Review of the Year 2012

Please excuse me a self-indulgent blog to begin the new year.  The top ten most hit blog pages in 2012 on my Travel Blog have mostly surprised me but then I don’t understand how search engines work.  I say hit blog pages rather than read because I am neither conceited enough of sufficiently naive to claim that a hit equals a read.

In 2011 the blog recorded 151,493 hits and the upward trend continued until May when there were 17,845 in one month and I was optimistic that this number was just going to keep going up but then it stopped and fell back and has never recovered.  I have finished the year with 170,900 hits which is an increase of 13%.

A reason for this may be that I have been removing old posts and archiving them in a separate blog called ‘Another Bag, More Travel’.  The main blog was running out of space so being a skinflint and not wanting to pay for extra space this was my cunning solution.  This blog has recorded 43,600 hits so if I add them together then the annual increase on my travel blog pages is increased to 43% which is much more respectable.

This however is nowhere near as good as performance on my memories blog ‘New Light through Old Windows’ which has increased by 84% from 100,671 views in 2011 to 185,700 in 2012.

These are the Top Ten blogs of 2012:

No. 1 (for the second year running)

Norway, Haugesund and the Vikings.  

I travelled to Haugesund in January 2011 and visited a Viking monument and blogged about it.  This post has had 14,755 hits which is over 10,000 more than the post in second place.  Over 9,000 hits have been recorded from the single word ‘Vikings’ in various search engines!  I have concluded that this is because there are a lot of people using the search engines to find content about the Minnesota Vikings American Football Team and they are probably disappointed when they come across my page about a wintery day spent next to the North Sea in Norway. Without any shame I have exploited this opportunity by adding a paragraph about the Minnesota Vikings.

No. 2

Onyx UK and an Inappropriate Visit to the Moulin Rouge

Straight in at no. 2 with 4,416 hits.  I have written a few times about my recollections of working in waste management in the private sector in the 1990s.  All of the posts manage a respectable number of hits but this one gets the most.  I don’t suppose for one minute that people are interested in my stories of mismanagement, incompetence and rubbish collection but they do like to read about dancing on a nightclub stage in Paris.

No. 3

Krakow, Wieliczka Salt Mine

Dropping a place from last year at No 2 with 4,342 hits. I posted this in April 2010 after returning from a visit to Krakow in Poland.  It was a good trip but I am not sure why so many people would hit on it.  It is not as interesting as my trip to Auschwitz or the Crazy Mike Communist Tour.

No. 4

Norway, Europe’s most Expensive Country

3,975 hits and up from eighth to fourth place  This was a second blog about my trip to Haugesund in January 2011. It contains some interesting facts and figures which might explain the number of hits that it has received but I am not really convinced that this is the reason unless top European economists are using it for research purposes!

No. 5

Mount Vesuvius

3,326 hits and a second year in the Top Ten and up two places.  A bit of a surprise because this is the account of a day trip to Mount Vesuvius whilst on a holiday to Sorrento in 1976 with my dad.  From my memories of the same holiday I posted several blogs about visits to Capri, Naples, Pompeii, The Amalfi Drive and Rome but these have only achieved a handful of hits between them.

No. 6

Pula, Croatia

2,916 hits – twice as many as 2011.  A bit of a mystery to me how this one gets so many visits.  I have blogged two or three times about Roman Amphitheatres – Rome, Arles, Merida, Segobriga and about larger Croatian cities at Dubrovnik and Split but this one gets the hits and I don’t know why?  The Pula is the national currency of Botswana so perhaps they are intended as exchange rate enquiries?

No. 7

Royal Garden Party

2,625 hits and staying in the Top Ten despite dropping 3 places from last year at no. 4.  This one has always been popular especially around the Spring and Summer when invitations to the Royal Garden Party are going out and when people are wondering how to get one or what to wear if they have one.

No. 8

Travel Tips when Flying Budget Airlines

1,800 hits and new this year.  I first wrote on this subject in 2009 and it immediately started getting hundreds of hits and then in 2011 it just stopped completely.  I reviewed and reposted it and changed the title from the specific ‘Travel Tips when Flying Ryanair’ to the more general title that it has now and hey presto the hits started coming again.

No. 9

Onyx UK and the Dog Poo Solution

The third new entry in the Top Ten this year with 1,7066 hits and the second post about life in the Waste Management industry.  Some people have accused me of writing crap but others clearly like to read about it!

No. 10

Andrew – The About Page

The final new entry this year with 1,358 hits and which demonstrates the importance of an About page.

