It has been almost ten years since I last travelled with Virgin long before the days that I knew of Ciao existence, probably before I even knew about the existence of "tinternet" and on this trip I had little choice over the airline as the whole holiday was booked with Virgin Holidays. Given that it was a nine hour flight I was quite happy to be going with an airline that has a good safety record, is known to be customer service focused and being a scheduled airline would mean an extra inch or so of leg room.

Booking with Virgin was via the phone and the flight to Havana was out of Gatwick, not my favourite airport as it is a pain to get to and basically pretty crap as well. However on the plus side Virgin do make every effort to reduce the amount of time you have to spend in the airport on the day you fly, which is a good thing as the owners of Gatwick try to do everything possible to extend your stay but that is for another review. I took advantage of the fact that with Virgin you can check in online anytime between 24 hours and 2 hours before your flight departs. You will then be allocated your seat numbers (however these can get changed on the day of flight). All you need is your booking reference and your passports as they will collect personal information like that.

Our flight left on time on the outward journey but was forty five minutes late departing on the homeward journey however this we were told was due to strong head winds on the flight over. Overall both flights were well operated, the cabin itself was very clean as were the toilets and they were well maintained during the flights. On the return journey there was a distinct lack of in flight magazines which meant guessing what film was on which channel a bit of a lottery. When I enquired about getting one the flight attendant was super helpful explaining the shortage and the fact that the movies showing did not relate to the content anyway however she would locate me one, then she left never to be seen again.

The service on the flight was pretty good, they did run out of one of the meal options on the return flight by the time they got to us and the food was pretty standard although with a couple of nice touches. A GU dessert pot was yummy and my daughter loved the fact that she got a choc ice midway through the outbound flight. However she could not understand why she did not get one in the middle of the night flight home. Some kids are never satisfied.

On the whole Virgin run a pretty efficient operation. I'm not sure exactly what the price was like as the flight was part of a package however upgrades to premium economy were going to cost an additional £400 one way per person and the upgrade to first class was £1,400 both of which I declined. The in flight goody bag had comfort sock which I love to wear and also an eye mask which I found quite irritating to wear and I soon abandoned. The seats were as comfortable as they are likely to be, the fact that the head rest was adjustable helped get a decent sleeping position and for a shorty like me the leg room was fine. Flying is the one time I like being short and can look at the cramp six footers with a smug satisfaction.

Thanks for reading and rating my review.