-
I woke up at 3am on Saturday morning only too aware that we were off to Tenerife later that day. You would think we were on a 6am flight but oh no – that is against my religion. The last couple of nights had been my worst quality sleep since my beloved father passed away.
I should rewind.
For the holiday I had booked Ryanair from Edinburgh Airport to Tenerife but then Tenerife back to Prestwick Airport. This was because the only sensibly timed flight back to Edinburgh on the Saturday was an outrageously priced Jet2 offering. The saving vs taking this Jet2 flight back to Edinburgh was over £700 for the family which seemed worthwhile. Mrs Froggee did some mental arithmetic. Coming home via Prestwick would take about an hour longer than via Edinburgh. Valuing her and the boys’ time at £200 an hour and my time at £11.44 an hour, it made economic sense for me to drive my car through to Prestwick before our holiday so it was parked up waiting for us on our return. All being equal we would also be home earlier than if we flew back to Edinburgh as the timing of the Prestwick flight was better.
The original plan had been to drop the car on Friday but Freddo was swimming in his school’s “swimming gala” on Friday and was keen that I attended. I changed the parking which increased the cost from £90 to £95.50. A small price to witness the next Michael Phelps in action. On Thursday I set off for Prestwick at 7:35am, escaped Edinburgh before rush hour and did not do too badly getting through Glasgow. I was approaching Prestwick at 9:20am.
All very smooth.
Until a little old lady drove into my car on a roundabout. I got a heads up of the impending collision courtesy of my blind spot indicators and braked and steered away which probably saved me from a direct hit and instead resulted in a glancing blow. We exchanged details. There was no aggression. Neither of us was amused. Apparently I should not have been in my lane. Because she wanted that lane and it was rightfully hers. Her car was a mess with the passenger door smashed in. Mine was surprisingly unscathed with minor scrapes along the offside front but not so much as a dent.
But there went my 30-year perfect driving history.
The car was fine to drive so I duly parked up at Prestwick Airport Parking 2, made peepee at a deserted terminal and caught the 10:12am train to Glasgow Central. I walked the 1,000 yards to Glasgow Queen Street, caught the 11:15am to Edinburgh and was home at 12:25pm. On the train I read up on roundabout crashes. It appears that along with religion and politics there are many strong views on roundabouts but crashes on them are almost always deemed to be 50:50 at fault insurance claims.
It would be fair to say that several Froggee family holidays have been car crashes but I had not even made it on holiday yet and it was a literal car crash.
Sad face.
I had lunch, filled in the online insurance claim form and felt sorry for myself. Weirdly I had staved my left middle finger which must have occurred when yanking at the steering wheel in my futile attempt to avoid catastrophe.
On Friday morning we did indeed witness the next Michael Phelps. You should have seen the kid swim. He took between 2 and 2.5 seconds off the school records for 25 metres on all four strokes. It was incredible. Obviously the kid in question was not Freddo but it was still worth seeing. However despite being full of the cold, Freddo did manage to get the overall bronze medal which was an impressive achievement given his stubby little arms and legs. And rubbish genes. The superstar kid has a former rugby star for a daddy. But unlike the next Michael Phelps, Freddo was a member of the winning house relay team and that race was truly thrilling to watch. The last time I saw Mrs Froggee as excited was when we went to Paris for the Olympics. And I said that she had time to go to Longchamp on Rue du Vieux Colombier and look at handbags.
On Friday afternoon, my insurer called me and I was told in no uncertain terms by the agent that they considered me to be at fault for the crash. The rationale was that Google street maps showed dashed lines indicating it would be expected that I would exit the roundabout from my lane. I had taken photographs of the roundabout. They had resurfaced it, and repainted the road markings with the dashed lines in question no longer there. The agent appeared very disbelieving. I uploaded the photos to the “claims portal” and felt sad.
