First of all, Virgin America’s website kicks ass.  It blew my mind.  I put in the origination and the destination and it gave me the lowest prices that day and several days ahead and behind.  That clued me in to the right day I should fly to save literally thousands of dollars.  The UI was spectacular, the graphic design was professional and slick, the information architecture was logical and intuitive and the features were exactly what I needed, plus a few that I loved without ever having thought of them.

Great work to whomever designed that site.

The airplane was a nice experience as well.  It had black lights, sort of like a club, like a disco.  The seats were new and about the size of the Jetblue seats. (Never enough).  There were several innovations.

1. Each seat has a DC electric plug.  I thought this was brilliant and so simple.  We used the laptop to watch a DVD and the battery didnt die by Act III.  Every airline should do this.  However, it was in a really awkward position.  I would never have known about if I didn’t notice a billboard that talked about it.  It should be mentioned by the intro movie.
2. The intro movie.  It was animated with 3D rendering by someonee with real style.  It was gorgeous.  Absolutely phenomenal.  The quality was world class.  PLUS, it was entertaining, informative and engaging.  I thought it was perfect.
3. The entertainment system.  TV (dish), Games (Crappy games, but still they were games), instant messenger to other seats, movies on demand ($7 was too expensive, I would have paid $2).  The controller was elegant and usable.  The kids figured out the games right away.  They had doom.  Lots of blood.  Katie would not approve.  However, this is the coolest entertainment system on any flight I have ever seen by a wide margin.  So it’s not perfect, big deal.  It’s a 100x better than anything else.
4. Map.  it used Google Maps so you could zoom in.  It worked a little slow, but it was still better than what most airlines has, which is nothing.

Overall, it was an A+ experience.  Great job, from the website to the checkin (handled us nicely) to the airplane to the entertainment system.  Excellent.  Of course, I still want more for less, but the price was right and the experience kicked ass.  (very inexpensive overall actually)

I give a strong thumbs up to Virgin America for this trip.