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#948591 by Kraken
10 Feb 2019, 03:54
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Travelled up to Manchester the night before, even though I was on the later VS73. Headed out from the Premier Inn near the airport to Hale for dinner. Had one of the best meals I’ve had in ages – if anyone wants a recommendation for a very good Sri Lankan restaurant in Hale, then drop me a PM.

Taxi to T2 this morning was bang on time & dropped us on the arrivals level due to all the T2 building works. I dread to think how much money MAN Airport are making from the £3 dropoff charge. Up to departures level for check-in and, whilst I am travelling to Orlando, I must have picked up Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility on the escalator. There was one queue feeding the Economy & Premium Economy desks & just a space to wait for the Upper Class desks. Both Upper desks were in use so I waited, the staff at the Economy & more particularly the Premium Economy desks [next to the Upper ones] just kept on calling passengers from the main queue. The supervisor type guy even told an agent at a Premium Economy desk that there was a passenger waiting for Upper Class and she just ignored him and carried on calling passengers from the main queue. Zero points for check-in staff today. They had baggage belt problems in the section of check-in that Virgin were using, so the staff tagged your bags & you then had to take them to another desk in the next section of desks to get them into the baggage system – no problems with this as things break down from time to time.

Security was painless – the FastTrack & Priority lanes were all closed off, but the security search area was empty, there were staff waiting at the scanners for passengers to process. Once airside we noticed just how quiet T2 is – on the departures board showing flights up to 16:00 today there are about 15 flights in total – and that includes three that are due to depart in the next 30mins or so. Bet it will be different a week today (start of Feb half term).

G-VROM was on stand and about to start boarding for the earlier VS75. CX flight to Hong Kong was chasing stragglers and the SQ to Singapore was pushing back. A quick look on FR24 shows G-VXLG positioning from LGW to MAN as VS109P – given that the VS73 is the only other Virgin departure today this is clearly going to be our aircraft for Orlando. (Glad we didn’t get VBIG).

Up to the Escape Plus lounge which was also fairly quiet. Sadly they had cleared away the hot breakfast buffet and the hot lunch offering (Goan fish curry, cremated pieces of chicken of some description with noodles or buttered new potatoes) did not appeal. I half suspect the hot lunch buffet offering is what it is [with notable absences of pork, beef, alcohol etc] so as to appeal to the Qatar passengers in the lounge. We just had sandwiches and cheese and biscuits. The MAN Clubhouse cannot come fast enough! The Escape Plus lounge has the atmosphere of a funeral home. No, on second thoughts that is being unkind to the funeral home.

The “Go to Gate” came up by the flight on the monitors at bang on an hour before scheduled departure. Went down to gate 208 and the boarding was highly organised by Manchester ground crew standards. There were very few special needs passengers to pre-board and Upper Class passengers were invited to board within about 5mins.

Once onboard a left turn and head for 9K. The CSS was at the bar on the crew tablet device, she obviously saw which seat I took and was instantly there welcoming me by name and offering champagne, juice or water – I accepted the first option! As boarding continued the CSS welcomed everyone by name, went round with top-ups & spoke to passengers individually. I was very easy to deal with as I’ve been flying Upper since 2006, but there are some newbies who have been given a much more detailed introduction to the seat. If the onboard service on the ground is anything to go by, we’re in for a very good flight with a switched-on CSS.

We pushed back exactly 15mins late and took off half an hour behind schedule, with a 8h 54min flight to Orlando ahead. Routing is fairly normal, over Northern Ireland, then head towards Greenland, over the Labrador Sea then down the Eastern seaboard towards Florida.

The first impression of service on the ground seems to have been correct. The CSS came round to take drinks orders and said I’d got a pre-ordered meal – so it seems the call centre did manage to do something despite them saying they could do nothing. Have gone for the salmon to start, got the beef as a main and the problem is I like the look of one of the deserts, two of the cheeses and the lite bites / afternoon tea filled rolls. I’m not going to go hungry! The FSM has put in a presence in the cabin to help with the service and she is not making the effort that the CSS is with passenger names, it’s just Sir or Madam.

