I’ve lapped the luxurious cream of business travel for more than 30 years. Flying First and Club, being met by chauffeur-driven limos, staying at top hotels. But like every business traveller, at some point I have to go away with the family and get dragged kicking and screaming into the demoralising and downright humiliating reality of the package holiday. It happened again in August when I was persuaded I needed a holiday with my loved ones somewhere in the sunshine. Forget Heathrow. Forget Gatwick. Even Luton would have been a luxury. We were forced to fly from East Midlands Airport, 95 miles up the M1. And as it was a last minute deal it was Ticket on Departure.
We stood for an hour in a queue to wait for the holiday firm counter to open, in order to get the tickets to join another 30-minute long queue to check in. To make it worse, that day we’d discovered on the internet something the travel agent had failed to tell us: The foreign charter airline with which we were flying had actually been BANNED from landing in three European countries the previous year (Libel laws prevent me from naming it). We crowded on and settled in Knees-up-to-Your-Chin class.
Chilled champagne and smoked salmon? Yeh right! We had to settle for a glass of rough red and some cold pasta. We jolted down at 3am. No Fast Track. Just Snails’ Pace as we queued in a sweltering Aeropuerto del Dumpo somewhere in the Mediterranean. I’ve been used to limos, or at least a big comfortable Mercedes taxi. Not here, just the teenage holiday rep and a coach. Despite the fact that I was travelling before this girl with an accent like chalk scraping down a blackboard was even an optimistic sperm seeking ovum with GSOH, I had to tolerate being lectured like I was a moronic child on a day trip to Boulogne. Don’t drink the water. Don’t get too much sun. Watch the foreign food.
We reached Hotel Hades as dawn crept over the horizon. A bored receptionist was checking in 25 people, and we were last in line. Half an hour later, struggling with our luggage, we opened the room door. The family suite we’d booked was the size of a dog kennel and had two tiny single beds. My partner burst into tears. My daughter started to sob in sympathy. The mother’s look threatened: Get it sorted. I stormed back down the seven flights of stairs (the one Albanian-made lift being out of order) to confront the receptionist. He yawned: “Change rooms in morning.” I told him he’d change our rooms NOW. We trudged with luggage down three flights of stairs to the room we should have been given in the first place. By breakfast time we were exhausted from missing sleep and famished from lack of in-flight food. I tried to dial room service. I didn’t understand the language but I certainly got the message. With no room service forthcoming, we joined the queue at the buffet downstairs, skidding on dropped baked beans while fat English kids in Manchester United shirts pushed past us with eight sausages on their plate. We moved to the pool.
I once sunbathed within 15ft of Julia Roberts at the Bel Air Hotel in LA. Now I lay on a threadbare towel surrounded by obese couples all plastered with Beckham-sized tattoos and smoking furiously. That night I asked for the wine list. The choice was a red that looked like a bad nose bleed, or a white that could have stripped paint. In desperation we grabbed a taxi to a nearby restaurant hoping to sample some authentic local cuisine. It was run by a bloke from Hemel Hempstead and was replete with a TV showing a Chelsea game and some authentic football fans screaming lager-fuelled abuse at the opposition. I was vaguely aware I was in Spain, or Greece, or maybe Turkey? But it might as well have been Blackpool. We got back to our cell – sorry, room – and my daughter collapsed from exhaustion. I thought with self-pity: How are the travel-mighty fallen. My partner and I squeezed onto the tiny balcony and slugged down duty-free Baileys in an attempt at oblivion. She took my hand in hers: “Darling, I’m so glad we could get away. You needed a holiday.”
To contact Stuart White email stuartwhite383@btinternet.com
