Algarve trip report by Froggee (paterfamilias)

[Froggee]

After the success that was Jersey, the Froggee family decided to brave flying again and so we ventured to Portugal for half term. We chose to return to Martinhal Sagres where we stayed several times pre-Covid. Whilst not perfect, it was my happy place as the boys loved it and therefore there was generally zero stress which equals parental relaxation.

With the boys’ school breaking up on Friday the 7th of October we had a head start on most other families although we waived a day of this by choosing to fly on Sunday the 9th of October. The reason we chose Sunday was the availability of a direct flight leaving at 12:05 and arriving at 15:15 which is highly sociable compared to what was available on the Saturday. We were flying to Portugal with an airline called Ryanair. If you are London-based and earn more than £1 million per annum like 99.9% of Headforpoints’ demographic, you won’t have heard of Ryanair. But it is an Irish based scratch card vendor which also operates some niche leisure routes using a couple of Boeing 737-800 planes that apparently their CEO accidentally bought when he drunk-clicked on eBay. Amusingly I looked in the eBay price history for 737-800s and sure enough I can see how the error was made as they were each listed at £9.99 plus a £38 million delivery fee. I guess this gave the fellow a pricing strategy as our flights were similarly cheap until we had to pay to bring our suitcases with us; there was an additional charge to be allowed to take carry-on bags inside the cabin; and there were also seat reservation fees (we paid a further premium to be allowed to sit inside the cabin and not on the plane’s wings). Suddenly the fare was £676.78 for the four members of family Froggee, one-way from Edinburgh to Faro.

To say that our boys were super-excited on the Sunday morning was an understatement. We left the house shortly after 9 o’clock and made good time getting to the airport. Kermit talked a lot about mints. For once, my check tyre pressure light did not come on. I could tell it was going to be a good day. I parked in the multi-story car park at Edinburgh Airport which I had pre-booked for £72.89 for twelve days. This price also included fast track security passes so it was a veritable bargain. On reaching the terminal building we had to battle our way through various pinch points where the long thin design of the airport sees various queues block through traffic but, without too much trouble, we reached Ryanair’s check in station. We had already printed our boarding passes under threat of financial ruin and were delighted to see a long arrangement of tensile barriers with only a handful of other passengers waiting to drop their bags. It only took a few minutes until it was our turn. We had to operate the machines ourselves but given my gormless expression, a nice member of staff pressed the buttons for me and put the tags on our two checked bags. We were not yet done as we then needed to wheel our bags round to the airport luggage belt and put them on it ourselves. It was remarkably efficient and kind of fun.

We went upstairs to security, noting the wait time as being 16 minutes but our fast-track passes worked a treat and we were through security in a couple of minutes, for once avoiding a secondary security screening.

#winning.

I looked at my watch and it was exactly one hour since we had left our house. We snaked our way through the warren that is Edinburgh Airport’s duty-free offering while Kermit talked about mints. We walked past the enormous Wetherspoons that appears to be taking over Edinburgh Airport’s departure area and found our way to the Plaza Premium lounge. The lady at the desk was happy to accept our Amex platinum cards for entry. I was starting to get suspicious at this point. Why was everything going so smoothly? The Plaza Premium was exactly as I remembered it from when it was a No1 lounge. There was an excellent selection of breakfast food so Mrs Froggee and the boys loaded up. In a nod to its heritage as a No1 lounge, Kermit went to the (clean) toilets and it became a No2 lounge. The other 185 passengers of FR6826 do not know how lucky they were. Because of the inordinately smooth experience so far, we still had plenty of time to kill. Mrs Froggee took the boys to the kids’ room in the lounge and I ventured out to fill our wattle bottles (for free!!!), buy a Pret a Manger tuna baguette for my lunch (£4.25) and Ibuprofen Lysine from Boots (£3.70). I returned to find Kermit and Freddo sitting on the couch in the kids’ room watching Peppa Pig which was showing on a massive TV screen. Neither has any interest in Peppa Pig any more but any screen has a hypnotic effect on them. I have always wanted to see if they could sit through Derek Jarman’s film “Blue”, which for those who have not seen it, exclusively features the colour international klein blue for one hour and 19 minutes with narration by Jarman and others. Because it’s on a screen, innit?

