Who's been to America?

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So I have finally booked my holiday for early september to New York using Expedia :)

Does anyone have an experience of check in for long haul flights and their experiences of flying from London Heathrow with Virgin Atlantic.

Many thanks.
 
what exactly do you want to know?

check in completed in about 15minutes (scan passport in those machines) and just give in bag, then sit for 2 hours

flight is long, what i did is listen to music for 6 hours, and then got fed up and begun talking with random people and got drunk for the other 5 hours, sobered up just before landing, the cabin crew where swamped for some reason so i was making myself gin/tonic's :D
 
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Usually on flights I wait for most other people to scramble to the exit before leaving, avoiding the rush. DO NOT do this when coming into NY, customs/immigration/whatever it is called takes forever.
 
Sorry I didn't explain myself properly, I was asking how long the check in usually takes, and if you have to fill in Visa forms? I did an online ESTA.

Did anyone have problems with leg room and what was the experience of cabin crew like?
 
I think you can get a mini visa thing online now to potentially save some time and hassle with their a-hole immigration.
Virgin are good, bring some nice headphones for some movies etc to pass the time
 
I applied to this online visa and it said approved, so i'm glad to get this out the way.

Can't really be messing with Premium Economy, i'll get on with it... :)

Also has anyone been to see any baseball?
 
i think youll still need to fill out the visa form that they hand out on the plane. Thats just a pre passport check if i remember rightly. New york is a great place and virgin are a great airline. Get your self an airmiles card just for the hell of it. Never know when it might start clocking up. As for checking in. Ill assume your going from Heathrow and they have the self service machines which are very quick and you can choose your seat. You can also do it online if i remember rightly. Theres certain seats which are better than others like at the back where they start becoming 2 and also the ones in front of the emergency exit but you cant get one of those unless you are deemed fit and healthy. Basically if your not fat or over 80
 
i think youll still need to fill out the visa form that they hand out on the plane. Thats just a pre passport check if i remember rightly

you do, but its exactly the same thing as the online version, + a customs form

apparently the system is not integrated so they cannot check online applications, and require it to be done manually also? makes no sense really but thats what the passport control person said
 
I have done this a few times in the past couple of years, I did not fly with Virgin though as every time they seem to be on the expensive side.

I'm not really sure what your asking, I turn up an hour earlier than it says to (normally an hour before take off so a fair few hours before hand), wait around a lot, sit on the plane for a long time, get off the plane and hit immigration, spot the celebs in the immigration queue... job done.
 
Yes, Gatwick - Florida with Virgin Atlantic twice.

No problems whatsoever, and I don't recall check-in being too long either, its just the fact you need to be there a few hours earlier that can leave you a bit bored.
 
I am going with my GF so just hope they allocate us together on the airline.

Yeah we will be flying from Heathrow. :)

Well with BA you can choose your seats online the day before- if the same applies for Virgin Atlantic join the scramble for the rows where there are two seats on their own.
 
Virgin are really good at these flights, they got me through them to be honest.

Flew to LA and Vegas with them so a bit longer than NYC. They had around 15 films to choose from you could watch and you could start them when you wanted, music channels again with the same start function so you dont miss half a film or song which can be annoying, and no waits for the next ones to start up.

Plus a free bar for the whole trip made it even more fun :D

Get there early to check in but personally I have nothing but good opinions of Virgin
 
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