#884950 by mrsw
07 Oct 2014, 12:57
My first go at the ex-EU fares, in Y this time, with BA. Ultimately the trip I wanted is between LHR and PEK, and tagging on BCN at the start, and CDG at the end had brought down the fare by £400. For the two of us, the saving of £800 was substantial enough to more than pay for a little trip to BCN, so we thought, why not! :X

The other quirk we noticed during the booking process is that as the BA website assumed that we were in Barcelona, there was no charge paying with a credit card. My VS black Amex was happy to do the honour. :D

This TR is for the first leg, which is the one we bought separately from BA after booking BCN- LHR-PEK-LHR-CDG. We managed to get it for less than £60 with BA including a checked-in luggage each, though with hindsight, one checked-in luggage between us would’ve been sufficient.

Our flight was bright and early at 6.40am from the North terminal. Although we live about 30 minutes away from both Gatwick and Heathrow, we much prefer to fly from Gatwick given the choice, as it’s easy to avoid the unreliable (or reliably slow) M25 and still make it in around the same time. However, this meant that we weren’t able to use the left luggage facilities at LHR which I wanted to try out, but fear not – I found a similar facility at BCN (see below), only with a bit more faffing around.

I should add here that we are having a lot of building work done over the 2 weeks where we’re away, so the night before and in the morning of the flight, there was a lot of moving things, last minute packing, sealing off doors etc going on. So much so that we didn’t get much sleep, and when the taxi turned up at 4.30am, we were running a little late, made worse by not being able to access our house key easily (as I had packed it neatly in a little bag inside another 2 bags). Anyhow, a few minutes after the taxi turned up, we were on our way. Thankfully the taxi driver, who is usually the chattiest driver ever, appeared to also be in a tired mode/grumpy mood (probably after having to wait for us after he was dragged out of bed early), and did not attempt too many conversations with us.

Half an hour later, we were at the terminal. We went straight to the bag drop for BA, and the lady at the counter was so smiley that she was positively laughing. Being used to the grumpy ground staff at LHR, I was somewhat surprised, and I have to say, her huge, and long-lasting smile was making me somewhat uncomfortable. Bag dropped promptly (at 22.9kg, well-packed as remarked by the happy agent), and boarding passes issued with, you guessed it, a huge smile. After we went on our way towards security, I turned around to look at the nice lady, and she was still watching us go with a big smile. I have to say, this bag drop experience has brightened up my day already.
The security queues were quite long, but well-organised into 4 lines. We waited around 15 minutes to go through, and after keeping ourselves entertained for a while (as our flight was shown as delayed) we went to our gate.

When we arrived at the gate around 6.45am, following two BA agents who walked in front of us, and there were already a number of passengers at the waiting area. We were told by the agents not to proceed to the waiting area, but to wait by them. One of the ladies then made a call to presumably someone at the airport/BA and said “we just started our shift at 6.30, and will start boarding now”, v( which made OH and I roll our eyes as we had just seen them turn-up at 6.45, and the shuttle bus has clearly been there for a while, ready to send us to the plane. All the seated pax were then asked to come out of the seating area to form a queue behind us to commence boarding. We were the first ones through, and stepped onto the bus promptly.

One thing I noticed was that there was a lack of magazines or newspapers at the waiting area, and as we didn’t board by a jetbridge, there wasn’t any selection elsewhere. I was a bit surprised by this, as I clearly remember reading magazines on short-haul BA routes previously, but wondered if it was because of it being a weekend service.

The plane itself was a very dated A320, clearly in need of a refurb. We had the extra legroom seats, and the leather cover for the seats in front was not in good state of repair.

Once on board, we were notified that the delay was due to a maintenance issue, and we would be delayed by half an hour or so as a result. Thankfully the issue was resolved fairly promptly, and we were on our way slightly behind schedule at 7.25.

The CC on board was fantastic. There was a nervous flyer sat near me, and the CC was very good at calming her down, and checking on her every so often. When breakfast came – croissant with cheese, amongst other things – I asked the CC whether there was an option without the cheese. Some of you may know that I am not a fan of cheese thousands of feet in the air, and you’ll see another mention of this in the TRs for the other sectors later on, but as this was just a cold slice of mild cheese, which can be easily taken out (though I don’t see why it needed the cheese in the first place), I didn’t have too much trouble with it, but wanted to see if there’s another option. The CC quietly informed me that they didn’t carry any other food options for the short-haul, and offered me her own museli, which she claimed that she wasn’t going to eat anyway! I was very touched by this, and politely declined her very kind offer, and said I was ok to just eat around the cheese. Later on after she’s finished serving the cabin, she came back with some mixed nuts from Club World, and gave them to me. :X How thoughtful.

There was also some Moma strawberry museli in yogurt, which looked and smelt very much like vomit :$ , but tasted passable.

After the meal and drinks service, I had a little snooze and shortly afterwards we landed at Barcelona. Again we didn’t use a jetbridge, and as the lovely warm air welcomed us when we stepped off the plane, we felt that our vacation has started.

Terminal 1 of BCN airport was looking quite sparkly, with a nice and modern feel to it. We did struggle a bit though with their luggage lockers (we didn’t want to drag our big case around Barcelona for 2 days), even with lots of guidance printed from the internet the day before. After half an hour or so, we managed to find it in the (empty) Intermodal lobby, at the lower level of The Plaza. At a modest €5.80 per 24 hours for a large locker, we happily dropped off our bag, and continued our weekend break at Barcelona.

More to come on the remaining sectors shortly. |:)
#884956 by hiljil
07 Oct 2014, 13:49
Thank you for your informative TR which I enjoyed reading.

I look forward to the next chapter ! :D
Virgin Atlantic

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 13 guests

Itinerary Calendar