This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
I was in Miami to meet friends for a few days prior to heading out to the Rock Boat for 5 days or music and merriment, http://www.therockboat.com
After the Boat docked on the Friday morning we had planned to stay another night and wind down slowly before the flight back to the UK, therefore we ended up at the Hilton Airport which overlooks the Airfield for the Friday night. We asked for and managed to get a room with a balcony overlooking the runways. This Hotel is currently being re-modelled so be aware.
Using Flight Tracker on an Ipad I followed VS005 inwards from the UK and watched it land (I didn't watch the whole flight obviously, that would have been sad).
Once it had landed we made our way to the Airport and thence to the Check in Desks, Check in was very quick and we made use of the UC/Business security lane which took only minutes to pass through. Miami now uses the full body scanner but still insist that you take off your shoes/boots.
We made our way to the Club America lounge which had a selection of beers and wines along with coffee and biscuits and some rather grim looking sandwiches. It's not much better than a paid for servisair lounge.
Boarding was relatively painless and we were seated in 15 and 16K within minutes, drinks soon in hand we settled down for an on time flight, flight time was stated as being 7.5 hours with obviously a tremendous tail wind.
For dinner I chose the beef which for aircraft food couldn't be faulted, in fact most restaurants would be pleased to be able to serve food as good as it was. Cheese and Biscuits followed with a glass of port which was pleasant.
I settled down for sleep but was disturbed a little by the two three year old twins in 12 and 14A until tiredness took them away to the land of nod. They were really quite pleasant and no trouble at all.
I was woken for breakfast and chose orange juice, croissants and coffee. Whilst we arrived over heathrow very early we held for 10 minutes or so for a slot and landed at 08.55 hrs which was 35 minutes early. Straight off, straight through immigration, bags very quick and picked up our car from the Terminal 3 valet parking station.
On the whole Virgin were fantastic, great staff, great service and they do go that extra mile to make things happen. The seat whilst reasonably comfortable should really be a fully reclining flat bed seat ala BA. I appreciate it does become a flat bed but not how I would like it to be. That's my personal opinion and yours may differ.
On the whole the Experience was very positive, the major question to be asked is would I fly Virgin again over BA?
Undoubtedly yes, I prefer the BA seat but ultimately I do prefer the Virgin ethos.
Regards
