London and 14-Day Arctic Circle Crossing: Edinburgh Evening Stay Holland America Cruise: Day 1 Flight from Orlando to London May 12, 2025

 My husband K and I had been trying to move our body clocks in an effort to get on London time before leaving today. Thus, we were up at 2:30 am EDT. However, I'd gotten just under 5 hours of sleep, because I'd forgotten to blow the hose of my CPAP machine out after having washed it earlier in the day. Hopefully, that will make it easier to sleep on the plane.

I had planned to go to water aerobics this morning to make up for sitting on the plane tonight. Unfortunately, we were having storms this morning and had had some last night. I got a message from the instructor that the chlorine levels were way off, which made sense with all the rain, and class was canceled. The continued threat of rain prevented even taking a walk. 

At 2 pm, K's friend K came to pick us up. We arrived at Orlando International Airport at 2:40. He dropped us off near Delta, because that was who we'd booked with. However, since Virgin Atlantic was actually doing the flying, we were sent from the B side to the A side. We went to the Virgin kiosk and an employee was very helpful. After getting the luggage tag, she sent us over to the special desk for their upper class seats, probably because we'd paid extra for premium seats to get leg room.

We had to wait for an unorganized traveler to get herself pulled together and then it was our turn. The clerk asked about our trip and said she'd been to London just to run in races. We encouraged her to visit as a tourist.

By 3:20, we'd gone through security thanks to our TSA Precheck status. We rode the tram out to the gates and K stopped to spend $20 on an Aunt Annie's pretzel for us to split and a mango lemonade for me. By 3:35, we were seated at gate 96 and enjoying our snack.

Virgin, or maybe Sir Richard Branson, likes to name its planes. Ours was to be "Soul Rebel".

Because of our premium seats, we were in Group 2 for boarding and told to use the priority lane. They used facial recognition machines to let us board the plane. When we boarded, I told the flight attendant our seats and she waved us to the left. We found that seats 25 D and E were to the front of the plane, and middle section seats, which didn't thrill me.

At 5:20, we were seated in our seats for VA 136 to London Heathrow and were immediately offered beverages, which came in real glasses. I chose Proseco, while K asked for orange juice, which was surprisingly dark in color.

   

At 5:53, the plane pushed back from the gate. At 6:07, we took off and I started watching the film Saturday Night about the start of NBC's Saturday Night Live. It was really good.

 

Soon, they brought a bag of things like small chips plus a soda for a snack.

 Around 7:45 dinner was served with real silverware and glasses. We'd found menus in the seat pocket and both wound up with the same meal. Everyone got a soft bread roll and butter plus a green salad with portobello mushrooms (I counted one) and Italian dressing. Our main was pork stew, pamesan mashed potatoes and roasted baby carrots. Dessert was chocolate mousse cake, which looked more like pie. There was even a cheese course with brie and prairie breeze aged cheddar with grapes and a dried apricot. It was quite a spread and tasted good.

 

After the movie, I chose classical music and tried to get some sleep. I even resorted to a face mask, which I tried putting over my glasses. But, that made the glasses too tight. So, I hooked the glasses in my shirt to be reached easily. 

Even with the extra leg room, the night was really rough due to leg cramps. I slept for about 1/2 hour after the movie and then fell asleep after 11 pm.