If you have read one of these posts or any of the 921 others on my site ‘Have Bag, Will Travel’, then Thank you very much!  I guess it proves that George Bailey (It’s A Wonderful Life) was right when he said:“The three most exciting sounds in the world are anchor chains, plane motors and train whistles.”  

Dropping out of the Top Ten this year were: The Colossus of Rhodes, Cofete Beach, Spartacus the Gladiator and Love Locks on the Ponte Vecchio

Weekly Photo Challenge: Thankful

Low Cost Airlines…

In the 1970s and the 1980s for most people it was only really possible to travel if you used the services of a High Street Travel Agent because only they had the necessary network of connections to the big holiday companies and overseas hotels.  And then the Web came along and opened up vast new horizons.  Suddenly it was possible to delve into previously unknown dimensions and start to think about the unthinkable.  Arranging your own overseas holidays directly and bypassing the travel agents and their 10% commission (possibly more, I don’t know).

That was all well and good but how was one to get to these new locations and the opportunities that were opening up?  The answer came thanks to Michael O’Leary and Ryanair.  Low cost air travel!  That was what I was waiting for and thanks to St Michael that is what now makes European travel available to us all.  I like the cheap flights and have set out to take advantage of them for as long as they are available and see as much of Europe as I possibly can.

Morocco, Riad Layali Fez

We travelled to Fez with Ryanair on a late afternoon flight and I am certain that they have crammed in even more seats onto the aircraft because there was barely enough room to turn the pages of an A5 book let alone a broadsheet newspaper that they sold me so I tried to sleep and managed this for about an hour of the three and a half hour flight and after that had to try and amuse myself as best as possible for the rest of the cramped ordeal.

The landing at Fez airport  was delayed but there was no explanation for this but at least Ryanair couldn’t play their ‘arrived on time’ fanfair’.  When we stepped from the plane at about half past seven we were greeted with an unexpected chill blast which cut through our clothing into our flesh and meant that we had to turn our jacket collars up and button up our coats against the wind because the temperature was dangerously close to zero and even though it was December this surprised us.

There was a lot of congestion at passport control and an entry form to fill in which was probably the worst designed official form that I have ever been faced with.  Despite dealing with all this bureaucratic nonsense however the queues actually went down very quickly and when it was our turn to be processed we were given our unique identity number which was theatrically stamped into our passports and waved through to where a supervisor checked them for a second time presumably to make sure it had been done properly by the first official.

Before travelling I had read some advice that said watch out for taxi drivers in Morocco who will gladly overcharge unsuspecting tourists.  That is no different from anywhere else in the world of course but I was mindful of that and took the second piece of advice which said when arriving for the first time it was advisable to take a pre-booked shuttle service because finding places for the first time and in the dark can be difficult.  At €30 it was a bit expensive but our driver, Abdul, was waiting for us as promised in the arrivals hall and he quickly loaded our bags and set off for the city just twenty kilometres away.

The traffic was mad and so was Abdul as he carved his way through the rush hour traffic coping brilliantly at roundabouts with the ludicrous French driving rule of priorité à droite where vehicles from the right always have priority at junctions and roundabouts and which was evidently still the norm here even though the French themselves have seen the sense of virtually abandoning it in their own country.  There was no real lane discipline that I could make out with drivers simply filling any available space that opened up in front of them and the thirty minute journey was one extended game of ‘chance’ where drivers simply waited to see whose nerve would fold and who would yield first.  We flashed past motorbikes and donkeys pulling wooden carts, pushbikes and pedestrians and at one point even encountered a camel train.

As he drove he pointed out the tourist must-see sites along the way and then took us through a narrow gate into a busy road with small shops on one side and a high wall on the other that turned out to be a school building that would be overrun with children the next day.  He parked the car and unloaded our bags and suddenly darted into a side road, no more than an alley really with an uneven surface with houses and shops along one side, then through a dog-leg turn and into a narrower lane and by now we were glad that we had taken the shuttle bus option because we would never have found this place by ourselves that’s for sure.

Another turn and then a dead end with a wooden door in the wall but nothing to indicate that this might be our destination.  He rang the bell and someone inside approached and let us in.  Here was a complete contrast to the medley of noise and confusion outside with an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity in a tiny eight room guest house with an inner courtyard and a swimming pool and tables set out for dinner. This was the Riad Layali and it was immediately charming and delightful.  We had chosen well and we were introduced to the staff, served mint tea and allocated our rooms.

