I checked in online the previous evening, and printed out my boarding card, and a 10% discount voucher for inflight shopping (you get this offered as a link somewhere in 'manage my booking' - you make a 'wishlist' and it calculates your discount based on your wishlist). The only downer was they swapped my chosen 'A' side seat for a 'K' - so on the sunny (so window shades down) side of the aircraft! It also wouldn't let me swap back. Grrr! At least it's not just VS which does this sort of thing!
Trekked over to LHR via way of the Jubilee line, Bakerloo and the Heathrow Express (still trying to use up those upgrade vouchers!). Interesting to see how dead the London roads were for 9am on a Friday morning.
Wandered down, past all the usual Terminal 1 mayhem, to Zone R, where the the BA agent who hangs out at the entrance to Zone R (presumably to keep the riff-raff out), tried to work out whether I should be ejected or not.[;)]
Looking like you know where you're going, with a small army of gold tags hanging from your bag, while wearing jeans seems to help them make their mind up that you should be there!
Short wait for the fast bag drop (there was a big family travelling together in front of me), and my bag was checked onto the flight by a friendly, cheerful agent. BA had laid out chocolates on all the check-in counters, which I thought was a nice touch.
The fast track security was a god-send, only one couple in front of me, and I was heading through to the BA Terraces lounge, where another happy agent and more chocolates were waiting!
Went and grabbed a seat in my usual T1 Terraces hangout of the mezzanine level - quiet, small children not allowed - and got some breakfast. Special K with milk (which had gone warm, bleh), cappucino (no chocolate sprinkles), still water, and some little pain au chocolat. Wasn't the Clubhouse, but wasn't bad either, and put my feet up with the Guardian.
Word of warning about Terraces, for the uninitated, the nice looking 'garden-chair' loungers, which look really comfortable, aren't. The cushion has thin foam padding and slides off the seat. Also, watch out for the canned tweeting bird song to make you think you're outside.
There is a very good 'super quiet' area, called the 'Sanctuary', which is a soundproofed area with daybeds - mobile phones are banned, etc. You just tell the concierge desk which flight you are departing on, and they come and get you when it's time to go. This is ideal if you need some rest.
Still, I think the T1 Terraces lounge is a good size, rarely packed to bursting, and is well 'zoned' (office area, 'cafe' area, lounging area, quiet area, kiddies area). I wish we could say the same for the Clubhouse, and I hope the opportunity that the Phase 2 renovations will bring aren't missed.
Despite a 12.25 departure, I managed to hang on until the breakfast was taken away at about 11.30, and lunch, a very British sandwich selection - i.e. with the crusts cut off - had been laid out. So, a glass of some decent Monterey Chardonnay and some sandwiches later, it was time to head out to the gate, via the little duty free shop which is inside the lounge (it's a limited selection, but what what I wanted).
I'm thinking 'I've left it late enough to have missed the boarding scrum' as I head down to gate 26, when I suddenly realise there is a security comb in the way, as I come off the end of the travelators! I hadn't travelled from this far down this particular pier for a long while, and was caught out by this extra search. Not sure why they have it, probably because we've had the chance to mix with arriving pax.
I'm now worried if I'll make it to the gate in time, but I ask around, and almost everyone else around me is also on the Athens flight, so it looks like I'm okay.
Boarding is still going on while I get there, but a nice orderly line, no scrum, and I'm off to settle into 2K on our 767-300.
Turns out that it's a very full flight, and I find out the reason for my involuntary seat re-allocation. They had moved the cabin divider a extra row forward to give more Y cabin seats. Whoever had been sat in the seat before me had been using some horrible greasy hair product, as the windows and the side panel were covered in smears of this greasy stuff. I asked one of the flight attendants for the seat wipes from the lav and some tissues!
We were slightly late pushing back, about 1240-ish, but we were taking off from 27R, so a very short taxi out, during which we didn't seem to stop moving forward, meant we were airborne by 1255.
Couldn't tell which way we went due to cloud, having the shades down most of the time, and no skymap. The next time I got to see the surface, we were almost over the Adriatic.
The service kicked off fairly quickly, with a good, friendly cabin crew. First of all, cocktails. BA now seem to be serving Heidsieck Monopole Blue Top in Club Europe - after a long time serving Piper. Still not a bad NV fizz, if you ask me, very agreeable.
Menu cards are now back in Club Europe, and on this flight we had:
Appetisers
Kippered salmon terrine - not my cup of tea, but okay
Selection of warmed bread rolls - some herbed foccacia was nice
Main
Blue crab and crayfish tails with penne pasta and creamy lobster sauce
or
Truffled beef casserole with new potatoes and seasonal vegetables
- I went for the seafood pasta, very nice and tasty, and the lobster sauce was rich and tasty, just like the label said.
Dessert
Rhubarb and ginger cheese cake with rhubard coulis
Fleur de Lait and Lancashire cheese
Your choice of coffee or tea
The food wasn't bad at all. Usual thing of serving a tray with place setting containing the appetiser, followed by the chosen main course being served after they have adios-ed your starter plate.
Fairly respectable, though I have had it served to me in a much better style before now.
This crew waited until they had cleared everyone's starter away, and then came down the trolley with the meal cart, asking which choice you would prefer. They then spooned the food out of the plastic oven tray it was heated in, onto a serving plate, and then gave it to you.
On some other Club Europe flights, they have taken an 'order' for the main course, and then brought each passenger's choice of main meal from the galley individually, and as you had each finished your main meal - more like Upper Class or United Business presentation.
I guess it depends on pax loading and number of crew - I remember the flights where I've had the more 'long haul'-ish style of service have been fairly lightly loaded.
Inflight entertainment was on tv monitors around the cabin, and consisted of BBC World News, Wallace and Gromit 'The Curse of the Were-Rabbit', and an episode of 'The Vicar of Dibley'. As the headphone socket was broken in my seat, and being on the bulkhead, had an 'Arcadia'-sized screen, I didn't bother.
Before long, we were over Corfu, this flight went very quickly due to a strong tail wind, and the Duty Free cart made it to me! The crew hadn't seen one of the diy internet vouchers before, and wondered where I'd got it from! Anyway, one happy consumer later (with extra Xmas gifts to pass around), we were descending into Athens.
Slightly bumpy on the way down, before landing almost 20 minutes early on Runway 21R. I think my girlfriend's cousin may have cleared my plane to land - she is an tower/ground controller at Athens airport!
Beat the queue at Greek immigration - a flight from Cyprus had arrived at the same time as us - but then there was a massive wait for my bag to come out, either there was no priority tag put on it, or had come off. Oh well.
Athens airport was mega busy, the Greeks seem to come to Athens for Christmas and New Year (and out to the islands for Easter).
So, anyway, seasons greetings to all on V-Flyer from Athens!
Kala Christougenna!
Mike
