We would have chosen VS but the non-daily service meant that unfortunately the scheduling was better from BA than VS. Due to a number of trips and not spending time at home, decided against spending the night at the LGW Hilton, instead opting for taxi to the station and then train to Gatwick – not too bad but the taxi took longer than expected in London traffic!
Arrived at a fairly quiet Club check-in area at LGW North Terminal. Was asked whether I or my travelling companion wanted to move – we both were in backward facing bulkhead Club World seats on opposite sides of the plane – nice to be asked but happy with seats. Fast track security was definitely not fast track at the time I arrived there – apparently normal security was even worse!!
Short detour via Jamies Italian to get a breakfast sausage roll – it is a shame that the BA Galleries at LGW only have baked beans as the hot choice in the morning….not great before a long-haul flight
Lounge was fairly busy but managed to find some seats and waited for my boss to arrive. Flight called on time and it was the long walk over the bridge to the gates. The majority of passengers were off on holiday, and to be honest I think probably we were the only ones there who were off on business! Boarding was efficient – Club was called just as we got to the gate and we were soon on board and settling in. Flight full in Club – at check-in it looked fairly empty so wonder if some upselling at the airport went on. The person in the seat next to me was definitely the kinda of person who wanted to speak to everyone the whole flight…..lucky that I knew how to put the divide up and hide next to the window!As always for LGW short taxi to the runway and soon we were off. Unfortunately my foot stool was broken, so didn’t go into the “Z position” – slightly annoying. The menus and amenity kits were handed out, along with drinks being offered. My usual BA Club World combination of Kir Royale, diet coke and nuts was received – followed by a top up a little later on. Set myself up to do some work whilst watching “Ted” – really great film if you haven’t seen it already.
The menu today was:
Starters
- Smoked salmon with lilliput caper and dill dressing
- Vegetable sushi with soy sauce and wasabi paste
Mains
- Seared fillet steak with carrots, roasted new potatoes, sugar snap peas and peppercorn sauce
- Salmon and haddock fish cakes, creamed fennel sauce, carrots and asparagus and celery medley
- Pasta with mozzarella and gazpacho sauce
- Chilled main course salad of potato and grain mustard with honey mustard chicken
Dessert
- Black forest gateau
- Cheddar and Blue cheese
I had the vegetable sushi (not too bad) and the fishcakes – would have been great with some fries!! Finished off with that old British classic of Black Forest Gateau….very good!
The flight passed fairly uneventfully – managed to do plenty of work (unfortunately BA only recycle paperwork on the flights into the UK, otherwise it just goes in the general rubbish bin). A few trips to the club kitchen to stock up on sweets and snacks, and a few glasses of wine to help with the work! Finally the computer ran out of battery, I had finished watching stuff on the iPad and the inflight entertainment that seemed interested, and so I dozed for about an hour or so. Pre-landing afternoon tea was served – prepacked sandwiches or roasted new potato and grain mustard salad with mozzarella. I managed to get the last of the salads – drenched in mustard sauce, but was much better looking than the sandwiches.
Soon we were then passing over the Caribbean Islands and finally we could see the Cancun peninsula before we headed to land. After arrival, we were held for a little bit before we could join the “queue” – well more of a scrum to get to the immigration desks. It took us about 90 minutes to get through immigration (at the desks we were asked nothing) and then having located our bags which were now off the belt and piled up everywhere, we then spent another hour or so in the queue for customs. The final challenge was to see whether your bags needed to be searched – having handed in your form, you then press a button and the screen above goes green (free to go) or red (off for bag search)….luckily for both of us it went green!! All in all it took us getting on for 3 hours to get out of the airport after arrival.
Sounded like a pretty standard business flight as you don't mention anything exceptional about service or food.
