London and its surrounding North Sea neighbours have experienced an unprecedented long period of sunshine this spring. As it stretched into a 2nd week, I was compelled to take advantage and return to Belgium, where I had disappointing weather on my November 2024 trip to Bruges. With cheap tickets on hand and a good weather forecast all week, I knew I had to come. But in addition to going back to Bruges, I also added Ghent, which I didn't visit last time, and Antwerp.
I had thought of backtracking to Brussels for the train or flight back to London. Noticing Rotterdam having multiple flights a day to London City and plenty of redemption seats available, I decided to finish in Rotterdam instead.
Here are some bits and pieces from my 2 days in Rotterdam under beautiful blue skies, with the full set
progressively being updated on my website :
At 9750 avios one-way, it's a good deal and I only had to pay a pound in taxes. It's also a small Embraer 190 jet, which I liked because of its ample legroom and 2-2 seating configuration. It actually feels more spacious than the typical A320 or 737 narrowbodies.
Getting to Rotterdam's airport is very easy and quick. I was initially surprised the RTM's journey planner pegged the whole journey at under half an hour despite a train and bus connection, and I live just outside the city centre to the south, in the other direction.
Metro lines D or E serve the airport area from the city centre, just 3 stops from Centraal. The E line goes all the way to The Hague as well. Getting off at Meijersplein, cross underneath the platform to the bus stop on the other side.
A 33 bound for Centraal emerged just as I exited the fare gates and it was a short ride of only a few stops to the airport terminal. Had I lived closer to the main train station, I would've taken the 33 directly from there for the airport to save myself the hassle of a transfer.
All this costed just 3 euros with both train and bus accepting contactless cards.
The terminal building screams a historic relic with both arrivals and departures sharing the same floor. There are a few more buildings nearby but the area was quiet. I couldn't even hear any airplane noise with no take-offs or landings for the entire time I explored outside.
The departures hall is at the far end of the building from the bus stop and despite it being 5:15pm already, the display screens didn't show where to check in for my 6:55pm flight and there wasn't a BA counter in sight.
Expecting a small airport, there isn't too much to do but they have a surprisingly huge amount of public space upstairs with a big restaurant, nicely-decorated seating areas, and even an outdoor observation deck! There were 2 Transavia planes parked and that's it.
However, my biggest complaint are the washrooms which are in the basement level with no elevators. The steps are fairly narrow so it's a trek in itself.
Returning from my short tour of the landside areas, I saw a line emerge at the end of the check-in row. There wasn't obvious signage it's for BA but it turned out to be. Staff were diligent to check for the UK ETA and sent my case away fairly quickly.
Security was a breeze with no line and computers and liquids can stay in bags.
The airside hall was big with plenty of seats and USB/plug charging available at some of the seats. It wasn't crowded anyway given the small amount of flights so I sat down to charge my camera battery. I had high hopes of a spectacular arrival into London City with a flight path over Canary Wharf and wanted to make sure everything was all juiced up for it.
With more time on my hands, I explored the sole duty-free shop. I usually browse the local food items and they have stroopwafels, cheeses, and even Leonidas chocolates.
To my surprise, I got the first message that my flight would be delayed from 6:55pm to 7:27pm.
Taking a seat again, I got a second message that my flight would be further delayed to 8:12pm. This would compromise my London aerials as we should be landing just after sunset. Bewildered how a 40 minute flight could have such a long delay, I searched online and it seemed the flight out of London is stuck and hasn't departed long after its original schedule. Annoyed, I went back to the Starbucks to grab a sandwich for dinner. Their prices are more reasonable than the restaurant downstairs.
Flights to the UK depart out of a part of the terminal beyond passport control, which hasn't even opened yet. Scanning the departure boards, this is a fairly quiet airport, with 1 more Stansted and another London City departure to end the day and it's only dinner time now. Overall, it's a very pleasant airport to use so far.
Next part : boarding and the spectacular approach
The full flight report is on my website : https://www.globalphotos.org/ba4457.htm