Flying and Five Star

Sunday 15 February, London

I have had about three hours sleep. I have overnighted in one of London’s leading hotels in a suite that would have cost me £500, had I paid. Just for the room. The air conditioning was horribly noisy. Thrum, thrum, thrum. I pressed every button there was to slow down the fan, lower the temperature, or just TURN THE BLOODY THING OFF. To no avail.
The king sized bed was extremely comfortable with crisply starched linen and more pillows on the one bed than I have at home. But thrum bloody thrum.
It wasn’t helped by the fact that the only way to listen to the radio at bedtime, was to put on one of the televisions. But I giant beacon remained on the screen. HOTEL RADIO. I listened to Radio Four’s Book at Bedtime under a bloody searchlight.
But I am getting rather ahead of myself.
The Iberia check in girl at Malaga airport could see that I had been granted an extra luggage allowance, but she was being bureaucratically Spanish at her pernickety best. Luckily, I stood my ground and all was well in the end.
At security, OH how I love security at airports, I was dressing myself when an American woman was pleading not to have her very expensive looking manicure set thrown away. VERY expensive looking. Quite why the stupid woman was bringing it through security beggars belief. But the show made me forget my watch and it took the intervention of an elderly Guardia Civil officer a couple of minutes later to retrieve it.
Why is it that people with walking sticks wear trainers? I ask that, because Monarch’s plane to Luton is full to the brim with such folk. Several of them in football tops. There are more wheelchair passengers than I have ever seen on an aircraft. While I have every support and sympathy for people with disabilities, I cannot understand why airlines insist on totally clogging up the aisles with a few people needing assistance while 200 others wait?
On the day when a 13 year old father is in the news, the majority of the cabin crew don’t look all that much older. One passenger buys an exclusive Monarch Airlines Barbie doll, which seems highly appropriate. I am fascinated that one of the girls has hair which drops down straight to her collar, then projects horizontally for several inches. How does that work?
I enjoy a brandy and dry ginger for which I pay £4 and am looking forward to my hot lunch. But, by the time the trolley has reached row 8, they have run out. ‘People seem to be hungry today’ said one of the Barbie Dolls. Not surprising really, seeing as it is a lunchtime departure!
The sausage and mash looks horrible, but actually tasts very nice. The apple crumble is nothing like my mum’s, of course, but a tasty bit of Croxton cheddar rounded things off. Not bad for £6.
Fast ticket collection at Luton Airport Parkway station was anything but. My code was not being accepted. Had I just paid, I would not have missed the fast train to St. Pancras. The man at the station tells me it’s a common occurrence. Mr. Trainline dot com will be having a Soutergram!
I am looking forward to my night in the capital. I have been lucky to have stayed in many of the world’s leading hotels, but never in the Grosvenor House, just off Park Lane. It’s being refurbished and rebranded and every time you say GH, you have to add A JW Marriott Hotel. Branding is something that I know rather a lot about. But this is bonkers. Who cares a toss? Some overpaid advertising geek who should have been told to get back in his or her box. It’s everywhere. GRRRRR.
I am surprised that they have changed my booking for afternoon tea, especially as they know I am expecting a journalist friend, Adrian Finighan, who I knew from my broadcasting days in Norfolk and Suffolk and who is now the main London anchor for CNN.
But I have been upgraded to a suite. It’s so big that it almost needs a map to help me find my way around. Very nicely furnished.
Someone called Vicki Richards has left me a ‘Dear Mike’ note, welcoming me to the hotel. She turns out, according to reception, to be the sales and marketing director, but I don’t know her, have never met her and I am a bit unimpressed by the informal approach. Especially in a leading hotel.
My laptop connects easily to the £20 a day broadband connection and I read a note from Adrian who has been called away to Barcelona, so he is busy ironing his TV presenter’s shirt. It’s the first time I have ever been stood up on St. Valentine’s Day. Mind you, I am not sure I have ever before had an afternoon assignation on February 14!
Because of the romantic nature of the day, the hotel is full and so are the restaurants. But they have kindly offered me afternoon tea in the Park Room. The blurb paints a picture of a lovely view across to Hyde Park, but, in reality, it’s constant traffic and vibration.
There’s a hiatus when I point out that my champagne glass has been used, which sends a series of folk to the table to apologise. Carlos, who’s from Portugal, but who was brought up in Germany, a Portuguese girl from guest relations, Sandro the Italian F and B manager and Samuel, the poor Irish lad whose fault it was. All I wanted to do was tuck into my £28.50 feast with my ‘Grosvenor House a JW Marriott Hotel’Royal Blend’ of Assam and Ceylon tea. Plus 12.5% discretionary service charge.
Scrumptious sandwiches, wonderful scones with comb honey or strawberry jam with clotted cream and excellent pastries. A very talented pianist playing all my favourites from Gershwin to Lloyd Webber. Adrian, you missed a treat!
Carlos shows me the lunch menu. May I recommend 30g of Beluga caviar for £155, the gin for £9.25, tonic extra and, especially, a bottle of Quinta do Noval 1931 port. A snip at £1295. No decimal point. Not anywhere. Plus, of course, a 12.5% discretionary service charge. I am sure they’d accept £100.
Later in the evening, in my suite, I search for my advertised ‘complimentary coffee and tea’, only to be told that, ‘owing to the refurbishment, not all rooms have it yet’. But a tray duly arrives. Neither the man who brought it, nor I, could find a plug for the kettle. He left me searching. I still am. Oh there ARE plugs. Just that you either have to unplug the television or the telephone or hold the kettle in mid air as it boils.
The shortage of sockets is indeed acute. I spend the evening swapping my mobile phone, camera battery charger, iPod dock et al in the bathroom shaver socket.
Luckily, a pot of early morning tea can be delivered. £5.60 for that. But my Sunday Times, supposedly to be delivered at the same time, has failed to materialise.
Attention to detail. There’s a lot the branding people could learn from the Taj.

