Weekend in Seville in Mar 2023: Day 1 – London (LGW) to Seville (SVQ)

By Nige on Sat 18 Mar 2023 at 15:21
Type: Post
Story: Weekend in Seville in Mar 2023
Tags: British Airways | LGW | London | Seville | Spain | SVQ | Weekends

There was only one passenger in the queue at First Check In, so it wasn’t long before our luggage was heading into the murky depths of Gatwick on a conveyor belt. That’s another odd thing to do – we haven’t checked in luggage for years and I blame Andrew and Sam entirely. Well perhaps more Sam than Andrew. Sam needs to travel with the kitchen sink, so they have no choice but to check in at least one suitcase.

The messages we received from the check in agent was (1) a congratulations and a big thank you to me on my 10 year anniversary as a BAEC member. [To be honest it’s been more than 10 years since I converted over from British Midland in Oct 2012]. However, the sentiment was appreciated.

Vick seemed to get a similar sort of message although she was also congratulated as being a Gold Guest List member, even though she isn’t! The cheek of it – anyway, who’s picking…

Gatwick is a bit of a mess. It seems to be a collection of corridors, escalators and disjointed shopping/dining areas that they have attempted to present as a single service offering. Probably just caused as a result of slow expansion over time and having to try to reconfigure things as requirements have changed.

Luckily I was prepared and I knew to ignore the escalator immediately after security which would take us down through duty free. That route would have taken along a winding path around every shelf offering goods we had absolutely no interest in. But we would be forced to look at them in order to escape the madness.

Instead we headed left, through a doorway, which allowed us a direct route into the departures area. From there it was a case of heading across to the other side of the departures area. We found JD Sports and then through another narrow corridor and up to level 5 in the lift. Finally, we arrived at the BA Lounges.

The lounge dragons were very friendly and welcomed us in. Once in, we secured some decent seats and enjoyed the food on offer. Our initial attraction was to a chicken curry, which we can report as being very tasty indeed.

Vick and I had individual wanders around the shops to procure appropriate items in support of the weekend festivities. We won’t go into specifics!

Andrew and Sam arrived at a more traditional hour for passengers leaving on a 4pm flight. We had a right laugh in the lounge. We were so loud at times that I was surprised we weren’t evicted… It got our weekend away off to a great start.

We became acquainted with Joan who was one of the attendants in the lounge, who ended up mopping up after Vicky threw a glass of water over the table we were using and then collecting plates after we demolished burgers and triple-cooked chips. Getting to know Joan seemed quite apt. Note that the triple-cooked chips were some of the very best Vick and I have ever tasted.

Andrew had been notified the night before that the flight was going to be delayed. Note: that Vick and I had not been notified! The flight ended up over an hour late leaving.

Flight: BA2798 Equip: A320
Sched Depart: 16:20 Actual: 17:40
Sched Arrival: 20:05 Actual: 20:59
Takeoff: 17:52 Landing: 20:55

We left from Gate 23, so we headed down there as soon as the inbound flight had arrived. Its a fair old way and luckily the type of passenger flying from Gatwick is slightly different to that from Heathrow. No one was queuing at the gate for priority boarding so we easily manoeuvred ourselves into prime position.

Boarding commenced about 5 mins later, and other than a short delay waiting on the jet bridge we were soon onboard into the front row seats of 2D and 2F. This was an odd seating layout for an A320; the row 1 seats were on the left hand side only. We hadn’t chosen those due to them being so exposed.

Andrew and Sam were in row 6.

There was an energetic feel to the front few rows of passengers, some of whom were not that comfortable with flying.

Everyone was looking forward to getting on their way to Seville.

We obviously pushed back late, but it only took a few minutes before we were hurtling down the runway. With us heading south as the sun was going down, we were bound to get a great view of the sunset.

Menus were handed out and the onboard service started with drinks and not long after that, we had a choice of lamb shank and or a veggie katsu curry. I went for the former; Vick went for the latter.

We had decided that we would note down funny or significant phrases during this long weekend. First one was highlighted when discussing how many bottles of champagne we needed to order onboard.

Vick suggested that she didn’t need to order a bottle of champagne since she could share mine – ordering her own felt a bit of a waste.

My thought was if Vick ordered a bottle of her own and didn’t drink it all, I could drink the rest of hers. “Drinking is not wasting…” I remarked. Bucks Fizzes were enjoyed in the front row.

The lamb shank wasn’t that tasty and it was a tad fatty for my liking, but the veggies were good. Vicky really enjoyed the veggie katsu curry. Of the small spoonful I was allowed of it, I was very impressed. It had a real depth of flavour.

The cheese offered in the meal was also really flavoursome. Overall we were very happy with the meal service from BA.

After dinner we were offered some amazing views of the sunset.

There are many things in life which are beautiful, but none so attractive as a sunset viewed above the clouds.

This view almost looked like the skimming of a stone across a lake. Wow! Amazing!

I enjoyed watching the sun go down. By this point, I think the Vickster was in full snore mode, as can be seen from the image below.

Our thoughts turned to Seville and the warmth that would hit us as the aircraft door opened. As it happens, that didn’t quite happen, but the thought helped us both drift off briefly.

The rest of the flight was very pleasant. Vick and I both dozed for the final 30 mins or so, but the captain announced we were on our final approach.

Landing was smooth and with Seville being a fairly small airport, it only took a few mins before we arrived at Gate C23.

We imagined us being on the other side of the glass divider in four days time; no doubt waiting impatiently to get onboard the aircraft, desperately wanting to get home. But that is for another day.

Then we had the horrendous thought of having to wait for bags to be loaded onto a carousel for us to decide which of the many bags we fancied taking to our hotel…

What is the world coming to. This stowing of baggage will never catch on. All I knew is that I couldn’t allow this to become a habit…

Follow the whole story here: Weekend in Seville in Mar 2023