We filled in another official form which seemed to serve no purpose other than to confirm what we had said on the entry form but the staff insisted that it was important because they had to register us at the police station tomorrow.

We had selected a Riad for our accommodation because we wanted to stay inside the walls of the old towns rather than in the modern corporate hotels of the new city on the other side of the walls. The Layali looked perfect and had good guest reviews and we were not disappointed.  We had excellent rooms on the first floor with internal balconies overlooking the pool, nicely furnished bedrooms and big bathrooms.

As it was our first night we had chosen to eat at the Riad this evening and in the courtyard a table had been prepared for us so after we had moved in  we made our way to the table and settled down for evening meal.  Being in an Arab Muslim country we had been concerned about the availability of beer and wine and had brought some with us just in case but, and I don’t want to sound like an alcoholic here, we were relieved to find that the Layali had a licence to serve drink so we ordered the local varieties and then had a first meal of Moroccan salad, chicken tagine and fruit desert.  To be honest it was a bit disappointing and not nearly as good as we had had in Marrakech a year previously but we ate it anyway and washed it down with the beer and wine which tasted almost illicit being here in a Muslim country.

It had been a long day and there was a lot to do tomorrow so we didn’t stay up late but went to bed looking forward to a good night’s sleep.  Unfortunately no one told us about the Adhan which is the Islamic call to prayer, recited by a man called the Muezzin at various times of the day and starting it seems in the middle of the night.  In total the Adhan is called out in every mosque five times a day, traditionally from a minaret, summoning Muslims for mandatory prayers and the main purpose behind the multiple loud pronouncements of every mosque is to make available to everyone an easily understood summary of Islamic belief.  In the old days this would have been done by shouting from the highest window by the man with the loudest voice (like Brian Blessed perhaps) but now it is done with the help of loudspeakers and although Kim was oblivious to it all there was no way that I could sleep through this.

Travel Tips When Flying Budget Airlines

I am always interested and thoroughly bemused to read the postings and message boards about Public Enemy No. 1 – Michael O’Leary and Ryanair.

Despite the fact that over forty million people fly with Ryanair every year, it has been voted the world’s most disliked airline and  subject of more complaints than any other airline in the EU. The BBC has reported that 56% of respondents said Ryanair caused “the biggest headaches” for air travelers and 60% of all complaints to Ireland’s Commission for Aviation Regulation are about Ryanair.  This is so unfair!  If people want a flight for 1p what realistically do they expect.  I read somewhere that the airline works on a profit margin of £5 per passenger so naturally, common sense says that somewhere along the line there has to be some additional charges for passengers.

One of the biggest complaints is about hidden extras and Ryanair must have an office full of staff dreaming up the next scam but they are not alone because all low cost airlines do exactly the same thing.  Outwitting the scammers is all part of the fun of booking a Ryanair flight and here are my top tips:

Find the cheapest flight in the first place.  The best way to do this is to set an evening aside to search the web site for the very best deals.  This takes some time because Ryanair don’t make this easy; the web site is awful and there is no site facility for prompting the cheapest flights so you just have to keep speculating with dates and destinations until something interesting pops up.  And unless you really do want somewhere specific then be prepared to go anywhere because this is where some of the real bargains are.  In 2006 I went to Pula in Croatia for £15 return and then to Friedrichshafen in Germany for £13, both times including all the taxes and fees.  I had never heard of these places before I flew but they were both excellent places to visit.  Later I went to Santander in Spain for £10 and  my cheapest ever deal for £8.02 return to Baden-Baden in Germany (and that included the rip-off £8.00 credit card booking fee!)

Don’t take hold luggage.  This saves almost £40 on a return flight and with 10 kilograms allowed free as cabin baggage this is a much more sensible option.  Let’s face it most of us take far too much luggage with us when we go away for a couple of days anyway, I know I have taken clothes with me that I have never worn and I have been working hard to make sure that I now only take what I know I will need rather than a bag full of contingency items.  Also if you take hold luggage you have to queue up in a rugby scrum to get your bags checked in and this a complete no-brainer because what sane person would pay to spend an hour in a queue when they could be in the bar instead?

Don’t buy a Priority Boarding Pass.  This is a complete con and saves another £12 or so on the return flight.  Think about it sensibly for a moment, there is a seat for everyone on board anyway, have you ever seen anyone standing on an airline flight? No of course not.  All of the seats are exactly the same and an average flight is about two hours.  How can it possibly matter where you sit?

