Well, what can I say? We’d booked a holiday, a package holiday, to escape from the trials and tribulations of work, British weather and Easter. We booked almost on the spur of the moment, having only briefly discussed plans and, for myself, with much trepidation.
We constantly hear of ludicrous delays, mega-queues, incredibly basic service and, quite probably, aircraft powered by wound-up rubber bands. So, when we set off, only 30 minutes later than planned/required, for Gatwick airport I was steeling myself for five hours of charter airline hell, with no access to anything like the facilities I’m normally afforded by dint of business class travel. Then things started going right! There was little or no traffic on the way to the airport, so we made it there in good time. There was no queue at check-in, all the other travellers having observed the “three hours before departure” stricture which is meaningless to The Girlfriend who translates this as three minutes before departure. Security was a breeze, virtually no queue there either.
I just waited for something to go wrong. Maybe the aircraft we were destined for had experienced navigational difficulties and was now parked on the tarmac at Reykjavik or somesuch? Perhaps the crew had had a bit of a bender the night before and were still ensconced in their hotel? Perhaps the French air traffic controllers had staged a lightning greve, again, and all movement in European airspace was restricted to hot air balloons?
I nodded sagely to myself, this was a package holiday, we were flying from what is essentially a shopping mall with somewhat larger than usual parking facilities by way of a chartered airline, it was only a matter of time before the indicator boards indicated that the greater part of our holiday was to be spent roaming the aisles of the “tax-free shops” wondering if that Swatch really would make a good addition to the burgeoning list of souvenirs from Gatwick.
But no, all went smoothly and the gods of international travel were clearly in a very good mood. I’d taken the precaution of booking “extra legroom” seats for our party and lo-and-behold the very nice crew showed us to the front cabin of the A300, which was damned-near to BA’s club class – work that one out, for only £90 per person extra, we had decent seats, loads of room and we were near the door for a quick exit on landing. So, BA, how do you justify trebling the price of an economy class ticket for your equivalent? Free booze? Long gone are the days when you were allowed, indeed expected, to drink your bodyweight in Champagne, so that can’t be the reason. Must be some sort of profiteering motive perhaps?
Anyway, the flight was pretty good, and the inflight service better than I expected. The inflight movie was great too, thanks to the iPad (on which this blog is being written) although lord knows how the other passengers made do with re-runs of ancient British sitcoms via their £4.50 headsets. We were even fed, not brilliantly but it was adequate and not separately charged for.
Ok, there was a minor delay on arrival as the officials at Taba airport (basically a hut in the middle of a desert) went about their business of being officious and single-minded in their pursuit of doing as little as possible as slowly as they could achieve it, but since we were amongst the first off the plane, even that delay was minor. Thence unto the hotel, which TripAdvisor had trip advised was the best hotel in Taba Heights. Off the transfer coach like a rat up a drainpipe, swift jog to reception before any other fellow traveller and all checked in in under 10 minutes! WTF was going on? Everything just ran like clockwork. Were the inhabitants of Asgard all asleep?
So here I am on the third full day, and nothing has gone wrong yet. The hotel is excellent, the weather beautiful, the pools warm, the food and drink good, The Girlfriend and I speaking and even The Teenager is behaving like a young lady (if dressing like, erm, well probably shouldn’t say that) and she hasn’t mentioned Justin Bieber once – or perhaps I’ve learned just to tune that particular name out completely, either way it works for me. The forecast is for more of the same, so everything is, for once, unrantable.
The journey home is bound to be a disaster.
