Intro
Since my flights and hotels are boring I will keep this brief. To get to Islay we booked round trip flights from Glasgow. From there, we decided to fly into London and out of Edinburgh. I got a great deal of 14k Virgin points and $141 per person for premium on the IAD-LHr nonstop. To return, I booked United for 30k mileage plus points and settled for an economy plus seat.
Apologies in advance for any misspellings of distilleries, but in the course of planning this trip I discovered there are two ways to spell whiskey/whisky. So with this fun fact shared let’s dive into the TR.
VS22
5:51PM-6:19AM (+5 hours)
6hr56min flight time
Seat 21C
A330-900neo
Security at Dulles was smooth, but the Capital One lounge was packed so I skipped it and paced around the A terminal.
At the gate I asked the gate agent if we could be assigned a bulkhead, which she obliged after a call to her supervisor and some slight controversy among the gate agent staff.
Exactly on time we boarded in a notably simple way that saw Premium be in the third tranche invited aboard.
Home for the next 7 hours.
Some welcome bubbles to warm my liver up for the next week.
1hr after takeoff dinner was served and I enjoyed the pork I preordered.
Better than a United meal!
I wasn’t able to take this as a souvenir but 10/10.
1hr15 min after takeoff dinner was cleared and I got some on-and-off sleep that saw me sleep through the breakfast meal. As we approached I used 20 minutes of free Wi-Fi to watch NHL highlights (and see my team lose) and was impressed with the speed.
We landed at a remote stand and the cabin crew ensured an orderly deplaning by only allowing upper class, then premium, then economy. I was blown away by how professional, enthusiastic, and service minded the VS crew were.
Immigration was smooth and I got a substitute for missing breakfast.
Decided to splurge on a Heathrow express that saved 25 minutes.
From there, did breakfast two from brick lane and a 3 mile walk.
Basic, but perks of being out before 8am.
Finally my daily Lucozade to hydrate before going for a run.
Last but not least lunch at Seven Dials which looked amazing but only tasted okay.
To be continued!