That was return flights to Palma and one night in a little boutique hotel for about £80.00.
A few days before departure, I was regretting booking such a late flight from Palma back to Gatwick. Maximising time was great but I hate the schlep home on a Sunday night, and I reckoned I would get home at about midnight, with an early start the next morning.
I wondered casually if there were any other options home and discovered that BA had seats from Palma to London City (25 minutes from me) at a bargain fare.
I had flown this route beforeand really liked their generosity with the G&T…!
It was a no brainer, and, with my attitude to flying, decadant to book two flights home. I thought I’d decide on the day, but local transport in Mallorca all seemed to point to going the BA way.
Mallorca has been the most eye opening, and I suppose, pomposity-pricking destination I have been to. I was so snobby about it , I had no interest in going to an island full of high rise hotels and the bucket and spade brigade. (Let me tell you now there’s nothing wrong with going on a bucket and spade holiday!)
In a nutshell, the place has everything. Palma is a European city, with great shopping, an amazing cathedral, pavement cafes and bars and restaurants everywhere. It’s wonderful. Alcudia Old Town is more genteel – with some lovely hotels and bars and cafes which are mainly frequented by locals as it’s slightly off the tourist map. Alcudia ‘port’ is the beachy, partying bit, and just up the road you have the rather more upmarket Puerto do Pollensa, and again, inland Pollensa Town. There are various inland towns and villages and mountain ranges and hidden beaches and … I could go on and on. No wonder it’s popular. It’s good!
I have been to Mallorca three times in 15 months – apart from family, no other place I have been to has made me want to do that – and I’ve loved seeing other cities and I want to go back to them. There is just something perfect about Alcudia Old Town that suits me down to the ground.
Even in Alcudia on a mid-January evening, the town was buzzing. It was the Sant Antoni Festival – he is the patron saint of farm animals don’t you know?
The young man in the centre of the pic was doing an amazing job of conducting his band of drummers.
The noise of the drums filled the air, the smell of bonfires and fireworks heady to the senses !
I stayed out late, and then very late, realized I was starving and hadn’t eaten! That prompted a little Facebook update…
“That moment when it’s past 11pm, and you’ve realized you haven’t eaten… then you remember you’re in Spain…”
Everything was open. Another reason to love this place!!
I had a lite bite and a massive G&T at a local bar, then headed back to my hotel.
The next morning, I was woken by sunlight!
Breakfast the next morning was excellent, and the staff in the Can Simo hotel excellent.
I had a wander around the hotel – with a trip report in mind!
17th January. It was grey in London, I think.
The hotel owner asked if I would be around for Part 2 of the festival, later that day. Regrettably I would be heading back to the airport, with a mental note to book for longer next January.
Check out was completed, I had to run up to the room to grab the minibar menus they couldn’t remember the prices. But I didn’t feel at all put out, in fact, I felt like I was helping out a friend, such was the welcome and the ambience of that hotel.
Packing light meant I could wander around the town. It was market day in Alcudia.
A close up of this image is the background on my phone. And it always makes me think of the sun!
See?
Back to the market…
All this walking tired me out. Time for a restorative G&T.
Oh but that sun!
The departure of my bus was imminent, so I headed to the bus stop. Taking a few last pics of Alcudia.
The buses in Mallorca are very punctual, and soon I was sitting, sadly, on a coach, taking me home.
The coach from Alcudia stops at one little town, Inca, so is one stop to Palma.
It’s comfortable and good value.
And spotless.
I had a few hours before my flight so chose to spend some of that time in a bar in Palma, just by the bus/coach/train/metro station.
I crossed the road to the airport bus, catching that last of the winter sun.
As an avid flyer, are you like me? Checking your booking every five minutes?
It was during one of these routine checks that the BA app threw up an upgrade. Thanks to the good people of FlyerTalk, I knew this to be a POUG – a Proactive Online Upgrade. Club Europe for a supplement of EUR 79.00.
It took about 3 seconds to rationalize and justify this and for my heart to offer my brain an exchange rate of EUR 1 = GBP 0.50 and I paid for the upgrade. Club Europe it was! And then my brain kicked in with the non-refundable Speedy Boarding/Seating fee I’d paid easyJet and how stupid was I? I find myself telling that side of the brain to shut up quite often.
BA don’t do mobile boarding passes on this route (booo!) so I had to collect this from the airport. It’s interesting how, just a few years ago, queuing up to collect a boarding pass was the most normal thing in the world! Now I do it with gritted teeth!
It was printed on Iberia paper and the staff member told me about lounge access. I headed to the Formentor Lounge.
This is the entrance…
Can you tell I had a trip report in mind?
Some pasta salads… not particularly appetizing. But I sampled it for this report and it turned out to be quite tastey.
Also note SEQ 001 bagged. ☺
A meager slection of savory snacks… this was replenished.
And some sweet treats.
Lounge Time!
The flight was on time and the gate was nearby.
What can I say? I love Embraers.
However, even BA acknowledge that the legroom and seating config in economy on their Embraers is identical to Club Europe (look for some small print on their website.). So this was about the Tier Points, and crockery.
A few things really impressed me about this flight.
A menu to start with! A menu! And every time I ordered a bottle of Champagne, they wrapped a little tissue around the bottle.
This menu needed further examination.
A lovely touch, wasn’t it?
Now, by the time they got to Row 3, they’d run out of fish. I didn’t mind, I wasn’t going to have it. So I was served Steak and Chips. Try as I might, I could not make this main course look attractive through the medium of photography.
And I won’t be able to do so with prose. The chips were soggy. I would ask why serve such a thing if you can’t get them right. The steak was tough-ish. The veggies were lovely. And that, in the top right, was Chef’s Signaure Desert. One of the nicest things I have ever eaten on a plane. It was a beautifully moist cheesecake, so more-ish and easily the best thing on that quite substantial tray.
IT’s not happening is it?
You are rewarded with such stunning views en route to London City.
At this point we were then hurriedly handed our apertifs…
Fair enough…! I think they forgot about it. Well, better late than never, eh?
UK Border at London City was fairly quick, but I do have issues with the automatic gates – they simply don’t deal with human behavior very well, so I was delayed by someone who couldn’t understand that the right arrow pointing in an n shape was telling her to get out. One person was supervising about 8 gates so it added about 5 unnecessary minutes to my departure from the airport.
Small fry really, but imagine all these pinch points – gone!
All in all, another very satisfying flight from BA CityFlyer.
