This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
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Night before as always spent at the Holiday Inn, which they say its 39 steps from the terminal, never counted but its about that. Checked in and as Priority Club Platinum Elite we normally get free drinks vouchers or free points. I slightly jumped the gun when the girl said how as a Priority Club rewards member you will get free wifi, my response being "do we not still get the drinks vouchers?" - "that was my next question" says she. Had our meal in the hotel, and it was excellent, but the service was glacial, and things like the server taking away our plates and then not offering us a dessert menu. I'm pretty tolerant, but even my patience levels were being tested with the wait for my dessert - very close to saying not to bother. Even when paying, the manager at the podium said someone would come to the table - they never. So, when I went back he brought the machine himself and asked how it was - I said food was excellent but service was slow, and whether or not it was because he saw it was a IHG Rewards Credit card or not, he waived the automatically added tip. Down in the bar later for using our free drinks vouchers, and they do say on them house wine / spirit / beer, but I've always had whatever really - not just in this hotel but any ones we've been at. No one has ever really stuck to the rules, and the first itme I asked - at this one actually, and girl said its whatever you want. Well, of course, did we not get the bar manager this time and when I say can I get a Southern Comfort she says no - and when I say you used to be able to - "that was because people didn't know what to do with them". I still think if I got the girl or guy serving I could've got it, but never mind, not like I wasn't getting something I was entitled to, so Heineken it was.
All quiet looking out before heading to bed at 1am after seeing FBI Files on one of the stations - loved that show when channel 5 used to show it. I had a quick look at the arrivals for Saturday and saw that the inbound VS72 was an hour late - not to worry, we'll make that time up.
Up at the back of five to a rather grey dawn...
...and shortly to a text from Virgin saying that our flight has been delayed and now wouldn't be leaving until 12.20 instead of scheduled 10.05 At about 5.30 I get a text and assume from mum / sister next door, nope, Virgin regretfully informing me that our flight has been delayed and won't now leave until 12.20, and that check-in will still close 2 hours prior to flight. What a bummer. Not the world by any means but first thought was the fact that we will miss out on being there early (13.40) and arriving before the other flights from the UK so no wait in immigration. Normally we go across to Frankie and Bennies for breakfast since the price the hotel charge is from Mars, however, this year they had £10 for a full breakfast buffet. We thought well, your about £7 or £8 for bacon and eggs over there, might as well get a full breakfast for couple quid more. There was a really good selection on both cereal, fruit, yoghurts etc as well as cooked stuff. The added benefit was that being a buffet you wouldn't have to wait as long as we did the night before. They also have a machine to make your own pancakes, but didn't try that out, went healthy for once and then decent cooked breakfast.
Headed over to the airport about 8.30, and wasn't overly busy, bags dropped with no fuss and then up to security and were in at 8.45 and out by 8.55 which included my bag being stopped for the amount of tech ceich that was in it.
Usual trip to Boots to get some snacks for the plane and Smiths for a paper and then went along to the lounge which was really busy, mainly pax for our flight to be fair. Stayed until I got a pic of it arriving and then we thought we would just head along to gate 33. As we came along unfortunately we could see that the TCX A330 was still on 33 and English Rose had now been waiting a good half hour for it to shift, which would mean a longer delay still. This wait as it would turn out didn't go down very well with one of the pax on the 72, in fact it came up, so there was a further delay whilst the airbridge was cleaned and left to dry.
Boarding started at 12pm and after the first couple economy sections any notion of boarding by the seat rows went out the window and became a bit of a free for all. We were on the airbridge at 12.20 and settled in few minutes later, nice to see you still got a bottle of water each which I always keep for after the flight. We would eventually push back about 12.55 and take off ten minutes later seeming to take up quite a bit of runway before getting off the ground.
In flight service started pretty quick with the menus coming round at 1.15 and then the drinks run starting at 1.30
It was about now I think that the CSM came on and said that they would be having a competition for the boys and girls on today's flight. There would be plenty paper from the trays if they didn't have any, but they were to draw what they think the captain looked like and he would choose a winner who would get a prize. Never had this before on a flight, quite a good idea, but only fair the adult's get a competition too. "Ladies and Gentleman, you too have a competition to win a prize, and all you have to do is guess the total age of today's crew. There are 15 members of cabin crew and two flight crew consisting a First Officer and Captain. One top tip ladies and gentleman for getting that total age, I would just like to remind you that are flying Virgin Atlantic today and not BA"
. We laughed and so did the crew in the galley beside us.Just before coming round with the meals at 2.40 they realised that the menus they had dished out were wrong, and so it was a rather nice chicken curry that I got
Might as well send a text or two from 38,000ft for the novelty of it
It was 3.40 when they came round with a tea and coffee run, by which point I had watched the excellent Next Goal Wins. I couldn't believe it when my sister was looking through the films and said to me it was on. On the entertainment front, they have changed up the music selection again, and the last of the 'original' Panasonic system albums have gone David Guetta, Guns N Roses and Fleetwood Mac which was a bit of a pity, as some of those had become 'plane tracks'. The selection of music I didnt think was that great to be fair, and got a wide enough taste, but there seemed to be a lot more current stuff.