Our flight was on time (curiouser and curiouser) so we headed to gate 1 which was as far away from the Plaza Premium lounge as possible. This gave Kermit more time to talk about mints. We made a pit stop at Pret a Manger to get lunch for the rest of the team. Mrs Froggee paid while I guarded our carry-on bags so I do not know the cost but I bet she got the over-priced mango and then hid it from me. As we stood waiting to board, Kermit started nagging and nagging about getting some mints for take-off and landing so his ears wouldn’t hurt. Well played Kermit. Against my better judgment I took him to WH Smith where I paid 99 pence for a packet of Wrigley’s Extra Sugarfree Peppermints. We returned to the gate to find Mrs Froggee frantic as the priority boarding queue was moving at pace and she feared having to board with the great unwashed. She had even phoned me such was the level of urgency. We made it into the priority queue in the nick of time and as our reward got to stand in a plastic tunnel outside for a bit longer than we otherwise would have done. There was a bit of a holdup at this point because our plane was parked next to a disembarking Aer Lingus plane. The powers-that-be at Edinburgh Airport were worried about passengers mingling so we had to wait until all on the Aer Lingus flight had been shepherded into the terminal before we could board. The boys were unimpressed but at least it gave them an opportunity to properly complain about something which had been sorely lacking so far.

Onto the plane we went. Traditionally we have taken three seats in one row and an aisle seat across with me sitting with the boys and Mrs Froggee sitting afar, typically semi-comatose from the effects of her Kwells travel sickness medication. But this time I had booked a pair of middle and window seats behind each other. I thought this worked out okay with a retired couple occupying the respective aisle seats. Both boys wanted to sit next to Mrs Froggee until I mentioned the word “Monopoly” which saw Freddo change his allegiance. Freddo is a natural born capitalist and loves playing Monopoly on the understanding that I trade my best properties with him, thereby always allowing him to win. Once settled, Freddo asked me a couple of times when we were going to blast off and then we did. Between Monopoly, Qwirkle and Brain-It-On he was no trouble at all. Praise be the Apple iPad. The old fellow next to me was a decent enough seat mate other than I spent most of the flight with his elbow in my ribs as he quietly went about Sudoku.

The flight was a bit late because of the Aer Lingus issue but other than that there is little to report. Each boy only made a single toilet trip. Courtesy of Pret a Manger I did not have to relive the trauma of the time Mrs Froggee took a meal deal on Ryanair, paying an additional bargain price of two euros for a small tub of Pringles that she did not even eat. Scratch card sales announcements were kept to a bare minimum and the crew were genuinely friendly. I did discover that Freddo dislikes mints almost as much as Kermit likes them. I gave him one when his ears started to hurt and my prize was him dry-retching it into a tissue. Luckily, I had backup Haribos which magically cured all.

On landing we were pretty quick off the plane as I had taken seats near the back as this is the best position for children who like going to the loo. We arrived at immigration and literally walked up to a desk where we got our passports stamped with aplomb by the bombastic-but-friendly officer. The wait for baggage was maybe ten minutes which was time enough to ensure everyone had peed before the 80-minute drive to Martinhal Sagres. We had pre-booked a car and driver through Martinhal for 129 euros (each way). This is not cheap but it has always been smooth and reliable.

I’m sorry to say that this time the drive was not smooth. I’m guessing because our flight had been a bit late the driver was trying to make up time and seemed to think the best way to do this was to tailgate. So, he maintained his preferred distance of 30cm to the vehicle in front by alternating between the brake and the accelerator with a frequency that saw Freddo revisit his newly acquired ability to get car sick. I probably should have said something but was sitting in the back seat whereas Mrs Froggee was in the middle. Freddo survived the drive without puking and we were finally at Martinhal for the first time in three years. I tipped the driver ten euros, probably because I’m an idiot. Obrigado por quase fazer meu segundo filho vomiter. Mrs Froggee administered Calpol to Freddo for the headache the drive had triggered and I went inside to check in. I had pre checked in online which actually worked. All they needed was a credit card and we were into a buggy to take us to our house. I was informed that very little had changed at Martinhal in three years with the main additions being crazy putting (or mini golf as they called it) and there being a bouncy-castle-slide at one of the pools.