Don’t buy travel insurance from the Airline.  I am not suggesting that you don’t buy travel insurance at all just shop around a bit because there are much better deals available elsewhere.

Don’t exceed your baggage allowance.  If you really must book in hold luggage you need to be really careful about this because going overweight is a real dumb thing to do, the penalty is extortionate and they are really, really strict on this because it is a fantastically good earner.  If when your bags are weighed and the allowance is exceeded my advice is to take some clothes out of the bag and wear them instead.  This might be a bit uncomfortable for a few minutes and make you look fat but it’s worth remembering that you don’t pay excess baggage charges for being obese!   Alternatively just throw them away and replace them when you get back home.

Don’t buy food and drink on board.  Have a good breakfast at home before you set off and have a drink in the duty free bar before flying.  I agree that this one might be a bit more difficult but bear in mind that Ryanair now charge nearly £3 for a cup of tea!  That’s a ¼ of a litre of lukewarm water and a cheap tea bag.  You can probably get about 200 tea bags for £3 at a Supermarket, even more if you go to Aldi!

Don’t queue up too early and rush to go through the departure gate.  This one doesn’t save you any money but it can really piss people off because this is about getting the first seat on the plane, even those you have rashly purchased priority boarding con cards.  While everyone pushes and shoves about in the queue it is much less stressful to hang about at the back and go through the gate last, now, admittedly this only really works when there is a bus transfer to the plane, but get on the bus last and stand by the door and then purposefully get off first when the doors are opened and without looking left or right at the moaning minnies on either side be one of the first on board the aircraft.  This really gets people complaining I can tell you especially when they have been standing on that bus for five or ten minutes or so.

Once on board try and get a seat in the first available row because this does have a bit more legroom.  If the plane isn’t full it is normal practice to stop passengers sitting in the first few rows to balance up the weight in the plane but still take the first available row because once the aircraft is airborne it is possible to move into these bigger leg room seats for the duration of the flight.  This is guaranteed to get people really worked up!

Always sit down in an aisle seat, spread yourself out and don’t make eye contact with other passengers looking for a seat because this deters them from climbing over you to get to the window seat.  If the plane isn’t full there is a good chance that you will have an empty seat next to you and a lot more personal space.  This one works especially well when there are two of you because it makes it doubly difficult for people to push past.

Whatever you do, do not sit next to children.  I realise that you cannot prevent them sitting close by if they get on after you but by looking as child unfriendly as possible this can deter parents from sitting next to you with their loved ones.  The problem is that there is nothing for them to do you see so they quickly become bored and a pain in the ass to fellow travellers.  If you fly with a full price airline kids get fun packs and crayons and when they get fed up with that there are cartoons on the in flight TV to amuse them but with Ryanair all there is to read is the emergency evacuation procedure stuck on the back of the seat in front and that doesn’t keep a child amused for very long.

Keep an eye out for lost loose change.  Because the seats are so cramped a lot of people spill coins from their trouser pockets when they buy food and drink and they are quite unaware of it.  When you leave the plane look carefully on the floor and at the backs of the seats and you will be surprised just how often you find money.  I once paid £20 for a return flight to Riga and I found £2, that’s a 10% discount on the fare.

Let’s be honest we all know that Ryanair have got to pay for the cost of flying somehow and zero charge flights are just a bit of a gimmick.  These simple tips will make flying with Ryanair a lot more rewarding and might help reduce the unjustified number of complaints that are made.  I hope so.

Thumbs up for Sixt Rent-a-Car

Thumbs down for Ryanair Transaction Charges

The Ryanair Sleep

Ljubljana, The Wettest Capital in Europe

It was Christmas market time again and by undertaking detailed research of the flight schedules and destination options there was an opportunity to visit two neighbouring countries by flying to and staying in Ljubljana in Slovenia and whilst there taking a day trip to Klagenfurt over the border in Austria.

Read the full story…

Norway, Haugesund and the Hotel Amanda

We were flying north in Europe for the first time since Iceland in 2007 and after we crossed the North Sea the plane approached the rugged and heavily indented Norwegian coastline and crossed a scattering of ghostly islands and through the darkness we could just about make out small hamlets and villages clinging determinedly to the granite rocks.

