This year it’s Majorca and a resort on the North East coastline called C’an Picafort. We’re booked on a Thomson “Gold” holiday package which restricts bookings to over 16’s only and provides 3 star accommodation and above.
The first thing to overcome this year is the 6.50 am flight from Gatwick to Palma, something I hadn’t dared think about until last night. Emma’s boyfriend Dan is coming with us again this year and so he stayed the night with us. We intended to leave at 4 am this morning so planned to get up around 3 am. I wasn’t sure what to do really. To go to bed or just stay up. I couldn’t decide. Dan decided he would stay up, Emma and Pauline decided to go to bed. I decided I’d wait and see how I felt when the time came. As it turned out I was the first one to go to bed after deciding I’d be a mumbling wreck if I didn’t get any sleep at all before travelling.
As we’re flying with a charter and not a scheduled flight our luggage allowance is quite restrictive. Cases have to be no more than 15 Kg and hand luggage no more than 5 Kg. You can’t have a combined total for all of you; each individual piece of luggage must conform to the restriction. Presumably to stop those sensitive baggage handlers from pulling a muscle I suppose. Every year when we pack, my case is always reasonably light and roomy but soon gets full up and heavy with stuff that Pauline keeps chucking in when I’m not looking. The only way we’ve found to weigh the cases is to use the bathroom scales and subtract weight without case from weight with case. This seemed to be fairly accurate until I checked Pauline and Emma’s cases and found Pauline’s to be about 17 Kg and Emma’s to be right on the 15 Kg mark.
“Look at this,” I said, as I stood on the scales, “This case is - Jesus, I weigh fourteen and a half stone. How do I weigh that much? Last time I weighed myself, about five years ago, I was only twelve and a half stone. These scales can’t be right. If these scales are wrong we’ll never get an accurate weight for the cases will we? I’m not going through the humiliation of that couple at the airport a few years back who had to redistribute the contents of their cases in order to be allowed to check them in – and they had to do it on the floor in front of the check-in desk too.” I was beginning to worry.
Pauline said “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right, there’s always a bit of leeway and they don’t weigh hand luggage anyway.”
“But what if they do?” I said, “You don’t know that for sure.”
So by the time I woke up at 3 am this morning after dreaming about being ordered to empty the contents of my case into a waste bin on the airport floor I felt like I hadn’t had a wink of sleep all night and would have been better off staying up after all. At least if I’d stayed up I could have spent my time constructively, trying to fix those damn lying scales.
Flight was delayed slightly while we waited for one couple who eventually boarded, all in a fluster with the woman crying for some reason. Probably had her case contents tipped in the bin at the check-in I shouldn’t wonder. Uneventful journey once we’d turfed out an old couple who were sitting in our seats. Jesus, it’s not that difficult to figure out is it? This has happened to us before and I still can’t believe how stupid some people can be.
Disembarking at Palma airport involves a twenty minute walk from the plane to the luggage reclaim and after not much sleep this seemed to go on forever. We finally made it, collected our cases and in the arrivals hall started to look for a Thomson rep. The first set of automatic revolving doors to take us out to where all the reps were waiting was not working but it did revolve if you walked into the doors and just pushed them manually. I started to do this when two airport guards came rushing across to me and shouted, “No senor no!” and ushered me out and pointed along to another set of doors which we could just see in the distance. Finally got through the second set of doors only to find our Thomson rep was down the end where we’d just come from waiting for us on the other side of the doors that weren’t working.
So it was onto the coach and blimey, look it’s that old couple who were sitting in our seats. Let’s hope they’re not staying at our hotel, they’ll probably be in our room by mistake if we’re not careful.
The coach transfer took about 90 minutes to the hotel and we arrived around mid-day.
Uh-oh they are staying at our hotel and judging by the way the woman is behaving; they’ve been here before too. As we walked into hotel reception the woman kept saying, “Hello, how are you? Nice to see you again” to every member of staff that walked by. It was interesting to see the staff suddenly stop and with genuine politeness start to smile and chat animatedly with the woman until she’d gone. It was only then that they’d look at one another as if to say, “Who the flipping hell was that?”
The thing is, the more I watched this couple, who had obviously travelled before and looked to be seasoned travellers, the more I kept thinking how on earth would they make the mistake of getting into the wrong seats on the plane? Were they really really stupid? Do they do that every time they fly? Was it deliberate? Do they do it just for the hell of it?
Checked in. The hotel consists of a number of three storey blocks built around a central pool and entertainment area. The blocks are allocated letters. We’re on the first floor in Cell Block H room 208. The main shopping and nightlife areas are about twenty minutes walk away and we’re up the opposite end to all that in the quiet end of the resort with just the usual bars and restaurants if we need them. That suits us fine.
As we went into dinner tonight there was a poster on the door saying it was a “Special American Night”. We were greeted at the door by the head waiter who showed us to an empty table. It’s a buffet dining hall so it’s the usual all you can eat until your stomach explodes sort of thing. We sat down and watched what was going on. American night eh? Well the staff had made an effort of sorts. The head waiter, who was the spitting image of Placido Domingo by the way, was wearing a pair of jeans, a check shirt and a stars and stripes scarf while the waitresses were all wearing jeans, check shirts and stars and stripes scarves. In this sea of mediocrity one waitress stood out above all the rest by wearing something different, an Indian princess outfit. She’ll be the one to get my tip at the end of the holiday, I thought to myself, it’ll probably be ‘next time don’t wear an Indian princess outfit until you’ve shaved your armpits’.
As for the American themed decorations, the only word for them really was – pathetic. A few red, white and blue garlands were dangling over the buffet counters and some posters of things like the Statue of Liberty, an American Indian and a cowboy were hanging from the ceiling. (A poster not a real one).
All of a sudden a waitress came bustling up to our table and in a Northern accent said something like “Eh oop, would you like a drink?” Bloody hell. All this way for a Spanish American evening and she’s not even Spanish or American. What’s going on?
Spent the rest of the dinner marvelling at the way Placido Domingo, with apparent ease, could send people to tables that weren’t ready or were already occupied. It seemed to all come so naturally to him that I began to think he might even be the real Placido Domingo putting in a bit of moonlighting. By the end of the evening I was convinced. It was definitely him.
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