sure we had enough time for the transfer. (4 ½ hours seemed safe....).
Net result; two PE returns to JFK for 29,500 and about £950 with 6 Tier Points for me and about 10,000 miles earned, (and the 4000ish from AMEX). Jet Blue returns were £130 each. (I upgraded to Even More Legroom seats later for $30 each, each way).
We stayed in the Holiday Inn J4 M4 again, booked direct this time for about £80 – without parking. We booked Purple Parking Meet and Greet for the 2 weeks at about £90 via VA site.
Particularly pleased with the drive up from the west-country; we went the slow way, (A30, A303, M3). Got overtaken by a Ferrari 575 making an amazing noise and we managed 55mpg in the trusty Volvo! I must be getting old – I'm more impressed with MPG than speed!
Good trip all-in-all.
Holiday Inn was OK again – a few dining options which helps keep the price down. Did a 3 ½ mile run in the gym. Couple of bottles of Peroni (at £4.07 a go!) and a club sandwich. We had a top floor room with an airport view which was cool.
Up and out early next day – met by the Purple Parking chauffeur promptly, (bet he puts his foot down – there goes my 55mpg target for the overall trip...).
I checked in online the day before – only go SEQ 7 and 8 – I'll never be able get 1 – I had to update passport details again – they never save for some reason....
Went to the PE desk – forgot to ask about row 18 – but we had booked 22 H&K which we like because there isn't anyone behind us – and contrary to what many people think – the loo isn’t directly behind; there's a storage compartment first so it doesn’t feel too close.
The lady at the desk was moody if I'm honest. No smile, no enjoy your flight, no banter – nothing. I really haven't got time for client facing staff having a face like a slapped ass and the temperament to go with it. How hard is it to be friendly?
Anyways...off through security, looking wistfully at the UC lift, got through really quickly – it was about 7am. Into Duty Free – P20 sunblock, plus some new smell for me and Mrs Monster. I went with a CK one this time...the helpful lady stacking the shelves spotted the bonus pack with a deodorant stick for the same price – she then sprayed my with the tester – apparently she likes the smell! Predictably the one my wife picked was abut a million pounds...Still got the Worldpoints card out...
Went to Chez Gerard for breakfast – it's OK in there.We prefer the smaller portions and the coffee/OJ is good. Had eggs benedict with smoked salmon, wife went for toast and tea, (she barely eats).
Popped into Dixons – prices about 10% lower that high street. I'm typing this on the baby MacBook Air I got from Apple in Orlando – cost £666 after conversion and charges - £200 saved. Bargain – you still need to queue every morning for an iPad though.
Flight was called really early – gate 17 I think. We went straight over to get a seat with a view. Saw Miss Behavin' sitting there ready for us. The gate got busy pretty quickly – usual nonsense of people blocking the entrance to the plane as if there aren’t enough seats to get everyone on. Why rush – you're on it long enough as it is.
They had two entrances working well so at least those paying the big bucks didn’t have to wait behind someone who thinks that 'passengers with children' means them and their 12 year old!
We got on fairly promptly and moved into our seats to allow others to pass back to econ – amazed at the number of idiots in PE who faff around in the isle blocking access for the rest of the plane. Part of me thinks that PE shouldn’t pre board – like I said there's no rush to get on?
What was a bit odd was the lack of pre flight drink – I asked the chap who came round with the towels why – without sounding like I was having a pop – he said it was because they were one down on crew so he had to man the door and couldn’t do the drinks round. No problem I said – just curious, didn’t know if it had been binned.
Still, the bloody mary was as good as ever.
Lunch came soon after take-off – we both went for the fish thing – I liked it but I do eat anything. My wife was trying not to eat on the flight – she had a bread roll. I ate her salad.
V:port was working well; I managed both episodes of the Inbetweeners, the Peep Show episode and the episode of The Thick of It – mainly comedies for me then.
Had a bit of a snooze. Good ice cream about half way into the flight.
Now, I'm not sure how to play this one; there was a lady, with her son we presumed, who was 'quite big' (30 stone?) sitting a couple of rows up in an isle seat of the middle row of 3. I didn’t really spot what was going on but the missus was all ears; apparently she didn’t like the cheese an pickle sandwich, (cant comment – went for the coronation chicken which was good), so she asked if they were off. She was politely told that they all came from the same batch. She then asked for some more cheese and crackers (the stuff we got with lunch) so the CC went to get some. These were wolfed down post-haste so she then asked for more! CC said there weren’t any, (undertone of 'bugger off – you've done alright'). So the lady the managed to eat the sandwiches that had be declared as 'off'. Although, to be fair, she didn’t eat the crusts! (A 30 stone fussy eater – odd). Then – we were getting ready for landing, we saw her and fellow passenger stuffing the headphones into their bags! Even as the CC were coming round to collect them. Then, we saw the purple blankets being stuffed in! They would’ve had the tv screens if they could’ve got them out!
I think we landed about 25mins early – really smooth flight. CC were good – in the face of some adversity! And PE proved to be a significantly more pleasant experience than Econ – without costing a fortune again.
We were off pretty quickly – CC told us that the were using priority disembarkation – as is right and proper. Immigration was unbelievably quiet – we had our bags about 20 mins after the plane doors opened! All of which sounds brilliant but remember; we had a connecting flight at 1759 and it wasn’t even 1400! Typical! I had factored in a delay and immigration being a pain, plus time to get to T5, (which was a 5 minute trip as it happens).
Another good VA experience. I highly recommend the PE cabin, especially in the A340-600 as it's an intimate little space, well served by the CC. Don't worry about row 22 – you can recline with impunity as there isn’t anyone behind you, (our bonus was that the very old ladies in front of us didn’t seem to realise that they could recline – we had loads of room!) I think that sub £700 represents good value – not sure I'd want to pay a lot more for east coast but I said that a couple of years ago when you could get to Boston, NYC, or Washington for £500 in a sale...
I'm going to do a Jet Blue TR and mention our experience of Alamo, and where we're staying in Florida. Hope I haven’t missed anything out – Darren did a TR for this one so he would've covered a lot of the same stuff.
Thanks for reading.