Postcript

Delightful as the setting is for my £26.50 breakfast, heads will roll over the stone cold black pudding on the buffet. Not that I can ever support cafeteria style messing in hotels of this quality and cost. Luckily the hotel's George McIntosh, a fellow Scot, is well aware of the problems that can be caused by the potential for bacteria to lurk. Especially in blood products. On that happy note, to Heathrow and British Airways, the only company that I know for sure has given me a nasty dose of food poisoning. Which resulted in a stay in Ruchill Hospital in Glasgow with suspected cholera. But that is 30 years ago.....

PLANNING AND PACKING

Three more sleeps before departure, so my bags are almost packed, or at least I have decided what needs to be in them. I am always prone to taking far too much of everything, so I have been pretty ruthless about reducing the load. But the travel kettle HAS to be included and it’s amazing just how much paraphernalia needs to be taken just to ensure that I have the wherewithal to have a decent cup of tea on my travels.

Some years ago, I took the lead from a much-travelled friend who has what he calls his ‘running away bag’. There are huge advantages to be able to just pick that up, knowing that everything a man could possible require en-route has been pre-sorted.

At least, that’s the theory.

For a start, I’ll be travelling on three different airlines within a 48 hour period, all of whom have different regulations about what is permitted in their cabin. To avoid any doubt, and also the potential that my checked in luggage won’t arrive at the same time and place as me, I will carry on board all essentials for at least 3 days. But one airline will allow that case to be 10KG, one 23KG and one seems to tell me that, ‘as long as I can lift it without assistance’, then that’s fine.

Well I can, but only just.

I’ve just turned down a lunch appointment, despite the fact that it’s gloriously sunny outside and I really do need a break from the fairly intense planning I have now being doing over the past three weeks.

But various computer systems are not allowing me to do what should take me moments and I feel the stress levels mounting. Oh how I long for those days when you simply turned up and took off!

On my last trip to the States, I had such a grilling from the man at the immigration desk that I vowed never to return. I felt especially aggrieved that I was there as a Naval Reserve Officer, had a multiple entry Visa and was being treated like the dirt on the smarmy shoes he no doubt was wearing.

Now, you have to fill up a special form online before you travel, which allows you to fly but not necessarily to get in. The link from British Airways to the Department of Homeland Security seems to have been broken for the past 48 hours and even BA can’t update the fact I’m not now staying at the hotel I originally entered into the system. Clearly I am an alien and, Santa Claus having brought me the entire series of the X Files, I am almost beginning to believe.

I have not so far been hugely impressed with BA, especially their new rules regarding seat allocation. While I can pre-book my seat at the time of reservation on almost any other airline anywhere in the world, unless I have a BA Platinum or Gold card, I can’t now choose my seat until 24 hours before the flight. Before you ask, I’m flying in the Club World cabin. But I expect that, in an attempt to win friends, the same rules now apply to First Class, as well.

I was planning to ask a friend to book my seat, as I’ll be in mid-air en route to London when online seat allocation opens, but the lady in the call centre was unable to access the Business Class cabin plan when I called, so I will probably end up near the toilet or the galley.

I’m highly unamused, but it’s best not to complain too much as the company is largely funding the trip.

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I have been surrounded by guide books and maps for about a fortnight. I am not a slave to what they say but, as a contributor to several, I do like to compare notes. Unusually, I am without my Rough Guide as the Spanish distributor has run out and I won’t actually take delivery of my copy until I arrive in London.

But Lonely Planet and the Insight Guide and map have been very useful indeed in putting everything into context. Mind you, the very glossy Insight Guide alone weighs nearly a kilogram and its’ bulk may mean it becomes a casualty of the swingeing cuts I am making to my luggage.

The guides bring me up with a bit of a jolt. I had no real idea that Florida was quite so big and diverse. Early on, I’ll almost be within touching distance of New Orleans, for heavens’ sake! I’ve visited the Sunshine State several times, but not criss-crossed it as I will be doing over the next month.

One book I will be leaving at home is the excellent Bradt guide to USA by rail. I SO wanted to get about by Amtrak. But, despite a flurry of emails to both Amtrak and their main sales agent, I have had no joy in adding any rail to my itinerary.

Most disappointing.