Palma Beach and planes

[atuk]

Well it was great to return to what is one of our favourite places and certainly hotel [RIU Festival]
Courtesy of TUI on the Dreamliner 787-800. IC, fast becoming my personal chariot, did the outbound flight with IA the return. The overnight bag drop worked well, but remember bags on first are off last, and security at GLA was okay but more open lanes would have been welcome given this was still peak early wave departures.

That said two hours twenty six minutes after departure a hard touchdown in Palma and time to head for the hotel. A nice touch from TUI was the taxi transfers both ways - all included. Yes I was at the airport the day of La Tormenta! I went to see the new Sunclass 321 Neos and 330-900s all looking smart in their citrus lemon and orange colour scheme. A nice touch at their check in was the banner bearing the names Spies, Tjaerborg and Ving. It’s good to see long established Scandinavian tour operators still going strong in this increasing and incessant online world. Condor, needless to say, were resplendent in their stripes: blue, green, red and yellow but a couple of 757-300s from DUS and FRA still sported their Thomas Cook sunny heart colours albeit with the Condor logo on the tail. Their checkin area was festooned with Welcome stripey banners but sadly, or maybe fortunately, no retail shop otherwise holiday cash would have been dented!

We haven’t took an organised excursion for years: being long standing regular visitors to the island we usually make use of the bus and train services. However, perhaps age, and the fact Palma has ubiquitous roadworks, this time around the Plaza Espana, meant we were quite happy to take a seat, relax and chill. We visited Sineu then Alcudia,with a boat trip from Puerto Pollença to Formentor and toured the peninsula with its luxury hotel. Maybe a lotto win, one day! It’s where Evil Under the Sun was set and the views are stunning. It’s also part of a national park so is well protected from the worst of the ravages of overtourism. The drive back involved multiple hairpin bends with views cascading down the cliffs to the sea.so stunning that Mrs C decided she would take the aisle seat if I would sit at the window.

So a nice relaxing week; good food, folks and great location. We can’t do it again next year in June but perhaps swap September in MUC for PMI instead as we have a mega mega trip in February followed by PMI to DBV cruise late April.

Hasta luego Palma; hasta la proxima visita.

[bill]

Nice report atuk. Sounds like you had a nice relaxing time. Me and Mrs B are heading to Palma on 17th July, courtesy of EZY so alas, no Dreamliner for us .Just hope the freak storms have totally cleared up. Desparate for some sunshine and warmth.

[atuk]

Nice report atuk. Sounds like you had a nice relaxing time. Me and Mrs B are heading to Palma on 17th July, courtesy of EZY so alas, no Dreamliner for us .Just hope the freak storms have totally cleared up. Desparate for some sunshine and warmth.

Thanks, Bill. EasyJet are really good. The six of us were well impressed with their flights GLA-OPO last September then EDI-CTA this April.

EasyJet Holidays are a real competitor to TUI who really need to wake up and up their game on short/medium haul routes! Imagine a buy on board service to SID a near seven hour flight! And TuiFly (X3) get rubbish reviews in Germany. How the mighty have fallen. If only that merger of Thomson /C&N and Britannia and Condor had succeeded!

[atuk]

A wee bit of history for our younger members.

Spies was the tour operator for Maersk Air who operated 720 and 737 aircraft.

Tjaerborg owned Sterling Airways a large Caravelle operator who at one time flew into Glasgow. They also flew 727s, who remembers the Dundee United vs Gothenburg match with the 727 invasion? Towards their end they flew 757s.

Ving was part of SAS and used Scanair, their charter subsidiary. This was sold to Airtours, becoming Premiair and when Airtours and Thomas Cook merged became Thomas Cook Scandinavia, now Sunclass Airlines.