The Journey home

We were due to fly home from Palma airport at 12 55 and arrive at Gatwick just after 3pm. Then train to Portsmout Harbour, Wightlink FastCat and home at 5pm. This is what happened:

Picked up on time from the Hotel at 08 40 in a smart Volvo Coach.

Very smoothr drive to Palma Airport: luckily got the from seats and had a good view of the trip.

This is were the plan fell apart! Apparantly there had been a baggage problem and the check in queue was huge, passport control was fine for aduktrs but those with kids could not use the automatic gates so had to queue for 40 minutes to get passport stamped! eventually got on plane about 30 minutes late - not at a gate buy bussed onto tarmac. As we boarded we realised our paid for seat allocations had been changed but we managed to negotiate with other passengers to sit almost as we had asked. The Captain said the disruption a Palma was normal: not the best airport experience we have had!

Kids were again allowed into the flight deck

By now we had missed our take off slot and we eventually took of at 2 30pm. With the time change we landed at 3 40pm and with a good immigration and baggage collection we just caught the 4 39pm train to Portsmouth Harbour. BUT an incident at Fishbourne (Sussex not Isle of Wight) meant an extra two train changes and another hours delay! We got indoors at 8pm. A total travelling time of just over 12 hours! This did not distract from a great holiday and our felay claim is already in with Southern Trains!

Final Friday

 It started wet cool and windy on our last full day in Cala d'Or. Undeterred we set off for Cala Ferrera beach for a morning swim. We were surprised that we were the first to arrive and we had the beach to ourselves for most of the time we were there!

 By now the sun was trying to shine and it was warming up but we had the pools to ourselves as well!

It looked like every one else had decided to try the dotto train! It has a very low Trip Adviser score as it is very disorganised! Paying the driver takes ages and there is no one to manage getting on and off. Time keeping is not its strong point.

They should have used the excellent local buses wich are flat fare, tap on and tap off. When the Steeles used the service they were impressed that there was a facility to tap on and off more than once for multiple passengers on the same bank card

The afternoon was back to wall to wall sun and warm, if a little breezy for our last bit of pool time.

After dinner alook around the shops

A game or two of ool

and say good bye to the pools!

Leaving the hotel Saturday morning at 08 20 for a lunchtime flight back to Gatwick. Should land mid afternoon and hope to be back on the island early evening.

Beach Thursday

 We are not lying around in the sun folk, but we spent most of Thursday on the beach, First the younger ones wanted a swim off the platform into the deep sea off our hotlel.

Then off to our favourite beach, Cala Ferrera where we hired base of loungers under umberellas and the kids had a go on a peddalo.

Got here early before it was too busy!

Glass bottomed boat picked up in the bay

View from the lounger

Lunch with a view

Unusually for us we went back to the beach in the afternoon, by now it was fairly busy!

Drone shot of Cala Ferrera, our hotel is low rise behind and to the left of the high rise ones.

And to finish the day, a bit of table tennis

We are a staying at the Cala Azul Hotel which is part of the Inturotel complex of three ajoining hotels. We are staying on a room only basis so eating out for our main meals.