This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
We made our way to the Clubhouse and on entering discovered that the amount of staff vastly outweighed the number of guests as it seemed like there were only a couple of other people in there at the time.
We took a couple of seats by the window and were soon approached by a very cheerful waitress who took our drink orders. We decided to leave it a while before ordering anything to eat and she was happy to leave us alone until I made eye contact with her a bit later on, by this time the Clubhouse was beginning to fill up.
Instead of eating by the window we made our way over to a table and bench arrangement where our friendly waitress took our order. My partner was feeling a bit hungry so ordered a beetroot salad, some linguine followed up by an orange flavoured crème caramel. I just settled on the linguine.
The beetroot salad was apparently very nice as was the crème caramel but it was the linguine that stood out for us – it was really delicious, cooked with garlic, pine nuts, olive oil and parmesan cheese and there was quite a lot of it. We were both impressed with the quality and went about devouring it all.
I had heard on the forums about the SFO Clubhouse manager who wears the bow ties and shortly after we had eaten he appeared and went round to everyone introducing himself and making sure we were happy with everything which I thought was a nice touch.
At about 4:15 we headed out of the Clubhouse and virtually every person who worked there wished us a good day and an enjoyable flight as we walked past them – I was almost sorry to be leaving they made us feel that welcome.
Through the security priority lane which was empty and we were out the other side within a couple of minutes.
A brief browse round duty free without buying a bottle of anything that would sit in the cupboard at home and we made our way to gate A11 which is at the end of the concourse. On arrival at the gate we had about a 10 minute wait before boarding commenced and one of the check-in agents was there who checked me in and recognised me.
We boarded Cosmic Girl who was going to be taking us home and were directed to our seats; 16 & 17A. Once comfortable, drinks were distributed along with sleep suits and we settled back waiting for everyone else to board.
Shortly before push back the Captain came on to give us his welcome and some details about the flight. Being a bit of an aircraft geek I was surprised to hear that we would be departing off runway 01R as I hadn’t seen a single 747 use that runway whilst we were in the Westin SFO which overlooks part of the airport, but he then stated that with a load of only 202 passengers plus 18 crew, we would be climbing out “like a home sick angel”. After a short taxi we were airborne after a relatively short take off roll and he was right we climbed up to 35,000’ really quickly.
A few minutes after take-off the Flight Service Manager came round with the menus and introduced himself and shook hands with each of us making sure we were happy with everything.
After another round of drinks and crisps the dinner order was taken, the menu for our flight was:
Starters:
Carrot & coriander soup – with crème fraiche.
Spicy Maryland crab – with pickled mango salsa.
Main Courses:
Parmesan-crumbed fillet of beef – with dauphinoise potatoes, glazed carrots and red wine sauce.
Gressingham duck – with hoisin glaze, steamed rice and carrots.
Thai vegetable curry – with steamed jasmine rice.
Warm breads:
Your choice of warm bread rolls.
Dessert:
Warm apple tarte Tatin – with cream.
Honey cheese cake – with graham cracker crust.
Cheese and Port:
Camembert – a creamy cheese with a delicate salty taste.
Collier’s Welsh Cheddar – this bold cheese has a crumbly texture with a nutty, slightly sweet flavour.
Blue Stilton – a semi-hard to soft texture with a strong aroma and taste.
Served with Carr’s Table Water crackers.
I decided to try the duck and was prepared for it possibly to be a bit tough but it was really tender and tasty and I happily finished it all. My partner went with the Carrot & coriander soup which he described as OK but not as good as the Tomato soup that he had had on the way out, followed by the honey cheese cake.
Once dinner was out of the way I settled down to read for a bit whilst others got their beds made up straight away – taking advantage of getting as much sleep as possible. After a couple of hours I made up my bed – wasn’t going to bother the cabin crew with such a simple operation and settled down for some sleep, or so I thought. The individual reading lights in the Upper Class cabin are very unobtrusive, or so you would think given the limited amount of movement in them, however, the occupant of 15K had managed to perfectly position hers so that the beam of light when it was turned up to its full on setting hit me straight in the face when laying down, and she had subsequently gone to sleep leaving it like that. 10 out of 10 for your marksmanship madam.
I considered on what to do, call a flight attendant, or go and move it myself. I decided on neither, it would seem so petty getting someone else to move it and if she had woken up with me leaning over her trying to switch it off myself it could have been a bit awkward so I rolled over and managed to get a bit of sleep.An hour or so later we hit some light to moderate turbulence and the seat belt sign came on and I opened my eyes only to still have the light from 15K shining in my face. Back to sleep for a few more hours and I woke up, (in case you’re still interested, yes her light was still pointing at me) a quick check outside and it was getting a bit light so I decided to get up whilst it was still quiet and spend a few minutes in the toilet having a wash and freshening myself up without worrying that I was keeping others hanging about.
Suitably refreshed I made my way back to my seat and made my bed up and settled back to read my Kindle whilst waiting for breakfast.
The breakfast menu was:
A selection of breakfast cereals – Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Rude Museli, Bran Flakes and Rice Krispies.
Fresh fruit salad – served with yoghurt.
Warm croissant – with butter and preserves.
Bacon butty – a bacon roll made on soft brown bread with ketchup or brown sauce.
Traditional Full English – your choice of scrambled eggs, back bacon and pork sausage, button mushrooms and grilled tomato.
French toast – with maple syrup and hazelnut paste and served with or without crispy bacon.
Once breakfast was being served 15K woke from her great night’s sleep and turned her light off - I was so happy for her!
I settled for just fresh fruit salad and a cup of coffee for breakfast which was nice.
As we got ready to begin our descent the Flight Service Manager who hadn’t been absent for the entire flight so it seemed was back and approached me asking if I minded completing a questionnaire about the flight. I chuckled to myself as I had been given one on the way out from London as well a couple of weeks earlier but filled it in none the same.
Descent into London was nice and smooth and after a couple of obligatory orbits around the Ockham holding pattern we headed into a grey and wet London, what a surprise it was like we had never left. A very smooth touchdown by the First Officer on 27R and then a 15 minute hold for stand 318 to become vacant.
De-boarding was very smooth and the flight attendants were again on hand to wish us a nice day and to thank us for flying Virgin. A quick walk to immigration and using the electronic booths we were through pretty quickly and bags only took a few minutes to turn up before we headed out to get the bus to the long stay car park to collect the car.
I had read that sometimes Cabin Crew can be a bit hit or miss; on both of our flights they were definitely a hit and worked extremely well together to make our round trip from London to San Francisco a definite winner. These were our first flights with Virgin, the food was really good and the Cabin Crew warm and friendly. Virgin have won us over and will definitely be flying them again, it was a great way to start and finish our holiday to Hawaii.
