Tag: Heathrow T5 Pod Parking

Amalfi Coast 8.9.26

16 September 2026 / admin

BA525

Our transfer to Naples airport takes some time due to the very heavy traffic, probably the worst we have experienced. Check in has not opened so we are in plenty of time. Seating at the gate is very limited and most people are standing for a good half hour. It is a simple walk across the ground to the plane and up the rear steps to board the plane. Boarding is pretty rapid with the luggage taking longer. We push back soon after 1300 with take off about 1320. We make good time and land 14 minutes early.

G-TTNC Naples 8.9.26

As the pilot admitted he was surprised by the number of planes on the ground at Heathrow – it seems that NATS crashed earlier today and no flights are leaving Heathrow, Gatwick and we think we were the last plane to land at Heathrow.

This started three hours of complete uncertainty – and the news systems were not even aware that nothing was flying. After some time the plane is directed to a stand somewhere near T4. This was achieved before we became 3 hours late enabling BA to skip delay payments as we were not 3 hours late. Even though we are at a gate we cannot deplane – there are no steps or buses. Then there are steps but no buses. Then there are no steps or buses. Then about 3.5 hours after landing we have steps and buses and a man who can actually make the steps work. We leave the plane and the bus wends its way to T5 (no tour guide) where we manage to gain entry to the UK. The baggage hall is in complete uproar. All luggage deliveries are suspended and it is clear that our luggage is not coming home with us today.

Filling in the claim form at the limited number of terminals is a nightmare, asking for information which could easily be populated from our boarding records which are also linked to our luggage tags. Absolutely awful. What they do not tell you is that the only way to access the system at a later time is using your surname, so if you mistype it you can not check on progress reclaiming your luggage. How do I know this? The hard way. I do not recommend it.

T5 Pod parking 8.9.26

Jackie’s suitcase returns several days later and the courier has my bag on the same manifest and yet denies he has the bag. Nor is it visible in the van. He seems unable to grasp that if it is on his list he should have it. Unbelievable. Having finally spoken to someone (I think in India) I now have access to the online system which for several days tells me it was going to be delivered some days before. Then magically it says it is on its way, then not, then it is. A week after I arrived home so does my case. Relief that nothing has been lost.

For the record the Newmarket description of the day:
It’s “Arrivederci, Italia”, today, as you transfer to the airport to check in for your flight home at the end of a marvellous holiday to the Bay of Naples.

Amalfi Coast 1.9.26

2 September 2026 / admin

T5 Pod Parking 1.9.26

Up early to get loaded and depart for Heathrow T5 via the wonderful Pod parking. We are early so have a wait which is extended due to our aeroplane having undergone maintenance overnight and in consequence was at the wrong end of the airport.

We board and take off at 08:50 so should not be too late on arrival. BA524 and G-NEOP which is an Airbus A321. It is not quite full and yet we hear BA staff moaning about suitcases again within our earshot, I despair at the training being delivered these days, no consideration of passengers at all, simply just customers not passengers going on a journey with the airline.

BA524 flight – data from Flight Aware

The flight is smooth and the lost time recovered with touch down 5 minutes early. That was the end of the good news as it then took a shade under 2 hours to complete passport control. We pointed out that we are registered but apparently all British passports are being rejected, hence the queue, which snakes around a large holding pen and which has clearly been in place for sometime so this is very much not a one off. It seems that once the queue exceeds 45 minutes they revert to manual processing and stamping of passports. To be honest it now looks as though it is purely and simple a device with orders from on high to prevent British entry as plane loads of Americans are waved through rapidly. Most of the others in the queue have also registered before – so why not get us through the e-gates?

Vesuvius 1.9.26

Some 2.5 hours after landing we are finally on the coach, driving past Vesuvius which dominates the landscape. Then through three tunnels and then a drive down towards Sorrento (which I must have traversed in the opposite direction and of which I have no memory) and we are delivered to Hotel Eliseo Parks in the adjacent town of S’Agnello. Book in and unpack.

Sorrento Peninsular 1.9.26

This is from the coach window as we wind down a twisting road into the five towns which occupy the coastline with Sorrento being in the far distance.

After a shower and then it is time to eat the dinner requested as we booked in. Yes it is the little known cost reduction philosophy or phenomenon of having to know what you want to eat hours before dinner time. Normally we are told that on future days we have to decide at breakfast what we have to eat in the evening. I do realise that some cost control is necessary but somehow my brain just rejects the rationality of making such decisions. How do I know what I might fancy some 8 or more hours hence.

When dinner is served we are not exactly impressed. The initial linguine is not too bad but the hake delivered to Jackie looks like nothing on earth and certainly not some form of fresh fish caught overnight and delivered to the hotel this very morning. My piece of pork is not too bad in itself but the accompanying vegetables probably saw better days once upon a time, before they were cooked to near inedibility. Not a wonderful start. Given that the hotel is an upgrade on the three star in Sorrento we are a little surprised. Visually the hotel is attractive – but the food does not feel 4 star style.

Not being amused with dinner an online search brings up Hotel Vesuvio with a sky bar and impressive looking restaurant where a booking is made for tomorrow night.

For the record the Newmarket description of the day:
Arrive in Italy, meet your tour manager and board our coach for the scenic journey to the Bay of Naples, and on to your chosen hotel, in or close to Sorrento.

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.