Almost nine hours after leaving our house we were here. I had pre-booked “Os Gambozinos” for dinner at 6pm so we barely had time to make peepee before wandering out to eat. We were on holiday. Yay.

At this juncture I should probably describe Martinhal. Depending on whether you have children or not it is either hell-on-earth or a restful haven. It is near Sagres, a town in the south-west of Portugal on the Atlantic coast. It has a hotel and lots and lots of holiday homes of a variety of different types and sizes. There are several swimming pools, a gym, a few restaurants, a small general store, tennis courts, an astro football pitch, a water sports centre, mini flying-foxes, a BMX dirt track, a beach, a bar, and the “blue room” with pool table, table-tennis, Sony PlayStation etc. I’ve undoubtedly missed some stuff off. There is plenty to do. And lots of childcare options. The whole operation is geared around kids. They even have an on-site nurse who gets wheeled out every time there is a head injury. This unsurprisingly almost exclusively attracts families. Well-heeled families who invariably look like they are straight from a Boden catalogue shoot. After a few days on our first visit, I got the hang of Martinhal. The key is to accept the fact that despite paying lots of money, the service will be a bit hit and miss and to accept this. It is almost always friendly so don’t sweat it as the kids are happy. AND THAT IS THE MAIN THING.

Case in point. I don’t normally drink but after the long day I ordered a small draft Sagres (one of Portugal’s main beers and obviously owned by Heineken). I was brought a large draft Sagres. I was just grateful that I received a beer and drank it. Os Gambozinos sits on Martinhal’s “town square” where the shop and bar are also. In the square there is a bouncy castle, two trampolines, an outdoor ping-pong table, play houses, slides, and a safe space that children can run around. The boys love the freedom of being able to run in and out of the restaurant. As a result, we ate most dinners here. On average this took 90 minutes of which the boys were sitting with us for about 15. This was a shame from Mrs Froggee’s perspective as the food at Os Gambozinos is so-so. We did eat at the seafood restaurant “As Dunas” twice for dinner and twice for lunch which cheered Mrs Froggee up as it has better food. Other than that, we had take-out from the “Josper Grill” twice and pizza from the general store’s freezer one night. But mainly dinner was at Os Gambozinos. We didn’t bother with their fanciest restaurant “O Terraco” other than thrice for breakfast as in the past we found it a bit meh.

Two thing that struck me about Martinhal this time round was that there were a lot more Germans and a lot more flies than I remembered. Clearly Germany must have earlier school holidays than even Scotland. I was told that the flies come in early October and then a couple of weeks later the dragonflies come and eat all the flies. The Germans did not trouble us but the flies did. They were pretty relentless for the whole holiday. But we kind of got used to them in the same way we have gotten used to our boys. They are highly annoying and no matter what you do, they won’t leave you alone. But they are harmless.

The first day at Martinhal I thought we should try out the pool with the bouncy-castle-slide. The boys were hooked. They loved it. So much. Other kids came and went in waves but our two kept sliding/bouncing down into the pool, climbed out and went again. After the best part of a couple of hours I smelled trouble as some big German teenagers appeared and seemed somewhat thuggish (climbing on the planters, throwing each other in the pool, trying to drown each other). I considered calling it a day but the boys were having loads of fun. As it turned out the Germans were only thugs to each other but were delightful to my boys. A cycle developed where the Germans would try and kill each other on the bouncy-castle-slide and there would be a brief pause while Kermit and Freddo were allowed to come down unharmed and the thuggery would then resume. After a bit the dynamic then changed where the Germans then started cheering Freddo when he came down. And occasionally asking if he was okay. “Yes?” Freddo would always answer in a why-would-I-not-be kind of manner. We could not see what Freddo was up to from where we were sitting. It turns out that Freddo was doing back flips and front flips from the top, landing hard and then bouncing into the pool. If it had not been my own child, I would have been amused but it did look like it had the potential to go wrong. Let’s face it, if a six-year-old impresses a group of teenagers then it can’t be a good thing. But kudos to Edinburgh Leisure’s gymnastics classes for enabling this to happen.

