This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
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I guess, after cancelling Miami in September for various reasons but then realising we were wrong about cancelling...the plunge was taken and another holiday booked!
Having the option of PE or UC and the other half going for PE it was a stand off...knowing I'd win easily it wasn't difficult turning Simon around.
"Fine dear, we can go PE. I'm ok with no bed or bar"
"I don't care about that" he exclaims!
"Our status has crashed so there'll be no clubhouse if we fly PE!"
"We will pay for guest pass" he tells me.
Feeling I'm loosing at this point I bring out the big guns..."Simon, will you be able to cope knowing other ppl have better seats than you? Better food? More booze? Can you cope? (Yes we're shallow)
In all of 2 seconds Simon had changed his mind and convinced himself the idea was his...we were flying UC!
Having booked the flights the next task was sorting out the parking!
Now! Princess loves a bit of DTCI but since the last time we flew purple parking have changed the way we used to do it...as most of you know the pp captain would pick you up and drive you through. This is no longer the case, VS now have an agreement with purple parking. The pp captain will take your car from the upperclass wing and park it for you. The price difference for meet and greet and the upperclass experience is shocking.
As much as princess loves DTCI i love it more. So regardless of price I booked it...
Now I had to tell Simon!
Knowing how he reacts when I spend money, I needed to play this differently, make him think he's getting what he wants...again!
"I've booked the parking dear but I've gone with Heathrow meet and greet, the price for pp and dtci isn't worth the extra cost"
"No dtci? But how will we check in? Won't they drive us up there?" He asks.
So I explain the new changes stating we would need to walk into the terminal and check in like normal people...
"Well, you better have booked fully refundable parking because WE ARE! doing DTCI" He loudly interrupts!
Feeling I'm winning here I end the conversation by saying I'll sort it out but I don't promise anything.
Fast forward to January....
"Darren, we haven't booked parking!"
I put his mind at ease and showed him the booking reassuring him we will be using the UC wing, without a mention of the cost he was off my case and went back to nursing his Chablis...well it was 3pm after all!
Sorry to ramble on but I will get to the actual flight.
Right, I feel the need to share with you good people a superstition I have regarding flying out of JFK and the JFK CH. Whenever we are flying out of JFK in UC something happens and we end up not going. I've never been to the JFK CH and really want to try it out, but I feel I have this curse against me because I always miss out on it for one reason or another.
With this CH curse forever over my head something was bound to crop up...and it did!
In January we were supposed to sign for our new venture and with solicitors from both parties working at a snails pace it looked like we would be running a month late taking us into Feb!
I start to get anxious about the handover and the holiday being so close, I bring up the possibility of cancelling (the CH curse strikes again). Simon wasn't so keen to cancel, he felt he needed this break badly and wouldn't budge. I'd like to say we didn't argue but we did. In the end we had to get "our Ker" (Simons mum) in to mediate and get her opinion.
She insisted we went and quite rightly said it would be the only holiday we could have till September because of the bees and she would look after things during our week away.
We would have 2 weeks once we signed to set everything up then handover to "our Ker". Not great but doable. We were still going even if I was a bit stressed.
The curse might just be lifting I thought.
Then the price of our hotel dropped saving us £250...it was meant to be, what curse you ask!?
1st Feb arrived, paperwork delayed (sent to wrong solicitor and forgot to put our names on the documents)...ok, don't panic still plenty of time.
5th Feb, call to say we will sign on the 15th. One day before our flight!
If we hadn't taken advantage of the lower hotel price (non refundable) we would have cancelled it all, but not prepared to lose the money for our hotel we would still be going.
On Sunday I got our "Ker" up to scratch with her new role for the next week and on Monday we finally signed.
I received a text reminding me to check in online, I used the app and it worked well, seq 5+6.
So the day of our flight we woke up at 7am to pack our bags, nothing like last minute packing! No cubes for us!
We left the house at 9:20am on a very sunny but cold morning. The traffic wasn't an issue and thanks to clear skies we were able to spot a few Virgin planes whilst we made our way down the M4.
We arrived at LHR at 10:50, drove to the bollards at the UC wing and was met by a man with in a high vis. The bollards were broke so we had to use the terminal to check in.
I queried our PP booking and asked if the guy would be outside waiting for us. He radioed up and got the driver to come down.
So we made our way to the outside of the terminal where the lovely lady from the UC wing was waiting for us. The PP captain took our car and we were escorted thro the terminal (like celebrities, with a few glances from some) and up to the UC wing to check our bags in.
Security was quick enough but there was a family who were clearly running late for their flight, they weren't in UC but were brought thro by a virgin girl. They didn't have anything ready, left bits in their pockets etc..
Managed to sit down in the very busy CH by 11:15, not bad!
2 flights got called and it soon emptied, service was very good today. Our champagne was always kept topped up.
I booked a lay down massage as there was lots of availability. We ordered some food, I had the cod and Simon had the ch burger.
My massage was needed as I had hurt my shoulder lifting the day before. I'm clearly getting old but the massage did help.
I had a salad and some smoked salmon from the deli bar.
We played spot the LA pax...always funny.
But, all too soon our flight got called, we packed up our bits and walked down to gate 22. Is this the furthest one away? I think it was...every time I fly I get to the gate and I'm gasping for a drink...