Wednesday
Following the wedding Tuesday my head was amazingly good, my best man speech went down well and everyone had a great time.
My wife took our youngest (16) to school and came home crying, we then finished packing the last few things and then it was off to the airport but not before my wife and eldest (20) had a cry.
Motorway was good and 45 minutes later we had pulled into the meet and greet car park at Manchester T2.
Monarch bag drop there was no on in the queue and five minutes later we were at the security check point, we had purchased fast track so meet the queue which wasn't that long.
Duty free we purchased 2 litres of Gin for £20 but I thought the cigarettes were expensive so gave them a miss. It was then off to the Escape lounge.
Escape lounge was smaller than I expected but drink selection was good, fresh sandwiches were brought out every 10-15 minutes and the choice was Tuna, Ham, Egg, Cheese, there was also cakes, pastries, cheese &crackers, salad and you could order soup. We spent a very nice two hours relaxing before we went for a walk and to board the flight. In my opinion the lounge was definitely worth £15 each.
Boarding was on time although not by seat row number but we were all aboard and pushed back two minutes late at 15:02
Our flight was with Monarch and we booked the extra leg room seats which were worth the extra we also had the advantage that we had three seats between the two of us as no one occupied the spare seat.
Following takeoff the first service was for those who had ordered the hot meal, it actually smelt very good, the next service was drinks, special offer was two cans of beer for £7 which I took advantage off, mixers were £1.20 each and I think shorts were two for 7.50.
They then tried to sell scratch cards and finally duty free, a litre of Gin was £12.50, the cigarettes if you bought 400 ranged from £42 to £45
The plane was clean, the crew were happy and chatty, we had a little turbulence twice and the seat belt light was switched on, finally we descended into
Dalaman and touched down 3 minutes early, Excellent flight all round.
Visa desk had queues but they were quick, the people in front of us were from a different plane and the visa lady put the wrong visas in our passport thinking we were from the same country, she only realised when I handed over two crisp ten pound notes, the visa were carefully removed and the correct ones inserted, she laughed and became quite chatty which is a first for an official at Dalaman for us.
Down to collect the luggage and then off for our
transfer which was waiting outside, total time from touchdown 35 minutes.
Transfer was good, the driver stopped at a shop and got us two bottles of cold water, he didn't speed once and we were at the apartments in just under 90 minutes, the roads have definitely improved and seem to be finished.
At the apartments were given a choice of three rooms, we chose the ground floor apartment furthest from the bar and dropped our cases off going straight to the bar, three drinks later at 1am we walked to the Best Supermarket and changed some money, we got 2.87 which is the best rate in ten years visiting Turkey, it was then off to Nefes Pide where I had a stunning Adana Kebab and the wife had a chicken Shish, together with a soft drink and a bottle of water the bill came to 30lira, back to the
hotel and the final nightcap it was time to retire after two long days.
to be continued.