Read the full story…

Sardinia, Alghero and a Catalan Heritage

Following a widespread paranoia about aircraft being blown out of the sky following an attempt by some would be terrorists to smuggle explosives aboard in bottles of mineral water there were now some strict new rules to be observed.  At the check-in desk we had a small dispute with the Ryanair check-in clerk about whether we would have to pay for our bags to go into the hold on account of these new security measures and the ban on liquids in hand luggage.  We maintained that as it wasn’t our fault that there were complicated new arrangements that the company should honour our original contract to take only no fee-paying hand luggage on board but the clerk firmly advised us that it wasn’t their fault either but the Government’s, so we would have to pay.

As there wasn’t time to ring the Prime Minister to see if he would accept personal responsibility for our situation we had to accept this decision.  Actually we didn’t, because the queue to pay was so long we would surely of missed our flight, so I applied what limited charm that I have and persuaded the clerk to check-in at least one item of luggage without the punitive charge and we transferred all of the liquids into the one that was going with us into the cabin.

After this I resolved myself to always try to stay one step ahead of Ryanair in its devious tricks to extract additional fees from its passengers.  I don’t like paying more that 1p for my flights, as any more than this I regard as extortionate.  Actually they are really rather clever and I admire the way they constantly devise new revenue generating tricks for extracting cash from customers.  I imagine that they must have a whole department working on it continuously.  Like making you pay £5 to check in a piece of luggage (each way) and by constantly reducing the baggage allowance so that they can surprise you at check-in and hit you for the £5.50 per kilo excess baggage charge.  And because this slows down the checking in ordeal they now offer a fast track service at £2 to avoid the queues (each way).  Thankfully we have perfected the art of packing our hand luggage within the permitted ten kilograms but I suspect they will reduce that soon.  And I wonder what else?

“Excuse me steward may I use the on-board lavatory please?”

“Certainly Sir, would you like to pay £2 for a priority pee or just £1 for the standard, in which case you will have to queue a little bit longer”

The Plane arrived at Alghero at about ten o’clock and it was already warm with a bright sun in a blue sky.  We got through the airport quickly and found a taxi with a friendly and informative driver who drove us the short distance to our hotel, the Alma di Alghero. This man was good, he knew all the flight schedules and organised our return journey for us as he drove.  And unusually for a taxi driver he didn’t rip us off or scare the pants off us. 

The hotel was in a perfect location but wasn’t ready for us so we changed into summer holiday clothes, left our bags and walked into the town.  It was a pleasant walk next to a clean sandy beach and past a busy marina and it took us about twenty minutes to get to the old town walls.  Once inside we looked for a bar because we were hungry and we walked lazily through the meandering narrow streets.  We found a couple of likely places but they were in too much shade so we rejected them both and we walked on and emerged on the other side of the town once more overlooking the sea which was a brilliant blue with a sparkling surface as though a million fibre optic lights were reflected off of it in streaming shards of gleaming silver.

Palermo, Via Roma and The Grand Hotel et des Palmes

It is a good thing that I am not superstitious because we travelled to Palermo on Friday 13^th.

Actually the journey did include a few mishaps starting on the way to the airport with an incident on the motorway when the driver of an articulated truck wanted to use a part of the carriageway that I was already occupying.  At the airport car park the booking in procedure had been changed and I couldn’t get my prepaid ticket without a lot of fuss and bother and in all of the confusion I mislaid my wallet and went into a terrible, but really rather unnecessary panic, when I convinced myself that it was lost.  It wasn’t of course but to reduce the danger of anything else going wrong I thought it best to sleep through the early morning flight to Sicily.

That was easily achieved and I knew nothing more about the journey until we landed and Ryanair played a trumpet fanfare to celebrate our ahead of schedule arrival.

The bus into the city dropped us off beside a square and a museum that we were unable to identify from the inadequate map in our guidebook and we were completely lost.  After sitting for a moment of two in the sun baked square we decided to try our luck in an easterly direction that we sensed would lead us towards the port.  It turned out to be a very good decision because very quickly after that we identified our position from the street signs and realised we were close to the road where we had booked our hotel.  We located Via Roma and in the realisation that it was a little over two kilometres long hoped that we were at the right end of it.  Luckily we were and after a short walk we were in the cavernous lobby of the Grand Hotel Et Des Palmes.  Perhaps Friday the 13^th is not all bad luck after all.

The hotel was excellent and the attentive porter showed us to a spacious and superior room at the rear of the hotel with nice furniture and decoration, a recently refurbished bathroom and a mini-bar.  This was so much better than our last hotel in Ljubljana; this was a touch of class.  It was one of those early 1900’s type hotels and built in the grand design of that time.  It was originally the residence of Benjamin Ingham, a wealthy English industrialist who settled in Sicily in the early part of the nineteenth century when it was briefly a British protectorate, but sold after his death in 1861 and that of his son in 1872 and converted into its present use.

