This is my first attempt at a Flight Report on here so please feel free to ask for anything I have missed.
This is the return sector of my vacation trip from London Heathrow to LAX where i spent a few days at Disneyland for the 60th anniversary of the park. (yes I am a bit of a disney parks fan)
after arriving early to LAX on the Disneyland Resort Express coach from the disneyland resort In Anaheim I was quickly checked in at the Upper Class checkin desk thanks to my Virgin Atlantic Gold status. as LAX terminal 2 is currently going through some building works i have not taken any photos of the check in or security areas but i was checked in as soon a the desk opened and was through the TSA checkpoints within 10 minutes of checkin opening and made my way through to the brand new Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse upstairs in the terminal located above the gate where G-VWIN named Lady Luck was being prepared to fly me back to LHR.
in Virgin Atlantic's clubhouses food and drink is available to order from the waiting staff at your table there is no buffet option. the menu is as below.
I chose the Clubhouse Burger, with a redhead cocktail.
followed by the lemon sorbet, and a long island iced tea.
and finally the fresh fruit salad.
soon it was time to board. I had chosen seat 51C one of the exit row seats on the A340-600 and was soon onboard with unlimited leg room. chatting to the crew tonights flight would be a light load with over 100 empty seats in the forward economy section so after takeoff people were free to move to empty seats to spread out. I debated moving to an empty row of four seats but chose to stay in my exit seat as I was unsure how comfortable laying down with a seatbelt on would be across four seats.
As soon as boarding was completed and the ground staff were asked to leave the aircraft the safety film was played.
and amenity kits and menus were distributed.
soon after takeoff the crew came around with drinks followed by the meal service.
I chose the pulled pork but did not eat much after eating in the clubhouse before boarding.
after dinner the crew returned with a choice of tea coffee or hot chocolate. I chose a hot chocolate and was given a little chocolate with it.
I managed to sleep for most of the flight and awoke before breakfast, a warm ham and cheese croissant with a little pot of fresh fruit (melon, grapes, apple, and pineapple) and a plain yoghurt.
-sorry no photo of breakfast-
after one circle of the LHR hold which is normal for most flights we made our approach over a cloudy London and landed 30 minutes ahead of schedule at Heathrow. after a short wait for a gate to become available we were quickly off the plane and in to a queue for the UK border. the line was moving quickly and i was through the electronic gates for european passport holders and through to baggage claim in less than 20 minutes of leaving the aircraft.
my case was out fairly quickly and i was at the central bus station on my way out of the airport and to my overnight hotel by 12:30 40 minutes after landing i was at the Holiday Inn Heathrow Ariel on bath road alongside the northern runway where i was staying the night before my 3 hour drive back to Dorset on the south coast of the UK the next morning.
Thanks for this report,
God i envy you when i see this burger!
Exit seat is perfect, and very pleasant when you're flying in an empty cabin.
See you
As a massive fan of Virgin Atlantic, it's always nice to read a good report on them!
First and foremost, welcome to the site and thank you for sharing this FR!
The VS Clubhouse is one of the nicer lounges at LAX with their on-demand menu. A nice selection of local beers and a good restaurant style menu. Cooked to order food is always going to better than buffet style food that has been sitting there for who knows how long.
The meal tray looks pretty average. I can't say that the pork looked visually appealing. No bread was offered with the meal? Even though you don't have a picture of the breakfast, from the menu it sounds very light for a flight of this length (LAX-LHR is a pretty long TATL).
Amenity kits are always a nice gesture in Y and it sounds like you had a good, friendly crew on this flight.
Next time, some more photos of the seat/cabin would be appreciated; the first report is always the hardest :). Since you used the VS Clubhouse, you can also add that to your report in order to give it a rating.
Thanks for the comments.
I tried to add the clubhouse to the ratings but it is not an option on the drop down list.
There was a bread roll on the tray but I had moved it to the right just off the camera shot. The pork did taste better than it looked.
Breakfast was quite light as you say for this length of flight. It was the same as on one of my recent JFK-LHR flights so more would have been nice on this flight from LAX.
Next time I will try and remember to take more pictures.
The Virgin Clubhouse was just added to the LAX listing, so you can add it when you have time :)
Thanks for sharing this Flight Report!
The food you had in the lounge, looked very tasty, but the dinner on-board doesn't look as good. I've noticed this before though with Virgin, that their food tray offerings look very small, and a bit lacking.
LAX-LHR is a long flight, I also would have thought a more substantial breakfast would be offered.
Thanks for this FR.
The lounge offerings are great by US standards.
Onboard it seems VS still holds on to its reputation of hip airline with superior service compared to BA.
Nice first report! Sorry just now getting to comment, but I'm glad you saw that I added the LAX Virgin Clubhouse for you
I'm also a fan of Virgin Atlantic, though I haven't flown them in a few years since I switched to oneworld, so now I fly the competition to LHR. Have flown in Upper Class and Premium Economy with VS and both were great products. Economy looks above average as well, certainly better than BA, but the seats/cabin are starting to look a bit dated and in need of a refresh. Love the VS Clubhouses--definitely better than most other airline's Business class offerings--heck, they're better than than U.S. airlines' First class lounges. I've only been to the ones in IAD and LHR, but both were great. Of course, the LHR club is way more impressive.
Thanks for sharing and looking forward to more reports!