The journey there…
Well where do I start, we left on Thursday morning to meet up at Mum and Dad’s at around 11am-ish to load the car and set off to Gatwick. It was earlier than expected, but everything was done and instead of waiting around at home, we decided to make our way. Picked up M&D, packed the car and set off. The M25 can be terrible at the best of times, but there are roadwork’s enroute and I really didn’t want to get caught up in them (I’d much rather be early and spend 4 hours in the airport than leave it to the last minute and rush). The journey to the airport was nice and smooth, no traffic. We called the valet parking people to meet us in 10 minutes. We arrived at the passenger drop off at c. 12.30pm, unloaded the car, and Fifi was taken away, none of that out of airport parking.
Dad had pre-booked assistance through the airport as Mum and Laura would find it nigh-on impossible to walk though. They’d found a wheel chair for Mum and unfortunately Laura was shaking, but there wasn’t another wheel chair. We were taken straight to the check-in desk, bypassing all of the queues… but we were over an hour too early, so the wheeled Mum over to the nearest cafe and told us to phone them at 2pm when the check-in opened. We enjoyed an nice coffee and Adam had a nutty croissant. At 2pm I phoned the assistance place and two wheel chairs came up this time. Again we went straight to the front of the check-in queue, checked in our bags and headed off for security. We bypassed the main queues and went through the special assistance line, straight through security and then escorted to a special “holding area” for disabled users with extra comfy seats and our own flight board.
We were given a pager and told that the airport buggy would pick up Laura and Mum when it was time to board the plane. Just enough time to get some drinks and check out Harrods, and after a nervous few minutes where the gate was opened and the buggy wasn’t there, finally Laura, Mum and Adam hopped on the buggy – There wasn’t enough space for Dad and I as they had to pick up another couple.
Dad and I walked briskly to the plane as we were told it was a good 10minute walk, at the gate the ladies and Adam were know where to be seen, “had they gone through?”; “were they still on their way?” we had no idea so went through boarding and then was told they hadn’t arrived yet. They had our hand luggage too. Eventually they arrived in the buggy, and the guy providing the assistance showed us all through the queue waiting to get on the plane with authoritative shouts of “Move to the right! Stand to the right”. We bypassed that queue and got to our seats – Pre-booked seats, on the very front row… Very comfortable with lots of leg room.
Now that is the way to travel through and airport [NOTE: I would much rather Laura and Mum were healthy and well and didn’t require assistance, but they are, unfortunately, not and they did]
The flight was smooth and we landed a little after we expected, walked off the plane, and expecting there to be a short walk, based on M&D’s previous experience, said that further assistance was not required… Well we / they were wrong, the walk off the plane was fairly steep and long, there was a further ramp and there was no way Laura and Mum would make the walk without needing a weeks rest to recuperate. So we asked for assistance and waited. We waited so long that Dad, Adam and I decided it would be best to go and, just in-case the bags had been off loaded, go and collect the bags. We got to passport control and had second thoughts, we should wait for them. We waited a while and in the end, I decided to go back for them, just in-case there was a special way down. At this point the police officer at the border came out of his little booth to tell me off – He didn’t speak very much English and spoke even less Spanish. I tried to indicate that I was worried where my Wife and Mother was and that they would be in wheel chairs, but that didn’t really come across, I think he realised I was waiting for someone, but was told I had to wait there and not go back up. Dad and Adam went through to rescue our bags. Eventually (about 5 minutes later) Laura and Mum arrived in wheel chairs being pushed down the ramps, and a look of understanding and a smile came across the police officers face – now he knew.
The bags hadn’t got to the carousel yet, after all of that, but we collected them eventually, and headed for the car rental – that must have taken a least an hour to make our way through the queue. After some confusion with the collection and drop off times, we finally made our way out of the airport and on to Club Del Carmen. We arrived about 11pm, checked in and went to bed…