This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
I had an initial meltdown when the taxi did not arrive at my 5.45am requested time! Eventually he phoned saying he had gone to the wrong address some 15 minutes away. Those of you who are familiar with the M25 vs North Circular Road route from the east side of London will know you need to be on these roads well before the rush-hour. So we finally head off at 6.05am and he didn’t take the M25 – big mistake as we hit traffic. Anyway we finally arrived at Heathrow at 7.30am. Pulled up for DTCI and then drove up to be greeted by name. Nice. Then very quickly our luggage was tagged, boarding passes issued and then swiftly through security.
We headed straight for the Lounge which was very quiet. Had a relaxed and enjoyable breakfast. The staff so attentive. My friend went off for a manicure whilst I sat and soaked up the ambiance and people watched. Time went quickly and we then slowly meandered off at the first boarding call. The gate was virtually empty but we still used the priority lane. I was amazed when I was welcomed on board by my name
Our seats on the Airbus 340-600 were 8 & 9A which are fantastic seats. Everything went very smoothly for next 11+ hours, apart from the fact that the IFE kept crashing. Basically we had no entertainment for over half of the journey
The FSM personally came to every UC passenger to apologise and told us we would be allocated 8K air miles for the inconvenience. However these, nor miles for the actually flight miles, have hit our FC accounts yet, so email sent to them today.I will confess to not really enjoying the on board food. The starter of warm chicken satay was very nice but then I opted for the lemon and thyme chicken on a spinach base which was neither appetising nor even hot. I followed this with just cheese & biscuits but apparently the brioche and butter pudding was divine. As I do not drink alcohol, I was constantly asked if I would like another coffee or soft drink. The afternoon tea sandwiches were a tad dry but the presentation very nicely laid out.
The cabin crew were very efficiently and extremely friendly. The FSM was around the UC cabin a great deal and she kept the staff motivated by example. Our flight arrived a bit early. We were allocated a gate promptly which meant we was off plane and into an empty immigration hall really quickly. We had to transfer to T3 for our onwards flight to Phoenix but this was no big deal even with suitcases. LAX airport is undergoing a lot of renovations and the Terminal 3 resembled a building site and was extremely noisy.
We spent six wonderful days in Scottsdale, with glorious sunshine. Our tour to the Grand Canyon was simply wonderful. Our plans are set to return to Arizona next year. We flew back from Phoenix with US Airways (now all AA aircraft) into Monterey. We stayed in Carmel. Our planned trip along the Big Sur was spoilt by the weather with low hanging cloud preventing the wonderful views. We had a great last day at the Pebble beach golf resort after doing the '17mile drive' We then drove up the coast to San Francisco which was absolutely mobbed. Made us realise – we don’t do cities anymore.
Return TR from SFO will follow.
