This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Stopped overnight at the Hilton T5, since VS 19 leaves around 10:35, and so it is easier to be on that side of town and have a more relaxing morning. Got the shuttle bus over to T1/3, dropped bag and headed for the VS security lane. A slight delay as the people in front of me had no idea what they could and couldn’t take onto a plane. After a bit of brief shopping, I made my way over to the Clubhouse – it was now breakfast time for me. I order the eggs Benedict and asked for the Colcannon croquets (meaning to have them on the side – unfortunately this was mis-understood and so I ended up with both double eggs Benedict and a full vegetarian breakfast. I am sure that they just thought I was very greedy and it was a lot of food to suddenly arrive in one go. I picked at the main breakfast. Wherever I went in the lounge, the service was good for a change.
Flight was called on time and made my way down to a deserted gate – VS can get this right most of the time and so there is no hanging around waiting. Boarded and settled into my seat (17A). Some passengers already had drinks, and for about 10-15 minutes no CC appeared to ask the rest of us. Then one appeared to clear glasses and suddenly realised that several of us were missing drinks. She rushed back to the galley and finally came back with a tray. I started to worry that this would end up being a bad flight but that wasn’t the case.
After take off, I had the cocktail of the day – again no one had an idea as to what it was and there was no announcement made as to the fact it even existed! Asked for it with vodka rather than gin, as tastes a lot nicer in my book. Lunch orders were taken, and I had the smoked salmon with pickled cucumber, caper and tarragon mayonnaise, stir-fried chicken with mushrooms and jasmine rice, finished off with the warm chocolate and salted caramel pudding. The food was all very nicely presented and tasted good – the chocolate and salted caramel pudding was really really good!! I could have had two of them
The cheese trolley came around – a nice touch and I personally can’t see the issue with it that some people have raised (although in the nose there is lots of space to get around it).During the flight I spent some time at the bar chatting to a guy who was flying over for the weekend to participate in the “Escape from Alcatraz” triathlon. The staff were attentive enough and ensured that we had a regular supply of drinks – I ensured that I had a soft drink with each alcoholic one, since I had a long layover between flights in SFO. I asked the staff to save me a mini-beef burger from the graze menu to have instead of the sandwiches for afternoon tea. I really like the burgers and they are much better than the sandwiches – my accomplice at the bar followed my lead and agreed after the flight that it was a much better option. I had a little snooze on the flight and on waking the High Tea trolley came around. On my last High Tea service, they didn’t use the individual cake stands. I am not sure what I think of those – they seem very basic and mine kept on looking like it was going to fall over.....and they looked like a pain to put together. The mini-burger was as always very good, and the cake options/scone were great afterwards.
We arrived a little early into a sunny SFO airport. Off fairly quickly, and into a relatively deserted immigration hall – just what you need when you have lots of time to kill! Anyway fairly friendly TSA agent and very soon I was off to pick up bag and head over to the United Airlines ticket desks.
Overall impression
- Good service in the lounge
- Initial service on boarding was a little lacking, although after this the crew all worked very hard and were attentive throughout the flight
- Food much better than the quality that you got with the old “Freedom Menu”, so this is a big improvement in my mind
Sounds like most things were as they should've been...well except for the delay in welcome drinks 
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