This is the first time I’ve flown with Monarch Airlines and I was very pleasantly surprised. It was actually the first flight I have done by myself, always having travelled as a pair until husband died. To be honest, I was a bit apprehensive….
Check in time at Manchester was from 5am so I’d booked a room at the “Radisson Blu,”:http://www.silvertraveladvisor.com/review?id=167988 a five minute walk to the check in desks. I’d checked it out the night before and spotted all the signs about making sure hand luggage wasn’t too big and did not weigh more than 10kg. I even went back to collect my rucksack to make sure it fitted into the size checking containers. Actually I needn’t have worried as no-one at check in bothered about hand luggage.
Even with two flights leaving at virtually the same time, check in was quick and efficient and I was off to security. Staff took pity on me with my walking stick and I was directed through the fast track. Here I really set off the panic alarm bells. Foolishly I’d packed a wind up travel alarm vintage 1950 in my carry on. The scanner had identified it as an unrecognisable object and had set off all sorts of alarm bells ringing. Security decided they had never seen anything like it before (‘It’s awesome…) and it had to be specially screened. Moral – pack in checked in luggage next time.
Why is it that whenever I fly, the airplane leaves from the furthest gate in the terminal?
We all dutifully collected by the gate and there was a delay in boarding as one of the crew was sick and we had to wait for his relief to arrive. The airplane was less than half full, with people who had paid for priority boarding at the front and the rest of us at the back.
There was plenty of space in the seats and I found leg room to be reasonable. The cabin crew were good and came round regularly collecting rubbish. Food and drink can be bought on board and prices were reasonable. Most people either had their own pack up or had been to Boots for a ‘meal deal’.
Even though we had been 20 minutes late leaving, we arrived at Malaga early after a very comfortable flight. We were straight through immigration and didn’t have to wait long for our bags either. We had left a cold and miserable Manchester and walked out into brilliant sunshine and temperatures in the 20˚s.
I visited here as part of a “‘Flavours of Spain'”:http://www.solosholidays.co.uk/spain/discovery-tours/flavours-of-spain holiday arranged with “Solos Holidays.”:http://www.solosholidays.co.uk/
My detailed trip report with all my pictures is
“here.”:http://wasleys.org.uk/eleanor/otherholidays/spain/index.html
