Back at the Holiday Inn, I got my backpack back, then paced hard to make my connecting bus back to the main train station. I managed to get to the stop with a couple of minutes to spare according to the schedule, but the bus ended up arriving about 5 minutes late. No matter, a short-ish ride later I was back at the main train station, where the public bus 61 to the airport departed.

There didn't seem to be many people at the airport bus stop when I arrived, but closer to the departure time it really started to get packed. The bus eventually pulled up as I jockeyed to get as close as possible to the doors. The doors opened and the scrum of people quickly tried to pack into the long bus. I secured the nearest window seat I could find, then watched as the entire bus filled up until it was packed to the gills. Didn't really help with the multitude of "cabin baggage" of the rolling wheels kind being brought on board, occupying valuable standing room. The bus driver had a bit of trouble closing the back door, but we were soon on our way.


Front of Bratislava Airport

Bratislava Airport had in recent years undergone a significant facelift. It isn't a big airport by any means, and doesn't have a whole lot of scheduled flights. Many of the flights are chartered or seasonal, and the biggest operator from the airport isn't a national carrier of Slovakia. In fact, it is...Ryanair. Still, when you're a small airport and the national capital, you'd probably be taking whatever you can get.


Check-in area at Bratislava Airport.

When I walked into the terminal and headed to the FR check-in, I was glad to see that the lines were still short. Considering that the area is not too big and you could easily have up to 170 or so pax per plane, and there were two late night services to London tonight (one to LTN and another to STN), this area could have so easily been a nightmare.

Security lines were also pretty short when I passed through, which is always great.


Bratislava Airport airside (A zone).

For a small airport, I was surprised and delighted that there is an airport lounge, and that it was a Priority Pass lounge, too. The Caproni Lounge is normally for SkyTeam elites and Business class passengers, even though there doesn't seem to be many, or any, SkyTeam flights from BTS.

Once I entered the lounge, my Priority Pass card was imprinted and a receipt given. My entry entitled me to a free sandwich, so I selected a ham sandwich.

The lounge is very basic. There's a decent enough selection of soft and alcoholic drinks, as well as a coffee machine for warm drinks, but that's about it. There are no edibles in the lounge (apart from that ham sandwich I was offered). There's a couple of PCs, a toilet, and a TV. You can sit and have a good view of the check-in area, but that's it - no tarmac view. It's not a large lounge by any means - it probably wasn't bigger than the No 1 Traveller lounge I had used in STN previously.

Bratislava does have free wireless internet throughout the terminal, so that's a nice plus.




Inside the Caproni Lounge in BTS.


Ham sandwich, free with my Priority Pass entry.

After a long day on the go sightseeing, I was really, really thirsty, so I was putting away the soft drinks like there was no tomorrow. I was grabbing two bottles at a time (one was always water).

For the entire time I was in the lounge, there was no other passenger who entered. So this was a first for me - the only passenger in the lounge for a couple of hours or so.

I unfortunately had to allow myself at least an hour or so before departure to go to my gate, as my flight was a non-Schengen flight, which means I had to pass through immigration before heading to the gate. Ryanair waits for no one, even if you tell anyone in the airport, so passing through immigration and making it to the gate all in time was all my responsibility. Just as well I left a bit early, because the immigration line was rather slow, even though there were at most a dozen people in front of me. As soon as I got through immigration, I panicked a bit and ran all the way to zone B towards my gate. When I arrived at the gate for my flight to STN, boarding hadn't started yet, but we were under 30 minutes from scheduled departure. So much for the run.


Flight: Ryanair FR2319 Bratislava (Letisko M. R. Štefánika Bratislava) (BTS) - London Stansted (STN)
Depart: Sched 2100h; Actual 2100h
Duration: 2 h 15 min
Distance: 795 mi (1,280 km)
Aircraft: EI-DHP Boeing 737-800
Class: Economy
Seat: 31C


Boarding eventually begins as our passports and boarding passes are checked. Of course, the FR ground staff, vigilant as ever, pulled aside a good deal of people for size and weight of cabin bag violations, resulting in a nice little area on the floor where people are strewn around frantically trying to repack their bag. My bag was almost falling apart unfortunately; using my large coat I managed to comfortably add a bit more cargo without arousing any suspicion of weight concern.

As we passed the BP check, we were ushered into two holding rooms. One room was for those who had purchased priority boarding, and the other was for the rest. From what I could ascertain, we were being bus boarded. So we waited until all passengers had been processed. There wasn't a lot of seating in the holding rooms at all, and some of us were getting quite tired. Women, especially pregnant or accompanying little children, and the elderly were being given preference for the limited seating that was available - completely through the public's volition, no forcing.

I check my watch and I see that we seem to be creeping over scheduled departure (so how FlightStats recorded that we left on time is beyond me). There are about 120-140 passengers being stuffed into a space that can't be much larger than a board room......and then they start boarding the priority pax first. I see their exit doors open and they shuffle out. Once all the priority pax are out, I'm expecting that they will have a couple of buses ready for the rest of us. About five minutes later, our exit doors open, everyone takes a deep breath (fresh air!) and start to head downstairs.

Once I get downstairs to the tarmac, I've expected a bus, but there's nothing there. I then realise that we aren't boarding by bus, but simply walking to our aircraft, which is parked about 60 m away from the terminal. At this point, my mind is telling me to remember that it's a non-allocated seating policy, i.e. first-in-best-dressed, and that goes for overhead bin space, too. So I start to jog across the tarmac towards the plane. I feel a bit foolish in that no one else is doing this, but then again FFers do many things about where they sit or where they can put their bags that others can't understand what the hell is all the trouble worth.