So lunch service is over. The Balik salmon starter was very good, as was the Belgian chocolate torte. The disappointment was the Coffee rubbed fillet steak – was not particularly good, wish I had not made the effort to try and get it now to be honest. Had the cheese to finish off and I’m rather full. We’re now about 6.5hrs out of Orlando and the cabin has gone into quiet-mode of sorts. May try and get some sleep, but there is the draw of the Six Nations rugby streaming over the wifi (through a VPN). Our excellent CSS is Scottish and she saw me watching the Scotland v Ireland game and asked for the final score… I did warn her she didn’t want to know!

So about 2.5hrs out of Orlando the cabin is starting to come to life again. We’re on quite an inland flight track today as have passed east of Montreal and are now heading in the direction of Rochester, NY. Did a similar route to this some years ago as I remember watching it on the “old IFE”, i.e. before the 747 re-fits. Looking at FR24 it seems the VS27 from LGW to MCO is also following an inland route, although not as inland as us. Just looked at todays North Atlantic Tracks chart & the reason for our inland route over Canada and the USA is obvious – the tracks today are all very northerly. Also looks like we are taking pretty much the exact same routing that the VS75 took, which is currently just doing it’s turn to line up for the final approach into MCO.

About 90mins out of Orlando the crew went round pro-actively offering any combination of the lite bites, high tea filled rolls, scones & cakes. I went for the mini burger which was surprisingly nice (& bigger than expected). The only comment is it could have been a little hotter temperature-wise for my liking. Finished this off with a coffee and juice. So it’s now just over an hour to Orlando and we’re still at 40,000 ft. I guess the descent will start in half an hour or so, as they tend to start descents later in US airspace.

I made a point of seeing the CSS when I visited the washroom before the seatbelt sign went on to thank her for the service and let her know that Crawley Towers will be getting a letter on my return to the UK. This flight had probably just edged itself into 3rd place in my best flights with VS. It’s a London based crew too, even though the flight originated in MAN.

Landing was uneventful – but it was seriously overcast in Orlando today, the cloud ceiling was at about 2500ft. Taxied into gate 85 where all the ground staff were ready for our arrival. Jet-bridge was attached within a couple of minutes and off to the immigration hall.

The new Global Entry facial recognition machines are scary. Obviously the machines know who they are looking for from the passport numbers & Known Traveller Numbers on our bookings / API at check-in. But it is literally press the blue on-screen button, adjust the camera so your face is in the middle of the frame them press the green tick button on screen. If you’re happy with the photo confirm this and if the machine recognises you you get a printed receipt within seconds. Thanks to Global Entry I was through MCO immigration today in about 3mins. 1min at the machine, 1 min waiting for the next officer to become free and 1min with the officer. Set a new record of 20mins from the aircraft arriving at the gate to sitting in the hire car – and this is with the added delay as international arriving passengers can only use one of the two trains to the main terminal, and we just missed it leaving.

So all in all a very good outbound journey. Letter to Crawley Towers when I’m back in the UK.
#948594 by David
10 Feb 2019, 08:45
Hi James

Sounds like a good flight apart from check in. With the Flybe purchase and the prospect of a Clubhouse, it could become difficult to choose between Manchester and Gatwick for our future flights.

The coffee rubbed steak wasn't too bad after you scrape the luminous orange stuff off the top :D

David
#948652 by Treelo
12 Feb 2019, 12:18
David wrote:Hi James

.................The coffee rubbed steak wasn't too bad after you scrape the luminous orange stuff off the top :D

David


Another great Kraken TR.
Shame about the ground crew but, given the number of times you fly VS, happy to read that the ' flight edged itself into 3rd place in my best flights with VS '. Must admit that David's comment about the coffee rubbed steak isn't filling me with anticipation for our flight in May :mrgreen: . Do we know when the next menu rotation is?
#948739 by woralla
16 Feb 2019, 12:37
The new Global Entry facial recognition machines are scary.


Agreed! I went through MIA yesterday where they have rolled out the same. All a bit Big Brother, but pretty efficient.
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