I had been checking the seat map through MMB and on Thursday more seats appeared, including back rows 25 and 26. However despite being available and selectable the system rejected my attempts to choose row 25, but it did let me select 26 F and G. Turned out to be a good choice.
I could see that Beauty Queen, fresh from her recent escapade was running Fridays VS75 and she took a while to get to MCO taking a more northern route (mentioned in other threads).
She was over an hour late departing as VS76 and sure enough was late into MAN on the Saturday, arriving at 10am. So our flight was delayed by an hour.
Given the Gatwick event was I concerned about flying in Beauty Queen? No. Perhaps if I had been on her first big flight post Gatwick, but even then VS and Airbus are not going to take any risks are they?
Did OLCI - seq 1 and 2 and arrived MAN for bag drop. Security a breeze, Caffe Nero then the Styal Lounge (only because it comes with a bank account package) and off to gate 202.
Boarding was well organised, cabin crew welcoming and helpful. Now for my views on the seat and cabin. Let's get the 747 PE bubble out of the way - the A330 PE cabin is not so spacious. But I found it light and spacious enough with the proviso that the aisles do seem a tad narrow but having said that the crew have clearly got used to working them - no bumping on our side.
The front toilet was in use and the crew positively pointed people towards it. So far so good. No for the seat. Great. Plenty of legroom for me and a bonus on this trip with the seats in row 25 in front of us being empty and the seat next to us in row 26 being empty. Given other comments around the impact of reclining into the seat space behind I experimented by reclining row 25 into me. You do lose some space but I still had 3" clear. I could see a similar picture across the aisle on one side but on the other side a tallish chap seemed to have no legroom at all. However he was sat forward in the seat with a lot of space between his back and the seat back. My conclusion? Good seats but people with long legs who sit forward might be cramped.
The food was good (we had beef and chicken). Drinks were offered frequently; didn't think much to the ice cream but the afternoon tea (two cheese and onion fingers and clotted cream scone) were very acceptable.
The IFE works a treat; the controller is more responsive than the touch screen.
Flight was about 9 hours. PE disembarkation was enforced and we were first off and first to line up behind VS 71 - mademoiselle rouge from Glasgow who arrived a few minutes earlier. So immigration took about an hour, but hey ho now seating on the beach dolphin spotting.
A nice flight, good cabin,seats, food,IFE and crew. Would happily use this plane and cabin again.
