This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
I must admit to being a tad worried about our return flight as here on VF I’d read a VS20 trip report a few days earlier about folk in UC being downgraded as the flight was oversold. Using Expertflyer I was horrified to see that our flght was showing zeros in all buckets, not just on the day we were flying but every other day that week and the following! Even the VS42 was chocka on every date I looked. As we had the in-laws with us I didn’t want to risk anything so the day before was online bang on 16:30 for OLCI! I half expected a ‘sorry you cannot check in at this time, please check in at the airport’ but all was good and I had checked the four of us in within moments. Our original A Zone seat assignments were intact too.
The journey to SFO was exceptionally quick and we arrived at check in just as the VS area was opening. We were seen straight away, no issues whatsoever and Clubhouse invitation for the four of us issued. This was our first time on the VS20 and I was really excited to be sampling the wonderfulness of the SFO Clubhouse! I was also looking forward to being in the A Zone on a 747 as, quite frankly, the 747 UC experience in IMHO is streaks superior compared to the 346.
The Clubhouse was unsurprisigly quiet given that we were the first there! After we were given a brief explanation of the facilities by the lovely lady on reception, we settled down at the far end and ordered lunch. Steve and I had the open prawn sandwich & his parents had the cauliflower bake, it was all delicious.
The CH WIFI was up & down – pretty c**p actually. It seemed to work a bit better in the mid section of the lounge. I soon worked out that the reception on the SFO free WIFI was better so used that instead. Courtesy of VFlyer I knew that G-VHOT (Tubular Belle) was due to arrive on schedule and would be our home for the return journey. Sure enough she landed at just before 13:25 and taxied over to the corner gate. All in all we had a great time in the SFO Clubhouse, OK we had arrived far too early in reality but we were super relaxed and getting excited about the flight! We only fly VS long haul one a year generally – hence our excitement!
Around 15:40 there was an announcement asking everyone in the Clubhouse to get ready to be escorted to the gate. Earlier after we’d checked in and headed to the CH I’d noticed an extremely long queue for security. It was great being escorted as we were shown straight to the priority queue on the right which was actually rather busy. However pretty much straight away the lady who had escorted us all down shouted “Virgin Atlantic only this way” and pointed to another channel that seemed to have been specifically opened up for us! We were through in a couple of minutes and when we got to the gate it was literally straight on to the plane through the conspicuous priority boarding lane. The gate area was hectic as on would expect on a flight full to the brim. My only tiny worry as we approached the gate area was that there was still a chance we may be involuntarily downgraded at this late point but all was good!
We were welcomed on board by name and headed to our seats 15A, 16A, 15K, 16K. First impressions were that the old bird (18 years old to be precise!) was in exceptionally good nick and indeed on a full & close inspection she was! I think perhaps VHOT has recently been overhauled inside as all our suites were blemish free and everything worked just fine.
The FSM joked about the carpet asking us to “take care of our new carpet”!
In the run up to push back it got extremely hot in the cabin because something was up with the APU. The crew were fantastic on this flight, the FSM especially and we spent a good couple of hours chatting with her at the bar after dinner. She knew about VFlyer and said fine to quote her name in my trip report but I’ve stupidly forgotten it!
I won’t go into hour by hour detail other than to say that, as on our outbound to LAX, the food was excellent as you can see from the photos. The braised short rib was incredibly tender! We dined together as did Steve’s parents and later after a few drinks at the bar we all converted our beds and slept soundly.
The bed on the 747 is without doubt more comfortable (as in wider!) than the 346. There was next to no turbulence which for me resulted in around 4 hours interrupted sleep. I really like the timing of the VS20 since, unlike the 24 from LAX, the crew aren’t rushing to get the dinner service out of the day and lights out. Our flight really felt leisurely paced and with the 16:30 departure it meant for a long drawn out meal followed by the cheese trolley!
We’d all asked to be woken for breakfast, I chose a bacon roll along with some scrambled egg.
It was all delicious and the coffee was piping hot. We landed around 20 minutes early at LHR. There was no queue at T3 immigration and our bags came through very quickly. The only hiccup on arrival was that our taxi driver was running late but, hey, an excellent chance to sample Revivals as we’d never been there before! So after a freshen up and juice and coffee we were soon on the M25 and homeward bound.
Summing up: A wonderful flight, fantastic crew, great food – no complaints at all. We’ve already got enough miles for another pair of G’s so now working on next year’s itinerary and trying to work it so we get the 747 both ways! Don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with the 346 but the UC experience on the 747 wins hands down - the A Zone really is *the* place to be
Thanks for reading
James
PS: We had an excellent Virgin America flight LAS - SFO, will find some time later in the week to post a little TR