We decided to quit while ahead. As we left Kermit asked us about the Germans. “They speak a different language but they understand us daddy. How is that?” Well Kermit, they learn English from a young age so they probably speak English better than you; with a less-strong accent than you; and they probably make less grammatical errors than you. Or is it fewer grammatical errors? I don’t know – ask a German teenager.

Our neighbours for most of our holiday were also Germans – a family of five with two boys of a similar age to ours and a younger daughter. They were friendly enough but had a weird routine of arriving home every night at between 9:30pm and 10pm, generating enough noise that made me genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of the kids. It appeared that the father thought the best way to get his kids to bed was a blitzkrieg. It seemed to work as they went from Apocalypse Now to a Quiet Place in 10-15 minutes. It certainly made me question the amount of time we spend on shower/bath, then quiet time then stories. I considered slamming a few doors as part of the bedtime routine just to mix it up a bit but I don’t have it in me.

We spent 11 nights at Martinhal and very quickly it became like Groundhog Day. “Can we go to the pool, can we go to the pool, can we go to the pool?”. “Can we go to the square, can we go to the square, can we go to the square?”. “Can we go to the blue room, can we go to the blue room, can we go to the blue room?”. That was it. We dragged the boys to the beach one day because, you know, they love the beach. The beach was declared too hot – can we go to the pool? I made them play crazy golf one day. Freddo ended up huffing and was more tiger-hiding-in-woods than Tiger Woods. The boys were happy as long as swimming, bouncing or blue-rooming. We were vaguely relaxed. I escaped once for a walk along the beach and into Sagres. Latterly Mrs Froggee went into hiding at afternoon swim time. But we were content enough. I promise.

There is little else to report from Martinhal. I witnessed the world’s most annoying dad who praised his only child at full volume every time he bounced/slid into the pool. We saw a couple of kids brain themselves when running poolside. Don’t do this kids – the only time Freddo has had to go to hospital was as a direct consequence of running poolside. I rescued a little girl whose “help me, help me” between bobs still haunts me. I stuck out an arm, she grabbed it and then swam off. Kids are weird. We paid €5488.56 for 11 nights in a three-bedroom Bay view house which we chose because the resort was fully booked and that was a cancellation that appeared when I checked back i.e. it chose us. We would have been happy with a cheaper no-view two-bed house. We spent €1,439 on eight dinners, three breakfasts, two lunches and two take-out dinners; €115.50 on teas/coffees, milk-shakes and ice-creams; and €239.70 in the general store on other food. It is not a cheap place.

For the return leg we had a choice of flying Jet2 or Ryanair direct. The Jet2 flight would have involved leaving at 7:30 which I felt would have been a somewhat inglorious end to our holiday. And they wanted over £1,500 for the four of us. And I really hate Jet2. The Ryanair flight left at 6-somthing in the evening which would have been a late night. Therefore, I chose to go with BA at a more acceptable 13:15 with a two-hour connection at Heathrow arriving into Edinburgh at 19:30. It cost €1,179.36 for the four of us in Club Europe from FAO-LHR and Economy from LHR-EDI. I then used 26,000 Avios to upgrade the LHR-EDI leg to Club Europe also.

Pleasingly the weather turned on our last day. Sun and low-to-mid-20s weather was replaced with clouds and low 20s weather. The day we departed, it was raining and forecast to rain for several more days. As I showered, a fly watched me, too lethargic to trouble me. Or maybe it was scared of the dragonflies? I noted that the pubic hair which was stuck to the wall of the shower at my eye level and had greeted me on day #1 remained there after 11 nights. I wonder if it is still there.

