This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Apologies if this gets a bit longwinded. Well the day arrived, living near Gatwick the easiest option was the National Distress at £32.50 return it was the quickest and cheapest option.
Chaos ensued, a very large family, just landed from Jamaica on BA with more bags than a small army. My patience was already wearing thin at 20minutes to pack their bags in the coach. Luckily the coach to Wales was scheduled 5minutes behind us and I gladly accepted the offer of the later coach(earlier in the end)
Checked in very quickly and sorted out a problem with my passport, apparently the VS website had me as a US citizen... if only then I wouldn't of have to waste my life queuing to gain entry into the US of A. Wondered around duty free and bought a few bottles of Champagne and my Favourite Molton Brown bubble bath, definately in an indulgent mood today.
The lounge was reasonably quiet, I was expecting it to be packed. It was about 13:50 so quite a few flights yet to be called. The service was incredibly lax today, waited ages to be served lunch and no orders were taken in any particular order and food was even more haphazard. The staff today seemed very relaxed, a little too much. Most requests for drink took far too long, I noticed that they sent the order to the bar and someone else seemed to bring it, different from last time. This seems incredibly innefficient as it left the majority of staff doing nothing just chatting and a few running round like headless chickens. Also, no call in the lounge for VS09, but I decided to go anyway.
Priority boarding was in place at gate 19, and I seemed to arrive just as the first gaggle had boarded. pre take off drinks offered very promptly but offer of coat to be hung not forthcomming, some seemed to be offered the service others not, in the end gave up and put the coat in the wardrobe myself.
Seatbelt sign took a while to come off and drinks were fairly promt, including refills. Meal service took an age, perhaps about 2 hours, which is excessive on such a short flight, Nice to see Orville and Wilbur making an appearance, Seeing as my magpie of a cat(anything shiny/sparkly he adores, he is a sod at christmas) ran off with my last Wilbur, somehow they fell into my bag, I cannot imagine how this happened. I had the Chicken Curry, which was superb for airline food, having just spent 9days in SE Asia, I can say it was up there in my top 3 curries that week(still dealing with the jetlag from +7 to -5!!) The sticky Toffee pudding was one of the best I have ever had. A special mention to the NZ Sauvignon Blanc, it was sweeter than I would normally like but complimented the Curry perfectly, I don't think I could drink it outside of meal times, it would get sickly quickly.
After this, I settled down for a movie, I watched a very lack luster Bad Teacher, starring Cameron Diaz, and him out of the American Boyzone.. forget his name Justin something..All fur coat and no knickers comes to mind, all star cast but no substance. Had a nana nap, I can never sleep on aircraft,I feel like i'm missing something, ah yes... Champagne and Vodka!
I knew one of the cabin crew working in another cabin so took the opportunity to have a catch up on the flight for a while at the bar before the christmas grinch in 14A decided to complain about our noise, i'm sorry, but if your next to the bar you have to accept some noise, if it isn't your thing, prebook a seat away from the bar area. like I did, 10A is my favourite seat, but it still suffers from noise, I do not see the need to sleep on this flight anyway it is an afternoon departure and you arrive early evening by the time you clear customs your going to go straight to bed anyway, why do you need to sleep in the afternoon/early evening?
One thing I noticed on this flight that every move my neighbour made I felt, when he turned it rocked my seat. This isn't normal at least not in my experience. Seatbelt signs came on and off a couple more times, I know the bumps are felt more at the back but I think the pilots today were being extremely cautious or getting duff info from the planes ahead.
Afternoon tea was served about 1hr20 out of JFK, about the right time and the cabin became a flurry of activity, they either left it a little late or no one ate in the other cabins because at one point i counted 9 crew in Upper alone, just serving this meal! I dont eat salmon, or many fish so I asked for this to be omitted, unfortunately for me I assumed that i'd get another sandwich in its place, no. Just two little finger sandwiches and a cuppa... not very substantial bearing in mind the immigration queues at JFK and the transfer times to peoples homes or hotels..
Landing was smooth with a few minutes delay in taxiing to our stand, immigration however was another story all together, we arrived just after a KLM flight, luckily I was in the first 20 or so people to be seen, it still took me the best part of an hour and half to be processed I dread to think what time the people the back of the KLM flight got to their hotels. I really think there should be seperate queues for those of us who have visa's as we take very little time and are low risk to the USA, having already gone through hoops to get the thing in the first place. Overall I had a superb flight, I cannot fault Virgin, the FSM was great, always in the cabin, all boxes ticked and more. It didn't feel like they were going through the motions. The Upper bar was manned at all times even when there was no one visiting, which during past daytime flights has been lacking.
For the record bubbles belong in the glass not in the bath! 
