Once we arrived at the airport, we first had to return the car and then walk to check-in. As expected, there was not much going on at the First counter and we were done quite quickly. We were sent to security checkpoint 3. I was irritated at first because there was no priority lane there, but it was relatively empty. After the usual annoying check, I understood why they had sent us here. We were right next to the AA Flagship Lounge.
This time the experience was different from the last visit. The agent greeted us with underem F-ticket very friendly and we were asked if we wanted to take advantage of the first class dining. We said yes and the agent escorted us to the dining room inside the flagship lounge. This had nothing to do with the ghastly Admirals lounge that shares the first floor reception area.
As you know from other F-lounges, the dining room is basically a restaurant. The decor is pretty.

The menu is sufficiently large with some interesting dishes.


First, an amuse bouche and a rather fancy bread.


Snapper Ceviche

I'm not a big fan of sweet potatoes, but the dish was coherent and the fish was good. On hot days definitely a good refreshment to start.
For our second appetizer, we chose Coconut Shrimp.

For our main course, we both went with the Lobster Linguine. The dish was okay.

Now there was the dessert menu.

That didn't totally appeal to me, I took the Flan. It was good.

GF took the tiramisu. The waiter said it was their healthiest dessert on the menu. I thought it was a joke at first. What we had missed was that it was made with vegan mascarpone. Unfortunately, that didn't taste good at all and I got in trouble for persuading GF to try the tiramisu instead of the flan like me....

You can't expect a star meal here, but it's certainly a good thing before you take off. I personally found the food in the Concorde Room a bit better on this trip. But that came later.
A view of the general lounge.


Here there was also compared to the grotty Admirals lounge a buffet with real food that I have not photographed, however, because we were in a hurry. It was but from the first glance nothing outstanding. But I assume anyway that all real First passengers will use the Flagship dining and the buffet is for the status customers.

The flight departed from a gate that took an eternity to walk to. On site was then pure chaos. As is well known, many people go into an A 380 and they were all standing around. It took an eternity until boarding finally started. An annoying process.
On board, the First is very large, the seats worse than in the 787. It is an older product.



The menu itself was not objectionable.








The food at BA is of very variable quality. Unfortunately, I have experienced in the past that the outbound flight was good, the return flight less so. Unfortunately, this continued. What was served here had nothing to do with First Class. I do not even want to know what was served in business. In BA Economy, you expect to be served inedible food, which is still very familiar to me from the beginning of my long-haul flights. Open it, look at it, throw it away.
But back to our food. It wasn't quite that bad, but that doesn't mean much.
The canapes were, as far as eatable for us, still just acceptable.

Scallop and arancini


Hui, that was a meal when you want something heavy in the stomach. To top it all off, it was oversalted, which no one needs.
Pan fried halibut

Again, the salt pot had fallen in, the fish dry, the vegetables barely edible.
For dessert we had White chocolate chip bread pudding. Unfortunately, the camera seemed to have known the quality of what was photographed, the photo is totally blurred. Therefore, unfortunately, there is none. As a description it fits best: Totally oversweetened, sticky mass, which reliably closes any stomach.
What else can you say about the flight? A lot of turbulence. The crew wasn't quite my cup of tea either. I think one example is quite apt. The A 380 has quite a large area in front of the ridge, which was empty during the flight. When I wanted to go to the washroom (again, a tiny thing), I had to wait. Since everyone was asleep in the cabin, I waited behind the curtain in front of the door in the empty vestibule. Immediately a stewardess came in said iun such a sweet, purred voice, "Could you wait for me in front of the curtain?" Are we in kindergarten?
There was also breakfast. Delicious chia pudding.

OK, I'm kidding, it didn't taste very good.
Delicious Pancakes?

Unfortunately, neither. Rather so dough things in a sweet sauce with a caricature of strawberries.
Now to the positive: We arrived in London on time and I was also able to watch a movie. To sleep was rather difficult, but you can do that later.

Heathrow was a pure horror this time. Of course, we arrived in the satellite, so first ride the train. Then came the security check, one of the stupidest things ever. It all took forever and when it was our turn it beeped at a bag. The employee responsible for the follow-up control had probably been punitively transferred here, you could sole his shoes as he walked. After an eternity, he then put his hands in our bag. It was the amenity kit from the plane, OK, you could have guessed. By the way, we had 2, one of them had not bothered. So the dangerous gels were repacked and it went on.
Honestly: Alone this �tzende change with one of the worst security checks in the world is a reason to book direct flights in the future. Would have cost a few euros more, would have been on the trip also still no matter.
But now we went to the Concorde Room, this haven of total luxury. We sat down in the restaurant area and ordered breakfast.



Definitely better than the crap on board, but you certainly don't have to go there especially for that.

The best comes at the end? Not really, if you fly British Airways. That's where the fake business comes in. The flight was totally booked, to please us it went from the satellite.
The flight was actually a typical economy flight with a free middle seat (at least) and slightly better food.
The food wasn't that big of a deal, we've had better. Asian and regular vegetarian.

So that was the trip. It was nice to be in the USA again. Frankly, Miami impressed me the least of all the places I've been to so far. I won't be drawn back there so quickly.
I am also glad to have seen a little of the Caribbean. I always had the prejudice that it was very expensive and the quality was not comparable to Asia. Unfortunately, this has been confirmed. For what I paid, it could have been a little more.
Overall, however, it was nice and I'm glad to have gotten to know new things again.

I think this wins the FT award for the miserable sounding trip ever

That's a little bit too much honor.

Not a horror show certainly, but for a long trip there seemed to be a lot of situations where expectations were missed that should not have been. Price to performance ratio was too high.

Not to get too far OT on your thread, but I am currently in St Tropez and the prices are on par with restaurants in Los Angeles / Miami for sure. Maybe people spend more here on bottles of Champagne, but a lovely entree, main course and desert here would be about the same as what we pay for in Los Angeles, with generally better service.

Regarding the Aman, prices have already come way down. I almost booked last month before my travel changed and rooms were ~$1,700

Excactly. A nice vacation, but half the price (still a heavy price tag!) would have been more realistic.

Paris is still much more expensive than Miami regarding restaurants, C�te d�Azur in summer is maniac.

Clear enough, but spelled incorrectly.

I can't see it.

HUGE particular pet peeve of mine. Drives me insane. "Reserving" plain loungers.
Any hotel charging anywhere near these kinds of impossible rates needs to also have a deck large enough to accommodate loungers for the exact number of rooms booked at capacity, 2 per BR.
They need to either have those chairs out already, crack o dawn every morning, or be able to adjust the amount easily as per bookings.
Either that, or simply don't have a pool to begin with.
Anything in between either starts as a circus, or has a hi likelihood of becoming one quickly.
Guests setting alarms for 6:45am to throw a t-shirt/sunscreen/towel down on a chair to 'reserve' it, then returning to bed and sleeping til noon.
And that kind of circus will always be down to the hotel. Hoping for the best in human nature (while taking 4K a night from them) is not a strategy.

As a related - though far less infuriating - note, while both StR pools look decent enough, that family pool doesn't seem large enough.
Two or three 'families' bathing and "Marco Polo" games won't last more than a few milliseconds.

A++