Tag: Heathrow T5 Pod Parking

Azores 7.6.25

8 June 2025 / admin

Steak at Michel’s 7.6.25

When we visited Madeira a couple of years ago we asked where they went for holidays and the answer was the Azores and it was also where they sourced beef as it was the best. So it was added to the holiday list.

We arrived at T5 having pod parked some 90 minutes before we can bag drop! Slightly excessive. Then the trauma commences – the bag drop scanner requires bar code facing upwards. However the security scanner requires the barcode facing down. Come on system designers please be consistent. Today we are not scanning boarding cards at the baggage check – the equipment was there but is unused and turned off, last time through we did have this extra scan (why was it needed, why is not needed?). Today take nothing out of your bag, previously take phones and ipads out – they had to be separate! Enough to confuse all old people! Why keep changing the processes?

However there is real trauma the other side of the body scanner. Somehow Jackie’s cardigan jumps out of the tray and becomes entangled in the rollers on the air side of the scanner backing up the numerous trays behind, including mine which I suspect is actually within the scanner itself.

I hate not to have visibility of my bag for any length of time and this drags on as the initial prodding has no effect. Then we are told the stopped trays are being put on an adjacent conveyor, but mine does not appear. Panic levels rising all round and a proper engineer is eventually summoned.

Three staff are needed to release the cardigan unharmed. Jackie is relieved. However when it comes through my bag is shunted sideways and needs to be given an extremely thorough swabbing including the book, camera, ipad, and so on. Eventually I can put my belt on and repack my bag!

T5 has the wonderful shuttles (which were less than wonderful when we return at the end of the week) to the B and C gates but today we are required to descend to ground level and take a bus, then walk on the tarmac and climb steps to G-TTNG to obtain access, back to the fifties everyone! Once on board Air Traffic Control have us sat around doing nothing for nearly half an hour.

Nearly four hours later we arrive in Ponta Delgada and walk across the tarmac into arrivals and then a taxi to the Grand Hotel which overlords the harbour and our sixth floor room has a pleasant view over the marina area.

For dinner tonight we are booked at 7pm at Michel’s which is walking distance from the hotel. And so it seems are large numbers of other guests for the restaurant. Although we are about the third party seated something goes seriously wrong and it is some 35 minutes or more before our order is taken – they still insist on phone use for reading the menu – a practice which I do not appreciate. In consequence before the waiter did comes we feel seriously out of sorts. I also get the impression that the food was a sitting around for a while as it could have been usefully warmer. Maybe we were unlucky, what we did have tasted excellent. I had the limpets to start and misjudging the temperature I burn my lower lip – entirely my own fault and yet I am glad I have tried them. The relatively poor service was annoying as the food was definitely very good.

We return to the hotel before it gets dark – in general I believe the place is safe – but better than being out in the dark in a strange town.

Lisbon / Sintra 26.2.25

27 February 2025 / admin

Heathrow T5

This morning we head off to Heathrow and once again we are using the pod parking, for the first time in daylight and because it is pretty full this morning we park close to the B station. Car parked we trundle along the podway to Terminal 5, this is just such a simple way of accessing the airport. Bag drop is relatively quick but security less so. Then an interminable wait until we are told we are departing from B gates, so take the underground transit out to the B gates.

A nearly full flight but we load well and are ready to back off the stand seven minutes ahead of expected departure time, not that we do although we are soon away. A good flight down to Lisbon where we are terminated on a stand away from the main building so it is a bus into the terminal.

Bags collected we head outside to the metro terminus and descend to the departure platform of the metro which provides a good service into the City Centre. We travel to the end of the red line at Sao Sebastien and then change to the blue line for Restauradores. The lifts are a bit of a pain when we change (as we have cases) and it is worse at Restauradores – both the upward escalator and the lift are out of action. Even worse there are no lifts from the underground ticket hall to street level so we have to slowly ascend the stairs. It was obvious in Turin that at the main station (and there is a main station just around the corner which we shall use later in the week) that there were lifts from the metro to street level – their absence is surprising.

Bonjardim

Our hotel is immediately adjacent to the exit rom the station which is welcome and we are soon in an excellent room in the Avenida Palace Hotel. It is now late afternoon so some unpacking and then we have planned to go to a very local restaurant – Bonjardim – which has been serving spit roast chicken since the early fifties if I remember correctly. Potentially the original peri peri chicken came from here and they certainly provide a peri peri sauce to add to the chicken. We arrive and almost immediately a significant queue forms up behind us so very lucky timing. Many of the later arrivals are accommodated indoors whereas given the warmth we are able to sit outside and enjoy the entertainment provided by a dancer who appears and does a couple of dances and then goes round making a small collection to which we add funds.

An excellent meal and an interesting discussion with the tables either side – Americans who have moved to Portugal in one case and a Canadian on his travels around Europe.

Iceland – Day 1

8 March 2024 / admin

Heathrow T5 Pod Parking

Thursday 7.3.24

Today, for my sins, is my seventieth birthday and in celebration we are on a plane for the island of Iceland and a short visit based in Reykjavik with the intention of experiencing as much of the sights as may be possible.

Over the last three to four months the island has been experiencing volcanic activity – mainly on the Rekyanes Peninsula which is the south western corner of the island and unlike earlier activity this is less lava spewing from huge volcanoes but the earth splitting open and lava flowing out and around the area – part destroying one town. The eruption is also close to the famous Blue Lagoon and several days before we depart the operator (Newmarket) has taken the view that the Lagoon, although open, is the subject of various restrictions and a need for rapid evacuation should there be further eruptions so advise that we will instead be visiting the Sky Lagoon which is closer to the capital.

These recent eruptions are very different to those of a few years ago with no significant amounts of ash or changes to the atmospheric conditions so there are no flight restrictions being imposed at the current time.

The first excitement of the day is at Heathrow. Jackie has booked the Pod Parking at Terminal 5 so we park up and then a little pod takes us from the parking area into the terminal – all with no fuss and all entirely automated. A long standing wish to experience this facility has been achieved!

Once in Iceland we are driving across what looks like fairly barren lava fields for nearly an hour before reaching the capital itself. We later gather than the lava is being covered by moss and that is starting the long process of breaking the rocks down to eventually form soil – but the lave flows are simply new Iceland as it steadily grows in size – it is a very young land mass.

I do not know if it is standard in Iceland but the hotel room in small – about the smallest ever for a twin room. I think Premier Inn are larger. We do walk down towards the town and along one of the two main streets as we want to know where we are going for dinner.

My birthday dinner is at Dill – a Michelin starred restaurant in the centre of the town. We are unlikely to return, given the location but they gave an excellent account of local foods and all were excellently prepared and served.