My action is somewhat vindicated as I board at the rear stairs and immediately locate a row with no pax and lots of overhead space to put my bag in. I take an aisle seat and wait for the rest of the aircraft to board. I soon surmise that it's going to be a full flight with nary a seat to spare, and once again my judgement is vindicated as a woman approaches me to take the window seat, and a little later near the end of boarding, a well-dressed man in a business suit with a rollaboard requests the middle seat, having surveyed the available seats left and having to settle for whatever he can get. Unfortunately for the business man, there's no more room left in the overhead lockers, so there's only one more place to put his rollaboard - yep, under the seat in front of him. I'm surprised that it actually fits under the seat. Despite having pretty much all of his leg room deprived, the man sits with his feet on top of his cabin bag. The things you do when you fly Ryanair...

Safety demo is completed as we leave our parked position and start on our way to London. The flight was pretty uneventful. The three of us in our row ended up striking a conversation, probably much to the benefit of the business man in the middle as keeping your mind occupied helps ignore whatever pain you're going through (and helps you ignore all the crew offerings for cash food, drink, duty free or raffle tickets). Pretty soon, the 2 hour flight just flew by. We touched down at STN, taxied quickly to a gate (the pilot really pushing the accelerator whilst on the ground), and were soon disembarking into the terminal without a very long walk to border control.

I really love (not literally - you know that) how the UK clearly have a sign or banner delineating that as you cross the passport control point, you are now officially crossing the border into the UK. I was asked the usual two questions but then was stamped and on my way.

Once outside STN, I had to get to my overnight accommodation, which was the Holiday Inn Express at STN. Given that it was quite late at night, getting a bus into London would mean not really checking in until midnight-ish. After checking for the bus stop corresponding to the shuttle going to the Holiday Inn Express, I waited in the cold weather for the bus to arrive. The buses are on a 20-minute frequency (most of the time) and they are not free of charge, even if you have a confirmed reservation at the property, so having some spare change is useful. Once the bus arrived, it was a shade less than a 10 minute ride to the Holiday Inn.


Accommodation: Holiday Inn Express Stansted Airport
Room: King Bed


One thing you know about late night flights and airport hotels is that they go almost hand in hand. So when we arrived at the HIX, straight away you know it's not going to be a breezy check-in. There was already a line even at the Priority Club counter, but luckily the staff were on top of their game and had everyone processed nice and quickly. I got to the front of the line and was quickly given my room key as well as a voucher for a free soft drink at the bar (or alcoholic drink with dinner), due to my being a Platinum member. I was also given a discount voucher for the hotel's wireless internet. Wireless internet is only free of charge in the hotel's lobby lounge; in the rooms, it was chargeable.

HIX rooms are all the same. Apart from the bedding, they pretty much have the same design and features, and pretty much all over the globe. My room was located quite far from the lifts, requiring the traversal of two lengthy halls. I feel sorry for those with large luggage, as having to push through several fire doors isn't easy here.


My room at the HIX STN.

After settling in, I went downstairs with my laptop so I could use the free wireless in the lounge. Naturally seeing as that was the only free wireless on the property, many people, including those who I had seen at check-in, all had the same idea. There were also several people knocking back a few drinks from the bar, snacking on some chips etc. from the vending machine and playing some pool.




Lobby lounge at the HIX STN.

I managed to check a few emails and plan my routing to get to London the next day. I tried to take up as little time as possible doing all of this, as I really needed to get some serious sleep.


Sunday 22 April 2012


The next day I woke up... and there's a funny feeling when you're back in a place where everyone speaks English. Don't know why, but anyway...

Great thing about staying at HIX properties is that continental breakfast is included with your room rate. In some cases, it really is just continental, although in the case of this HIX, they had some hot selection as well - eggs, sausages... comfort quality at best, but it was there.

My backpack was really not looking in good shape. If I had it on my back much longer, the tension between the back strap and the rest of the bag at the top might just come apart and cause everything in my bag to spill. So for most of the day, I was forced to carry my bag using the top strap, which wouldn't be so bad except carrying 10 kg constantly for the entire day by the top strap rather than on your back is a workout at least for your hands.

Breakfast finished, showered and changed, it was time to head into London. I had a couple more days in London before I had to fly back to the antipodes, so I decided I would visit a tourist attraction I hadn't gone despite having visited London twice, which was the Tower of London. First I needed to get back to STN in order to get to the coaches which would go into London. I then boarded a National Express coach to Liverpool Street station. What followed from my arriving at Liverpool was a bit of random meandering as I negotiated a bunch of street markets and the like, until I wised up and at least located a familiar location to me - Aldgate tube station - of which from there, walking to the Tower of London was relatively simple (following the signage to get there is not; using a map is much better!).

One thing I hadn't counted on was that today was the day of the London Marathon. Which means blocked roads and so on...luckily it did not make the walk to the Tower much more difficult, but it did explain the dramatic increase in people traffic around the area.

Lots of people have differing opinions about the Tower of London. Whilst many London attractions are free of charge to enter, or are quite cheap (cf. most of Europe, where entering almost every church, monument or museum can set you back a princely sum when added all up), the Tower of London is by no means inexpensive. I managed to use my Australian university student ID to get a discount on entry (thumbs up to the Tower's administration for being so open minded about accepting different forms of student ID), but that's still not a trivial amount. Some say it's a quintessential and eponymous attraction when in London; some say it's a prime tourist trap. Whatever, I decided to give it a go.


Walking towards the entry to the Tower of London.