This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
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Firstly, I will describe the circumstances surrounding the flights....
Three weeks before my flights I randomly entered a Virgin Atlantic competition that appeared in my Facebook news feed. It was a celebration of Little Red's first birthday, and they had been in Edinburgh taking people's wishes. It stated you could enter online too by commenting including #littleredwishes with your Virgin wish.
As I have wanted to fly Virgin Upper Class for as long as I can remember (as a poor student in 2004 I applied for my flying club membership with Virgin.... I'm yet to earn any points!)
I quickly posted a comment to that effect, that flying Upper Class Virgin was on my bucket list, added the hash tag and forgot all about it. A week later, I have a notification that Virgin have commented on the post - which I luckily click on to read to find the comment "Congratulations Laura, you are a winner! Email ---- to book your flights!"
I freaked out inside a little and got the biggest grin ever and then realised it was probably just a Little Red flight I'd won. I quickly emailed and then hunted for T&C, but they didn't make it clear what I may have won. After a horrible, cruel 4 hour wait I received a reply - my wish had been to fly Upper Class Virgin to New York, so that was what I'd won!
Several squeals later and a rushed email to check how many return tickets it was (after all I hadn't mentioned my hubby in my post!) the news that I'd just won Little Red flights to LHR from EDI, then Upper Class to New York for hubby and I started to sink in.
The bank holiday hit, just as I was trying to hash out dates for when I could fly (when my mum could have my daughter) so we didn't find out we were flying until a week before our flights. The two week time period of winning/arranging it/flying was a cloud 9 time, with tinges of doubt that it would really happen - but thankfully, I'm here to write the trip reports for my four, fantastic flights.
Our flight 6.35 meaning a 4am start to get over to Edinburgh, this would have been reasonable, if we hadn't had to collect my parents from the airport at midnight too! We tried to sleep for a few hours at my mum's before collecting them, but unfortunately the excitement, and different bed meant this didn't happen. Just as we were about to bundle our daughter in to the car, I got sleepy enough to sleep, so my husband agreed to go get them himself (he's not an overly confident driver, hence the original plan for me to go with him). I woke up again just as they all arrived back in the house, and couldn't get back to sleep, my husband managed to luckily get some sleep then, though.
After putting make up on (in case of any photo opportunities) and double checking we had every thing, we kissed our sleeping daughter goodbye and were driven over to the airport.
We arrived at Edinburgh airport at around 4.30 and headed straight to the empty check in desks. We were travelling with hand luggage only, and had pre-picked all our seats but I wanted a proper boarding pass so hadn't checked in on line.
We were greeted with a friendly smile, and asked for our final destination. For some reason there was a slight issue with the way the flights had been booked, so were asked if they were staff tickets - we said they were competition prizes, which created lots of congratulations from all the staff and questions about how we'd won etc.
We were issued with fast track security boarding passes, and a voucher for access to the servisair lounge.
We made our way through the priority security channel and headed straight to the lounge. It wasn't very posh, as it is being refurbished but the photos of the new one looked fab.
We helped ourselves to some pastries and fruit juice, and made ourselves comfy at a table, pinching ourselves that this was really happening!
Before long we were due to board so we headed round to the gate to be greeted by lots of business people awaiting the early morning flight. The plane had landed last night, but they still appeared to be running a little late. We were watching them refuel it, and it appeared to take an age. Eventually we were able to board with the priority boarding and headed straight to the back of the plane, as we'd picked seats in the last row.
We got settled and then watched as all the A,C D and F seats filled with a lovely gap in the middle of the rows.
We took off smoothly and were predicted a slightly early landing - perfect for our plans to quickly pop in to the Clubhouse to see it during the 1 hour gap.
The seats felt more spacious than your bog standard budget flight, and the Virgin mood lighting was a nice touch. The leather seats added to the feel too.
We were quickly asked if we wanted a bacon roll, and given a drink. I ordered an irn bru, because I always appreciate it when it's on Scottish flights and was given a purple plastic Virgin branded glass with it. The roll was pretty small but good all the same. As I'm not a vegetarian I'm not sure if there was another option, but a pilot who was seated across from us was given porridge before we had taken off so they obviously had some other items on board.
After cleaning up they came round with a mini packets of love heart sweets, for some reason but no more drinks were offered. This is when the announcement about fog and possible delays was mentioned, and I started to get a little nervous...
Close to London we ended up in a holding formation, in a queue for landing as the minutes ticked by.
We knew there was a bus from T1 to T3 and the staff were reassuring us we'd be fine.
We eventually landed, but were at the back of a long line of people waiting to get off. The few rows in front of us, hearing of our panic, let us through first. We got off, and straight on to the bus, only to wait for some people to leisurely walk on (it was probably only a minute but every minute felt like an age at this point!).
The bus then went on a mammoth journey to T3. We were meant to be boarding at this point, so the panic levels were high.
We got off the bus to be met by a Virgin staff member at the doors, asking if any one was on the JFK flight and told to go straight to the gate.
We headed up the stairs, relieved temporarily not to be told we were too late, expecting to find the gate close by! We were wrong....
I don't know how long we actually took, or how long the distance actually was - but if I was Virgin, and knew a flight with connecting passengers on it was delayed, I'd suggest providing a buggy at the top of the stairs to take you straight to the gate.
Finally, out of breath, red, tired and almost crying as I assumed we'd have missed it (5 minutes to the scheduled departure time) we arrived at the gate, and were told to quickly board. I'll leave it at that for this flight.
All in all, it was a fine flight with no real complaints. It was better than any domestic flights I've taken in recent years, and made a change to be offered a complimentary drink and snack, rather than it all being about selling with regards to the cabin crew. The only thing with this as they aren't as quick at offering multiple services. The connection timing/assistance was also a bit of a let down, but I didn't pay for the flights so it didn't really effect our experience.
