Overview
After 2 weeks in Italy, touring Rome, Florence, Venice, and Siena, it was finally time to head back home to California. Here is the summary of the flights I took on this trip.
United 787-9 SFO-LHR: https://flight-report.com/en/report/29301/United-UA901-San-Francisco-SFO-London-LHR
Brussels A320 LHR-BRU: no review
Brussels A319 BRU-FCO: no review
Brussels A319 VCE-BRU: you are here
Brussels A320 BRU-LHR: https://flight-report.com/en/report/29304/Brussels-Airlines-SN2093-Brussels-BRU-London-LHR
British A380 LHR-SFO: https://flight-report.com/en/report/29305/British-Airways-BA287-London-LHR-San-Francisco-SFO
This first flight of three was on Brussels Airlines from Venice Marco Polo to Brussels.
The airport in Venice is quite small. However, since it is a small airport, getting there was quite easy. Check in and security were very quick and efficient.
Marco Polo Lounge
Then on to the Marco Polo Club, which is one of the two lounges in Venice Marco Polo. The other one is a Skyteam only lounge, given that Venice is an Alitalia hub. When I walked into the lounge. it was quite enormous. The lounge has lots of seating areas, including a private relaxation room, as well as a seating area with Ipads, private cubicles, a TV room, and an outdoor smoking area. Each seat has power and USB ports, as well, and the lounge has pretty good spotting views as well, but given it was super dark, I could only see one plane. The lounge has internet access too, so I was able to watch NBA recaps and check NFL news
The extensive seating areas in the Marco Polo Club
The Marco Polo Club also has a buffet with quite a few eating options, too. This was breakfast, so they had things such as crossaints, bagels, but also things like focaccia and empanadas. I really loved the empanadas, as they were with spinach and ricotta cheese. In fact, I loved them so much that I ate about five of them. There were also a lot of drinking options, including sodas, coffee, energy drinks, still and sparkling water, etc.
The extensive food & drink options in the Marco Polo Club
For a small airport, the Marco Polo Club in Venice is quite amazing. With extensive seating areas, internet access, private rooms, a tv room, and very easy access, it is well worth your time to come here early and relax in this lounge before your flight from Venice Airport.
After having lots of fun at the lounge, it was time to board our flight. Since VCE doesn't have enough gates to support the flights it gets, we had to walk down a staircase at the gate in order to take a bus to our plane on a remote stand. Since it was really foggy and cold in Venice, it wasn't that nice of an experience. However, the benefit of a bus is that you get to see planes from down below. I saw lots of Alitalia, Air France, EasyJet, KLM, Lufthansa, and Swiss narrowbodies before finally arriving to our plane.
KLM Embraer 190 VCE
We soon arrived at our Brussels Airlines A319-100 registered OO-SSK, first delivered to the now defunct Sabena Airlines in October 2000, and leased by Brussels Airlines in March 2007.
Brussels A319 VCE
Upon boarding the plane, you really feel its age when you see how basic the cabin is. It is an all economy configuration, with 141 seats in a 3-3 configuration. The seat back has no entertainment system whatsoever, and only has a few magazines.
In my previous United report, I mentioned how my favorite thing about United was its IFE. Well, that's also one thing I will give to them over their European star alliance counterparts. With their private screening using their app, you still can watch movies and tv even on planes that don't have seatback entertainment. That is something that most Lufthansa, Swiss, SAS, and Brussels Airlines narrowbodies don't have, so this looked to be a very boring flight.
Upon sitting in the seat, I felt that it was super tight and restrictive. The legroom, however, wasn't bad at all. The flight didn't take that long to board, but we pushed back about 10 min late and we were pretty quickly into the air. As it was dark outside, there weren't many very good views. I spent about 40 min reading some of the inflight magazines, and I tried to sleep a little bit too. Soon we are about to make our descent into Brussels. The main flight attendant announces the gates for Brussels Airlines connections, including our flight to LHR. It's quite a nice thing how they told us our gates, making it really convenient for passengers. We landed in Brussels at 8:10, on-time.
We did have to go through security and passport control, but that was very quick and easy.