Martinhal booked a car for us at 10:15 which seemed fairly tight to me but other than it being the same driver (who was a bit smoother this time) it was fine. Everyone but me had taken Kwells. On checking in we were told our flight was delayed by an hour. Ugh. It transpired that the Portuguese had decided to implement a new air traffic control system and therefore slot restrictions were in place. Oh well – at least we can go to the lounge. Security (with BA supplied fast track) was a breeze. Although Freddo did set off some sort of alarm that saw him swabbed for explosives. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been plausible – never underestimate Freddo’s ability to cause trouble. We turned up to the contract lounge that BA use to be greeted by a big notice saying that they were unable to accommodate any more passengers. Ugh. At Mrs Froggee’s insistence I went into the lounge and asked the man at the desk how long he thought it might be before they would have space. He said about 20 minutes but then suggested I could come in and have a look around and if I could find seats then I was welcome to stay. Hoorah. We found seats. The food offering was poor but I scavenged most of what remained which did us for lunch. Our neighbours in the lounge were a very annoying family of three. Elder child sat with feet up on couch watching a movie on a phone albeit with headphones on. Younger child watched TikTok videos on a phone with the volume on full blast. No headphones. The father occasionally attempted to interact with his boys and made one phone call where he abused whoever had booked their flights for not anticipating it would have been delayed and the trauma he would now have to experience getting across London in time for wherever he was going.

We eventually boarded the flight where they then had us sit on the tarmac for about 45 minutes until pushing back at 3pm, almost two hours late. I was not feeling good about our connection. I had Freddo and Monopoly again. We were served lunch at 4 o’clock, there being 14 rows in Club Europe so it took the excellent crew some time to get to us. The boys picked at their pasta. Mrs Froggee and I ate our curry. It was “okay”. We made up some time and landed at Heathrow with a chance of making our connection.

But then we had to wait for our stand. Oh no. After coming to a halt, the couple in front of me turned round and commented on how amazingly well behaved Freddo had been. “Especially with the delay. He was so good”. I explained it was all Apple iPad and very little me. And indeed, the battery level was getting low so they had been lucky there had been no further delays. But they weren’t having any of it. I got Freddo to stand up and say hello. He put on his best please-adopt-me face and the couple were sold. Weirdly Mrs Froggee was having a remarkably similar conversation with the couple in front of her. How badly are children behaved nowadays? Connection. Chance. Diminishing. When we disembarked, we were at the B gates. Oh please no. We did our best. We got the elevator down, not the escalator. We missed the transit train thing so we legged it through the tunnel using travelator power to the max. We got the elevator up. At this point Mrs Froggee was getting edgy and as the doors opened, she grabbed Freddo and Kermit’s hands and ran. In the wrong direction. After Mrs Froggee concluded that we should indeed go to Flight Connections and not try and clear UK immigration, we made it to Flight Connections 35 minutes before our flight which apparently meets Heathrow compliance for a legal connection. Hoorah! The nice BA lady told us to follow her. She asked the Heathrow rep. The Heathrow rep told her “not a chance” because the security queue was backed up the escalator. Normal service had been restored. Our day now officially sucked. The early start for the Jet2 flight suddenly looked pretty good. Our Club Europe flights let us bypass the main rebooking queue and afforded us a swift rebooking. Onto the 22:25 to Edinburgh. The 6-something-pm Ryanair flight was looking pretty acceptable now. Oh well – it was nice that BA cancelled the 20:10 flight up to Edinburgh as that would only have given us a couple of hours in the lounge. And the 22:00 was full so you could argue it was considerate that they even had a flight at 22:25 for us to enjoy. By now Mrs Froggee had taken the boys off to pee leaving me to collect the reissued boarding passes. My neighbour was shouting “YES IT DID” at the BA service agent and she was shouting “NO IT DIDN’T” back at him. If you’re interested, he claimed that they kept changing the gate of his flight from A to B to C and back to B resulting in him missing his flight. Yeah, no – she checked. I considered advising him to stop the shouting and instead plead for mercy but there was zero upside to that strategy so I thanked my lady and retreated to a safe place.

We then got to experience a joyous 4.5 hours in Galleries South. At least it was fairly quiet. We fed the boys. Then we showered them as much for something to do as anything else. And we released the iPads again. And sat. And sat. I took Freddo to poo. Incredibly it resulted in the toilet cubicle he used smelling better than it did when we went into it. And his poo hardly smells of roses. At least I stood while Freddo pooed. But then I sat some more. As 10pm approached we were told the lounge was closing which suited us as we were leaving. Along with those flying to Cape Town and Abuja who also had flights at 22:25. Because Edinburgh is totally also a long-haul destination worthy of a night departure.

