Unfortunately we were woken in the early hours on our last night by the whole room shaking and our bed literally moving about. I realised straight away that it was an earthquake but obviously didn't realise at the time just how bad it was. We had interconnecting rooms and our two children were also woken next door. Our 13 year old daughter was quite scared and insisted on getting in our bed (she must have been scared as she's at the stage where it is embarrassing even to be seen in public with her parents let alone get in bed with them!). After all of this I didn't manage to get back to sleep so got up tired and ratty.
Our car picked us up at 8.45am and the driver was very concerned that we would miss our flight as the motorway to the airport was blocked. He took us through all the back streets of Rome which was great as we got fabulous views of all the sights and we managed to get to the airport in plenty of time by avoiding the motorway. Nobody was waiting in the Club Europe line so managed to check in straight away with no fuss. Security check was quick and easy and quite laid back and headed straight for the lounge. The BA lounge was very quiet and for the smokers out there I noticed it still has a smoking lounge. Although it was a pleasant environment the food and drink offerings were pretty basic - a few stale looking sandwiches, biscuits, crisps etc. Very poor selection of magazines too. Quite disappointing really.
Flight boarded on time and we had all four seats in row 1 which give a bit of extra leg room. The plane was an A320 and seemed quite full in economy but only about two thirds full in CE. There were two cabin staff looking after the CE section and both were very good. They took time to talk to the children asking them about their trip to Rome which was a nice touch. Hot towels were brought round before take-off and drinks were served immediately after followed by lunch. We chose the chicken pasta salad which was actually quite nice. During the lunch service we were offered drink top-ups as soon as the crew noticed an empty glass.
Landed more or less on time and only had a short wait for the luggage. From there it was straight over to the short term car park where Purple Parking had our car waiting for us. I really like terminal 5 at LHR as it is all so easy and quick. Even the road connections are easy - I think we were on the M25 literally within a minute or so of leaving the car park.
All in all a very good flight with great crew who managed to pack in very attentive service into such a short flight.