It was now about 5 oclock and flying over Newfoundland before heading on down over Maine, flying just that smidge further east than last year so were pretty much over Boston missing out getting pics of it and Logan like last year, saw Providence though. It also meant that we were a bit further away from New York - they did put a message on the screen to say those on the right might be able to see it - but with people at the other side of us at the exit seats I wasn't going over to try for pics. 5.15 we got our Fabs as well.
Further on down the coast and at 7.40 we got our afternoon tea, and probably one of the nicest things I've had on a plane. From the two finger sandwiches of previous years you now have a choice of two wraps as you will have seen from the menu. I plumped for the chicken and bacon one and it was delightful. The sweet chili mayo that was on it was lovely, and it was so fresh with how moist the lettuce was, they were really, really nice. They surely must cost a bit more than a couple finger sandwiches so fair play Virgin.
Out the window, which wasn't the clearest, we were now over Norfolk, Virginia and below us was the Oceana Naval Air Station which had a huge number of F-18s on show and some C-40 (737NGs) on the ramp.
Finally buzzed by something, a Southwest 737
We weren't far from Florida now and a reminder to enter the competition if you hadn't done so. I went for 544 on the basis of 13x28 2x40 2x50. Mum went for an average down the middle of 17x35. Anyway, she went off to the toilet and they read out the age and it was 591 - surely a winner, but alas no, they read someone else's name out. Me and my sister were pretty confused until mum comes back and said she thought maybe too high so went lower, low enough to get her name read out for giving the lowest score. I think there was a 600+ but "nothing that insulted us". I dont know what the prize was but a pity we missed out. :(
What was amazing as we came close to Florida coastline, that still at some height we created a pretty big shadow below. Not surprising for the time of afternoon there was a bit of rain about, although nothing more severe than that when we were coming in.
Closer to Orlando and coming in a bit south of Daytona we flew over Sanford where there was a full Allegiant line up as well as two TOM 787s. We landed on 17L (which I like for some reason think just as its further away and surrounded by trees for the length of it, also like landing from the north as recognise more landmarks on that usual approach) at 9.20 or 4.20 local.
Once we got to the gate at 4.29 we saw that G-VXLG Ruby Tuesday was on stand, but can only just have arrived as there were still people coming off. Looking back on PlaneFinder it was just ahead of us the whole way there, and landed just 10 minutes in front of us.
The FSM was "assisting" passengers in disembarking by in one instance taking the bags off people coming down the steps who looked to be struggling with them and dumping them and with one poor dear who had a stick, near enough dragged her off. He had got the lower deck PE and Upper off and then made a sign to get everyone off before realising there was still the people upstairs. Well we were into immigration at 4.35 not really knowing what scenes we would be met with. The queue stretched the length of the room twice and then to half the room for 5 lengths. It was constantly moving and never stopped long enough to get a drink out my bag. At the end of one of the half lengths one of the guys who has been there a while was directing those with young kids and who didn't know if they had ESTAs (yes, folk were saying that) to a queue with an agent. He asked us when we were last here, and if we had our ESTAs and so were sent to the self serve machines. These were the easiest things to use. Scan passport and it brings up the details, confirm, do the fingers and thumbs and then the machine adjusts the camera to your height and takes your first holiday snap. You have an option once done for next traveller and then to confirm, at which point each person is given a receipt with their FBI style black and white mugshot with passport info on it, and you are directed into a separate queue where two booths deal with the self serve people. The idea is that they scan the receipt and let you go, but our one did photos and thumbs again anyway. Still, it saved a huge amount of time if we had to wait in the normal queue. The cases were off pretty soon after and we were out of immigration by 5pm - not bad at all considering.
Quick snap as we came down the ramp into the corridor to immigration
Up on to the monorail to the main terminal and then to the Magical Express. They now have an almost UK health and safety like procedure of having a tape across the doors to the monorail which a member of staff takes down before they open the doors. I imagine this is a procedure brought in since someone died there the other month after being allowed to drive a train when he wasn't meant to be there.
Didn't have too long to wait for a bus, and managed to grab front seats - just as some American couple went on as we gave driver cases - despite us being in the queue first. I nabbed the front seats on the right before they got to, don't think she was overly pleased, but they had a seat each so end off. Her face was a picture too, when we chatted about how good the food and drink was on the plane and how its good its still free alcohol. Had a bit of a wait for others to arrive, backing out at 6pm so not too bad.
By the time we left, the TCX flight had left for Manchester, a Gatwick Virgin 747 had arrived as had a Lufthansa 747.
On the way to the hotel, caught VS15 from Gatwick arriving, doing a rather strange route, appearing to go west of the airport heading north but then turn back to then land from the south.
Soon enough at our final destination and 'home' again...
Once again, another good flight with Virgin, and can't fault the economy product. The food is good, and not that we made much of it - one Dewars and a wine -, but free drink is a good bonus, and nice to still get a free bottle of water. The crew, as per usual excellent , if slightly older in total than I thought they were! The delay was a bit of a pity, not helped by the extra time on the ground in Glasgow, no disaster though. Still think the new seats are really good, and the headrest actually one of the few that are usable / comfy.
And it's our preferred route so was a joy to read.
