This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
An uneventful drive to Manchester was had – but why oh why is the M6 between Stoke on Trent & Knutsford always notorious for queues? There must have been a good 15miles of near stationary traffic heading South – with no obvious cause of the delay.
Got to MAN and was checked-in in no time. True to form the issues I’d had with online check-in yesterday were down to SSSS appearing on the boarding card. Security was very efficient in the new part of T2 – to be honest I was expecting this to look a bit like the inside of an IKEA store, having read reports of the T2 extension being done on the cheap. Whilst it wasn’t up to the standards of the likes of Changi or Dubai airports, it was better than expected.
The 1903 Lounge is no great improvement. The “lounge dragons” on the reception desk had clearly both been thrown out of charm-school, early on. The lounge itself was very busy & it was only possible to find a seat if you were travelling alone. And forget what MAN airports website says about the 1903 lounge & it’s dress-code – it is not enforced. There were “groups of lads” in sportswear (including shorts) clearly on a mission to get their moneys’ worth on the alcohol. Due to the lack of seating, some of the said “groups of lads” were congregating standing up & drinking. If you were near the bar area it was more like being in a pub / bar in central Manchester.
Gate 204 flashed up on the screens so headed down that way. Boarding was the usual shambles that only Swissport are capable of. I had my frisking from the G4S guy who was also as miserable as only G4S staff normally are. Then onboard to G-VTEA – very nice. Instant thoughts are I don’t like the A350 UC seat, but we’ll see how it grows on me over the next 8hrs 7mins. The seat is not well thought out – what is the point of having the two external cameras if your screen has to be stowed when it may actually be interesting to watch them, i.e. on the ground, takeoff & landing. Whilst I appreciate I am hard of hearing, initial thoughts are that the A350 is very quiet. According to FlightRadar24, VTEA is 2yrs old – the Upper Class seat was showing signs of wear – possible poor decisions made there over the quality of materials used.
I always enjoy watching the SkyMap (sad I know) but thought quality of the map on the new IFE system was impressive. But, if a 2yr old IFE system can’t be good then there is no hope.
Lunch was served a leisurely two hours out of Manchester & I was actually quite surprised – it wasn’t bad. Had the gravadlax salmon to start, then the Atlantic cod (which I had pre-ordered). Finished off with the Pimms o’clock summer pudding. I admit I did not know quite what to expect with the latter – but it was quite nice and refreshing.
The cabin then went into “quiet mode” & thankfully there was not a semi-enforced “window shades down please” – that really annoys me on a daytime flight. I availed myself to the WiFi which is pretty fast – have been able to stream some content off YouTube even though the VS website says the A350 Wifi is not suitable for streaming. We’re currently just over 3hrs out from MCO and are just about to cross the Canadian/US border.
The afternoon tea service followed about 90mins out of Orlando. Had the chicken slider which was OK, but the problem was it was 10:30pm at night & my body was telling me that I really didn’t want to be eating much at this time of the day.
About an hour out of Orlando we hit a good 10mins of turbulence & bounced around for a bit, then the seatbelt signs were turned off & the dash to the toilets followed for people to freshen up for landing.
Landed at about 6:48pm local time on 17R (which is not the normal arrivals runway on that side of the airport). We got on stand at about 7pm local time (so midnight for the passengers). We were allocated gate 97 which is a good long walk to the Immigration & Customs area). The Immigration hall was empty – I was through in about a minute with Global Entry, but passengers who did not have this could practically walk up to immigration desks. Clearly a combination of Virgin’s later flight times & BA + Aer Lingus moving to Terminal C have greatly improved the immigration experience. The baggage belt started within 5mins & my bag was first off. I was in my rental car within 30mins of the aircraft wheels touching down. You cannot complain at that.
The flight itself was fairly decent. Lovely quiet aircraft, fairly decent crew, but the jury is still out for me on that new Upper Class seat. The detractions from the entire experience was on the ground at MAN in the 1903 lounge & at the boarding gate.
Boy is Florida hot & humid. Did Universal this morning & Velocicoaster just rocks. Having a brief break out of the sun & are off to SeaWorld soon for a few hours.