14:45 and finally arrived at the Concorde room. Incredibly thirsty as the plane was really hot and then the Heathrow Express added insult to injury so I’m starting out with a Diet Coke, plus the champagne of course. I’ve also been talked into a small pour of the Bordeaux to go with my main course. All my food has been chosen by my favourite lounge angel and is probably what I would have chosen for myself



The menus are new (to me) for this month




Audley travel have a pop up in the first lounge for their concierge services so I stopped off to be nosey. Nice chap manning the stand. I told him the services were not for me, if I had infinite money and no time I’d be a customer, but my circumstances are the other way around

Scallop for the first course which were really good. Never would have considered a tikka butter with a scallop but I thoroughly enjoyed it.




Main course was the Bacon Chop with Sauce Robert. I admit I had to google that, a brown mustard sauce generally served with pork.

Generally I find that the Concorde Room team under-sauce a lot of the dishes and I have to ask for more, but this was perfect. A word of caution if you are going to be able to try this, mine was salted to the edge of too much, so taste before you season. Don’t get me wrong, this was delicious, possibly my favourite dish the CCR have served up, but just a touch of salt would have pushed it over the edge.





A brief respite, and a refresh of the Pommery Louise, before I move onto desert

Desert was the chocolate and blood orange and I’m not a fan of this one, I found the juicy orange against the heavy chocolate to be an odd mix. There was only one thing to do, move the orange aside and clear the plate of chocolate




Luckily afternoon tea was still laid so there was no shortage of sweet treats

Thinking might be dangerous!

I was seriously tempted to go back and have another bacon chop but decided that another more liquid desert was in order



With an hour to departure I think I shall enjoy this and then head toward gate A8 with a detour into duty free to see what the latest promotions have to offer

In the end I headed to the gate with forty minutes to go. They were well into the process of loading the tensa maze but I made myself known to the desk and let through with the pre-boards.

It was a matter of minutes before boarding commenced and with ten minutes to departure we are boarding complete and ready to go.

G-NEOS today and I was last on board 1 year and 4 days ago on exactly this same route



Next Stop: Newcastle in, hopefully, less than an hours time

It is, just an out and back

What you have to remember is that Gibraltar was, until fairly recently, a military base. It still has a small Royal Navy and RAF presence but it’s very much scaled back compared to what it used to be. In addition, Spain closed the border with Gibraltar in 1966 until 1982 and tried to stop UK aircraft flying through Spanish airspace into Gibraltar.

As a consequence of the above, it isn’t really a developed tourist destination, there isn’t that much to do beyond what I’ve already mentioned. I think that the best way to get there is to fly in, although there are only direct flights from England with British Airways and easyJet at the moment. The history and the novelty factor is what draws visitors and the mild climate most of the year.

I normally visit with a group of friends, we get a BA flight around mid-morning on a Saturday, as the flight departs from Heathrow Terminal 3, we get to surf a few lounges first before boarding. We get CE flights and once we land at Gib, walk to The Rock hotel, which takes about 40 minutes. After checking in and dumping any bags, we walk a further 30 minutes or so to Europa Point on the very southern tip of the peninsula for ice cream and to drink the beers that somehow found their way into our bags from the BA lounge (no, we didn’t remove them, a big boy must have hidden them in our bags and then run away). The views over to Africa are pretty good with the Atlas Mountains visible; sunsets are usually quite picturesque too.

Then back to The Rock to shower and change, down to the marina area for dinner and then back to The Rock bar for drinks. Next day after breakfast, we used to take the cable car up the Rock and walk down visiting all the attractions, ending in The Moorish Castle. Back to The Rock hotel to pick up bags and down to the marina area for lunch and drinks before walking over to the airport for the afternoon flight back to Heathrow. This year, we didn’t bother with the trip up the Rock and just had a relaxing morning before heading into town for lunch.

No point getting to the airport really early if you have hand baggage, we usually turn up around 20 minutes before gate closes, security is usually quiet then and the lounge isn’t really anything to write home about. The first couple of times we visited, we watched our aircraft arrive from behind the road barrier that closed off traffic and pedestrians from the runway and then walked across the runway to the airport.

In the end we were off the ground at 18:20 and the crew were up and distributing the water and love corn even before the seatbelt lights were off.

After thirty minutes I looked back to see all three of them having a highly relaxed chat at the back so I wandered back to ask about my preordered Buy on Board.

Firstly I was told there was no buy on board, then that there was no preorders, and then finally they actually looked and, lo, there was indeed an order for me. Then it turned into a game of hunt the BoB bin, and after checking four or five they finally found the sandwich. Then we came to the coffee, and, nope, no sign of that either. Eventually, tiring of the game, I suggested that they get me a cup of coffee from Club!

By the time I finally settled down complete with coffee it was 19:00 and we were ten minutes to landing.

The crew then failed to do any sort of safety check, the lady in 16 C had her seat belt off and her bag at her feet. One of those least effort crew you sometimes come across.

And with that the wheels have just hit the ground at 19:10. Now I need to remember to pick up my suitcase

The cases took quite some time to come out but eventually I was bag in hand and out of the airport at 19:40. And now this trip ends as they all do, with me penning this final update whilst in an uber heading for home.

I can tell I’m back up north as it is chucking it down with rain. Not something I’m going to have to worry about for long, I need to be out of the house again tomorrow and on my way to Birmingham for the week!

Until next time, Adios!

I definitely need to add GIB back to my list, thank you for this TR. I had flights and hotel booked a few years ago but the BA cancelled my flights. After that I sort of forgot about it.

I like their pouring standrad, that's how it should be the standard pour is an easy 1/5 bottle and more!

Thanks for the TR (never been to Gib) and the GF checking (already received a brownie point from Mrs T about your madeira cake spotting in Aspire )

Eagerly awaiting the "next time". Thank you for an entertaining trip report.

Thank you JapesUK for another interesting TR. Another place I would like to visit for a weekend!

Another 5000 Avios? To me, that's more significant than missing chorizo.

And BoB and coffee issue...another 5000?