Our flight was uneventful. I can’t believe that people eat at 11pm though. And then have coffee. Huh? Freddo immediately fell asleep on taxiing. Mrs Froggee chased his head around with a neck cushion I had brought for exactly that purpose. I had Kermit who stoically refused to sleep. Until about five minutes before landing. He claimed he’d just dozed off and was dreaming that his mummy was making a pot of tea but she dropped the teapot and there was a big bang and that was the plane landing. Our luggage arrived reasonably quickly. We battled our way through the horizontal rain to the car and drove home. We got back at 1:02am to a house at 14 centigrade as I’d switched the heating off. I need to work out “holiday mode” on my heating system. Mrs Froggee and Kermit went straight to bed leaving me to deal with a fractious Freddo who claimed his tummy hurt and he couldn’t sleep and he needed stories. And he was still bitter that he had to wait to wash his hands when Kermit snuck in to brush his teeth when he was on the toilet. Once I got Freddo locked down I couldn’t sleep. Which sucked as I had Tesco coming for an 8am-9am slot which seemed like a good idea three weeks earlier when I booked it. It was a pretty rubbish end to a not bad holiday. I can’t even get EC261 compensation as it was an air traffic control issue which is apparently “extraordinary”. But par for the course in the Froggee family.

Sad face.

The end.

[Angelamc11]

Brilliant review!! Thank you for this, I really enjoy reading your trip reviews. You have a gifted way with words and never fail to make me laugh 😊😊

[Tracey]

Excellent writing!

“Irish based scratch card vendor “ 😂

[The Savage Squirrel]

Brilliant stuff. I think that Ryanair paragraph may be your finest work yet 😀 😀

[AJA]

Brilliant as always. I loved the description of Ryanair and actually laughed out loud at “in a nod to its heritage as a No1 lounge, Kermit went to the (clean) toilets and it became a No2”

And it’s fewer not less.

[iplaypoker]

Fab report sir. Great read and made me laugh out loud like a madman on the train.

[Lady London]

Good one Froggee.

[Amy C]

It’s so strange, only yesterday I made a mental note to come on here and beg for a trip report from Froggee soon and hope that you had some time away booked. And here you are. Great start to my morning. A fabulous and enjoyable read as always.

[freckles]

Brilliant as ever @froggee.

Have you thought about stint at The Fringe next year recalling your travels? 😉

[JDB]

Just fantastic as always. I have never been to a No.1 lounge, but from all the descriptions I have read, your No.2 lounge concept sounds most apt and something I will never be able to get out of my mind. There’s something about children getting caught short – we still go to what we call the ‘poo’ opticians following an incident there probably almost 20 years ago and needing a ‘Hampstead Norreys’ is still a family expression after an urgent stop in that village many moons ago.

[Froggee]

You are all very kind. I’m far too scared to appear at The Fringe. Mrs Froggee does think I should be on TV. However I think that is mainly so she could then switch me off.

@JDB were your kids not embarrassed by you breaching your breeches at the opticians? That’s the sort of incident it is difficult for a grown man to recover from!

[JDB]

@Froggee – haha, fortunately it was not I [and for the pedantic lurkers, yes, that is correct]. I did have a very, very close run thing on Concorde once though; I think it was the Yquem, so my son was fine on that occasion.

[marshy11]

Another excellent read, thank you @Froggee for the effort of going to Portugal and telling us about it.

[polly]

Love it, esp the Ryan Air parts.. v entertaining as usual…. Describes the O’Leary one perfectly… l always succumb to a pack of cards, esp when they double up! Fool me…. Kids used to like the hot paninis tho, years ago…

[HSV]

Excellent report as always. Brings a smile everytime.

[Nigel Keya]

Froggee – you are a legend in your own lunchtime 🙂

Always good to read the output.

[Erico1875]

Great report.
The so called “no frills” Ryanair experience is so much better than BAs “premium” service.
You can re creat the “Club Europe” effect, by buying a couple of imaginary extra child middle seats.

[pointsfan]

I signed up just to say I really enjoyed reading this!

I didn’t really, I was going to sign up anyway but I did really enjoy reading this and it is my first ever post!