We left Cavaillon on Friday morning at 8.30am heading for Carcassonne to catch our 2.30pm flight to London. Because the flight was an international flight we had to be at the airport 2 hours before the flight to be processed through passport control/security. We wanted to leave in plenty of time in case there was any delays like car trouble, roadworks, inclement weather to name three things that come to mind straightaway. We even debated driving to Carcassonne the day before and staying the night in a motel to make sure we didn’t miss the flight.
So by 11am we were happily feeding our faces at McDonalds at Carcassonne before going over to the airport at 12. They don’t feed you on these cheap flights. It’s ridiculous. They pass around a menu to tempt you and then come along the aisle with the trolley laden with goodies and then you have to fork out more money to pay for it all. But anyway I won’t get started on the exorbitant price of things (which is one of my favourite whinges about being overseas). I read in The UK Times that Ryanair are proposing to charge passengers £1 to use the toilets on their planes which would bring in £20 million revenue.
The flight was full and we were allowed to sit anywhere which is fine but with us being a group of four people, that almost didn’t happen. With 198 people all cramming into the plane from both ends of it and trying to stow their luggage in the overhead lockers, it was a bit of a battle. It costs extra to check in luggage so most people only have carry on bags which are supposed to be limited to a certain size but if you can imagine 80% of the passengers having carry-on bags the overheads get full up very quickly.
We arrived at Stansted Airport 2 hours later and found our National Express bus which we’d pre-booked to get us into London. We had a chatty drunk guy wanting to befriend us for the trip so we were forced to listen to his rant for nearly an hour till we arrived at Stratford. When we got off the bus at Stratford I thought something bad had happened because there was so many people milling around. I forget how busy and crowded it is in the city.
After queuing at the Assistance Counter to get info about tickets to the Excel Centre we had a guy being verbally abusive right in front of us but this time an off duty female police officer stepped in to diffuse the situation. It was like an episode of The Bill.
We only had to change trains once and finally arrived at our accommodation at 7pm. So it was a very long day for everyone. Our accommodation at The Grainstore Apartments was modern, spacious and clean. The units are in a redeveloped area called The Docklands, a bit out of the city but the train makes everything accessible.
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