Having booked to fly direct from Granada to Gatwick with Spain’s low-cost airline Vueling, there was a schedule change five weeks beforehand which meant flying via Barcelona where there was nearly a 5-hour wait for the second flight.
The check in at Granada’s small airport was seamless, but there was confusion when the boarding process started as we had to queue in one of three groups, with most customers not realising their number was shown on the boarding card. We assumed that this was to facilitate a smoother process with groups boarding in turn, but we all went through simultaneously.
It was a large flight with boarding at both front and rear and we were in the middle at row 19. We had booked seats either side of the aisle and as the middle seats weren’t taken, we had a little more room to spread. The wearing of masks was strictly enforced, unlike on our easyJet flight out. We eventually took off on time and landed early.
On arrival, we were told to exit by row, which again caused some confusion as everyone instinctively got up once the seatbelt sign was taken off.
Having got into the terminal building, we looked for a transit sign but the information board suggested we proceed to gates D/E, so we made our way through a plethora of shops and restaurants to D/E and passport control. However this meant our choice of restaurants was either Burger King or Paul’s Patisserie, as the two Spanish outlets were closed. This was not going to be the lovely, leisurely lunch we’d envisaged. The only shops were two relatively basic duty-free shops which didn’t offer the choice of the tiny one in Granada.
It was then a long wait to the 7pm flight but with an hour to go, we were informed of a 30-minute delay which steadily got longer.
On board, the inflight service was extremely low key with us having to stop the trolley as it whizzed past. This was possibly due to the lack of stock, as there was no gin, tonic or ice on board although I could have had a microwaved pizza.
We landed 90 minutes late and following a phone call with our taxi driver, I realised I’d told him we were landing at Gatwick North instead of the South terminal. And then having waited for him, he paid the car park fee and then forgot where he’d parked his car.
To sum up a pretty disastrous journey home.
