UCDS: what was the fuss about?

Currently sitting on the ground on VS039 my first A330 experience as I'm usually on the A346. I don't get what all the fuss was about, it seems fine to me. Even the cocktail table is in a more logical place. Maybe the flight will tell but so far so good.

I've personally never had any issues with it at all - but then it's all down to personal preference I suppose. I've sat in the UCDS 3 times compared to once for the original/789 version, so I don't have much of a comparison to go on I guess. I certainly don't actively avoid it.

UCDS is ok, but it's just not as good as what it replaced, especially if you are tall, even worse if you have the misfortune to get one of the middle seats which are shorter than the window ones

i'm tall, i just about fit the UCDS window seat though it gets tight at each end, also i tend to get disturbed by people bumping my feet in the night

the old UC was better in that it had a bit more space

the 789 is better too i think, i've only had a couple of flights on 789 but i slept very well and don't recall being disturbed

The problem with the UCDS is that it might well have rolled out to the rest of the fleet as refurbs.

It's novel in its place, the A330's, but its incredibly tight corridor, the bizzarre placement of the bar, and the definite shrinkage over the old seat would have been pretty awful on a 346 or a 747, cramming a bunch more seats in. The corridors were the worst, if everyone was asleep it was hard to get along them without waking half the cabin.

If you got to seat, settled down for most of the flight, were not that tall, and didn't notice the cabin crew struggling, you'd might find it little different...

Yeah no problem with the suite itself, it's more the cramped cabin I don't like.

Sure will miss the nose section of the 747.

Well I survived it and overall pretty good. I agree about the bar as it felt quite awkward, I felt like 9A was pretty much the 4th seat. To me, the least premium experience were the loos. Didn't try bed mode however. I loved the tip up ottoman to store all my trinkets. The only thing I really didn't like was the lack of a right hand armrest, I started to redesign the suite in my head and decided if only they had moved the glass partition to the other side the partition base would have made a fine armrest, they wouldn't have needed to move the cocktail table either if they had started the glass just after it.
Have to say I don't understand why they didn't persist with it using the wider space on the 789. The A333 is a mid-haul plane for VS and did the job for me fine.