In early 2019 we spotted a good deal on a repositioning cruise for later in the year on a line with which we’d not cruised before and hitting some very exciting points of interest too. You can read more about them in the subsequent posts from this travelogue series covering our Journey To Jordan but, to start with, a little more information than usual regarding the night before departure. The reason for this is simply that as good as the cruise deal was it did have just one drawback and that was a requirement that we fly not from London as we more typically do but from Manchester, a significantly farther exit point from the UK. Furthermore, with the flight being early in the morning we had a choice to make as to whether to drive up there overnight or drive up there the evening before and stay overnight. We do not like leaving things to the last minute and we do believe that trying to save a little bit of money on hotel costs at the expense of added stress is a resort of the criminally insane.
Manchester Hotel: Premier Inn, Manchester Airport (M56/J6) Runger Lane North
We have one must-have and one would-be-nice-to-have when it comes to choosing a hotel prior to embarking on a holiday somewhere: it must have parking since we’ll be driving; it would be nice if it was close to a local real ale pub since we’d like a chance of a local drink if we’re staying outside our home region. The Premier Inn, Manchester Airport fit the bill perfectly on both counts and, as its name implied, it was very close to the airport too.
Checking in was simple enough although the machines to allow you to generate your own key card to the room didn’t have the ability to add on car parking so that had to be done in person at a nearby desk. After a close-to-five hours drive up from the south coast (with a short service station break after Oxford for a bite to eat) it was good to stretch our legs, throw the cases down, freshen up a bit, let Facebook friends and family know we’d arrived in The North safely, and snap a few photos of the room just in case nobody else on the internet has ever posted a photo of a Premier Inn hotel room before. I’m not even going to check; I’m just going to assume I’m the first person to do this.
The Romper Pub, Manchester
Five minutes after checking into our room in the hotel we were back out the door and heading towards the nearby pub we’d seen on the map, The Romper. This was only a walk of under ten minutes but did involve heading down an unlit road with trees on one side and fencing on the other and lots of cars parked along it, some with people in them, some with people standing around outside them.
Okay, so this is a bit scary.
We’re close to the airport. They’re probably taxi drivers waiting for dispatch calls.
They’re all silent.
Are you trying to imply they’re undead taxi drivers?
No, I’m saying it all feels like they’re criminals and we’ve stumbled into the middle of something.
It’s more likely dogging we’ve interrupted than engagements in anything nefarious. But I’m sure they’re just taxi drivers.
Well, they’re still scary.
All taxi drivers are. Anyway, I can see the pub now.
You too will be able to see the Romper pub when you spot the lion sculpture outside it. Initially a confusing piece of artwork this transpires to be thanks to the pub’s previous incarnation as The Red Lion and the origin of its present name (at time of writing) derives from a nickname applied to the unflattering sign it once sported, apparently closer in appearance to a “romping kitten” than any king of the jungle.
The pub itself was very nice. Large, lovely old stone and wooden beams everywhere. Staff were friendly. Some fellow patrons were a smidge boisterous – one was standing on a seat at one point and banging on the ceiling; what a charmer – but that could happen anywhere. Importantly, some bloody lovely regional beer that absolutely necessitated a second pint and a decent range of gin too.
Manchester Airport
In the morning we left the hotel and travelled the three minutes or so to park in the long stay parking at the airport that we’d pre-booked. Important tip: make a note of the level you park on and don’t rely on the level colour. We were on an orange level which seemed like an easy way to remember it until we returned from our trip abroad and discovered the elevator signs and external signs used different shades of oranges, reds, and yellows that confused us when pressing buttons and left us panicking that someone had stolen our car until we’d made three trips to different levels to check things out.
This was our first time flying out of Manchester Airport so it was all new and weird. It’s a far more compact airport than Gatwick or Heathrow but that made it very simple to find the TUI representative standing at the head of a snaking line of people with cases ready to board a TUI flight somewhere. We were allocated seats at that time (as we’d not been able to do so online for some reason) and were given a priority label for our luggage for unloading purposes as we were cruise passengers. Otherwise, we shuffled along with everyone else, got to play with the self-weighing and luggage tag-sticking machines they had, then pushed our bags onto the conveyor belt and headed off through security. The manual approach to checking your own bags in was a novel experience and not awful but I think we both prefer that someone at a desk do all that for us.
There weren’t many options for breakfast in the airport and the size of the queues made our minds up for us: Frankie and Benny’s won out the day. Beer and cider before eight in the morning? You bet! We were on holiday!
Naples Airport
Our flight to Naples was on one of TUI’s 787 Dreamliner aircraft and the one named Mrs Patmore specifically. You can read the story behind the plane’s name here. With it being a short trip to Italy no headphones were made available so the onboard entertainment wasn’t able to be used nor was any free meal part of the flight. My wife had her Kindle and I had my book and a window seat so could alternate between escaping into science fiction and saying irritating things like “Ooh, we’re over water!” and “Ooh, we’re no longer over water!” For a few hours that was just fine.
As we were near the rear of the plane and the plane came to a stop away from the terminal at Naples airport we got to debark from the rear exit which was an unusual experience for us. Also unusual was standing out on the concrete and tarmac for fifteen minutes waiting for a shuttle bus to come but preferable to spending any more time in the seats.
Luggage took its sweet time arriving on the carousel (whether those priority labels made a difference it’s not possible to say) but after it had finally turned up we found the TUI cruise representative and once sufficient numbers of us were present we were led out of the airport and to a nearby waiting bus where only a short drive sat in the way of boarding Marella Discovery.
In the next post of this travelogue series covering our cruise through the Suez Canal to Jordan I’ll cover our first day on the ship, a quick walk around it while still docked in Naples harbour, and the food and drink we forced ourselves to taste-test.