It wasn’t dissimilar in style to the Hotel Royal Victoria in Pisa but not nearly so unusual and with a room on the back, and therefore not overlooking the busy Via Roma, we hoped not nearly so noisy either.  I checked out the mini-bar but at a prohibitively expensive €7 for a small bottle of beer quickly closed the door again and decided that I could wait until we found somewhere with sensible alcohol prices.

Grand Hotel et des Palmes Palermo

Outside the hotel the road was busy and getting across was a bit of a challenge and after we had successfully negotiated that we walked towards the port down an uninspiring road of uninteresting buildings and the occasional shop.  At the port our first impressions were not particularly favourable.  It was untidy with dirty footpaths and the harbour side bars looked unappealing and tired.  Some local men were drinking at the worn out tables with plastic chairs that desperately needed replacing and we declined to join them and made our way back towards the Via Roma.  The traffic was noisy and impatient with the usual medley of car horns, which is a feature of Italian driving or course.  Already I could see that the drivers in Palermo made those in Florence look positively sedate.

We were hungry so found a little trattoria where we were the first customers of the day and had some difficulty in locating anyone to attend to us.  There was someone outside at the back sweeping the storage area behind and just as we were about to leave he noticed us and made haste to get us seated and served.  He took our order for pizza and beer and then went off to the kitchen to cook the food.  I hoped that he washed his hands before he started to throw the pizza dough and add the toppings but the reality is that I suspect that he didn’t.

There were signs up declaring the establishment ‘no smoking’ but this didn’t seem to concern him greatly and he showed scant regard to that as well.  We ate the food in anticipation of an upset stomach but it was tasty enough and the Italian beer was welcome and refreshing but this wasn’t the sort of place to hang around for after dinner mints and conversation so as soon as we had finished our meal and paid the very reasonable bill we left and continued on our way towards the city centre.

Portugal, Vila do Conde

When we left Stansted Airport on a six-thirty Ryanair flight to Porto there was a hard frost on the ground and the temperature was minus 3º centigrade and when we arrived less than two hours later in Porto there was a hard frost on the ground and the temperature was also minus 3º centigrade.  It is unusual to get frosts on the west coast of Portugal and this had clearly taken people by surprise and at the airport there were shivering staff on duty to make sure we avoided the untreated icy patches on the short walk to passport control.

Read the full story…

Thumbs down for Easyjet

Using the motorway we were soon back at the concrete block of Bilbao airport and we returned the car and got the refund on the full tank of fuel and then went to check-in.  We were in plenty of time and the first at the desk and we should have realised that there was a problem when the check-in clerk couldn’t allocate a gate number because this meant only one thing – the plane was delayed.

We sat in the bar for half an hour until the overhead flight information board finally owned up to the fact that we wouldn’t be taking off on time and the boarding gate time was slipped back by thirty minutes – groans all around.  This didn’t seem too bad but then it slipped back another fifteen minutes, and then another, and then another and then another.  Now this is really irritating because they knew all along that the flight was delayed by ninety minutes but choose not to reveal this all in one go.  What possible purpose could that serve except to get everyone nervous and irritable?  Wouldn’t it be better to tell the truth from the very beginning and then everyone can come to terms with the fact and pace themselves and plan their additional time in the departure lounge.

At least Bilbao Airport was quite pleasant and the prices for an airport were surprisingly cheap even though I was restricted to alcohol free San Miguel on account of the fact I would be driving later.

How do I know that they knew how long the delay would be?  Quite simple!  When we finally got on board the pilot told us so!  The plane had been used to squeeze in an additional flight because somewhere, elsewhere in the Easyjet fleet another plane had had technical difficulties.  This seems to be common practice for Easyjet who treat their customers with the same contempt as Ryanair but the difference is they don’t admit to it.  This is the third time that this has happened to me on a late night return flight and I have to say I find it completely unacceptable but was my own fault because for only an extra £5 I could have flown with the more reliable Ryanair to the nearby airport of Santander and I am sure that I would have got home at the scheduled time.

When we landed the Steward announced ‘Thanks for choosing Easyjet’ as though nothing had happened but I for one shall think twice about using them in the future!

Thumbs down for Easyjet again

black-forest-winter-tyres

Thumbs down for Ryanair Transaction Charges

Car-hire-in-Andalusia

The Full Tank of Fuel Car Hire Scam