Anyway, next day our flight was at 1:10pm. The cost was £721.14 including two checked bags and one large carry on. If anything, we had too much time in the morning. I checked the availability of Uber XLs at 10:15am. I booked it ten minutes later by which time the price had gone up by £10. The cost was £51.60 including a £5 tip and a £6 drop off charge because Edinburgh Airport saw that Heathrow put their price up so why not, eh? Edinburgh Airport was nice and efficient and we presented ourselves at the Aspire lounge at 11:30am where, despite not having pre-booked, they spoiled us with a booth near the door. Minutes later I heard other people denied access as the lounge was full. Lucky us. We ate well and the pancake machine was working which made both boys happy. I think I would actually be willing to pay £24 to prebook it next time just to be sure as that is half the price of an inferior Pret A Manger lunch.
Given the length of the flight, Mrs Froggee had agreed that I was allowed an emergency exit row seat and she would sit behind me with the boys. I arrived at seat 28C to note there had been an equipment swap and I was out of luck and had a very normal Ryanair seat. For some reason Mrs Froggee did not want to swap with me despite her being the sociable one and me being a great believer in STRANGER DANGER. My seat mate was a very nice lady who was with her 11 year old son. They were semi raw-dogging the flight with only a magazine each and because I am polite I spent much of the flight chatting and did not watch television. I guess I was the inflight entertainment. I could see Mrs Froggee smirking.
As Ryanair tends to be, our flight was on time. We got bused to the terminal and despite ending up at the back of the immigration queue, we were through in minutes. Our luggage arrived as we got to the baggage belt. To give you an indication of how smooth it was, Kermit did not complain. Apart from on the bus when I suggested that a fit 11 year old should surely be leaving a seat for someone more needy.
I had booked a transfer via our hotel despite the outrageous €98 cost each way for fifteen minutes in a Mercedes minivan. I prefer paying up for transfers if I am unfamiliar with somewhere so if there is a problem, it is the hotel’s problem to fix. Our driver was waiting for us, suited and booted and after a brief scare where Freddo decided to exit the terminal by himself and not follow us as we went to meet the driver, we were off.
We were at GF Victoria in a jiffy, the driver got €10 for his troubles, check in was friendly, and our bellboy had spent three months living in Portobello and actually said some words with a Scottish twang. €10 for him and we were on holiday.
GF Victoria is an all suite hotel. I had booked a ”premium suite” at great expense as it offered much more space than the standard senior suite and I like space. At €4,912.50 for seven nights bed and breakfast it was about €2,000 more expensive than the standard “senior suite”. But I struggle living in hundreds of square metres with my children so I figured that 91 square metres was better than 53. Serendipitously my Virgin Atlantic credit card is resting until May whereas Mrs Froggee’s is in action so she was paying for everything denominated in Euros this trip.
Woo.
Hoo.
The rooms were spacious with a large balcony and lots of free stuff (sweets, fruit, Serrano ham and bread sticks, wine, beer, soft drinks, a beach bag, flip flops). We had room service and settled in. I particularly liked the fact that we had a hall so there were two doors between each bedroom and the corridor. I find this makes a huge difference to the level of peace and tranquility.
GF Victoria is on the Costa Adeje. The location is excellent although it sits on a roundabout which was somewhat triggering for me every time we stepped outside. If we headed right from the hotel, it really was quite classy. @JDB might even have been at home on this part of the island with posh looking hotels and restaurants. But the beaches were made up of coarse volcanic sand which Freddo deemed unsuitable for his needs. So apart from our first day, we headed left where you could find shops selling tourist tat, cafes serving English breakfasts and a bar playing trance music. And sandy sand suitable for construction purposes.
Every morning was the same. A substantial and excellent buffet breakfast and then off to the beach. Kermit was not overly fussed on the beach and neither was Mrs Froggee so they typically went and looked at shops and contributed to the fortunes of a lovely shopkeeper from Rajistan after I had made the mistake of introducing them to each other when I called the team in to choose buckets and spades (€8.85 for one bucket and two spades). I was not overly fussed on the beach either but Freddo deemed my presence necessary. All the other kids seemed happy to splash in the sea or kick a ball but not Freddo. Every day he undertook a massive civil engineering project. Dig a moat daddy. Build a wall daddy. You’re better at making sandcastles than me daddy. Can you fetch me some pebbles dadda. The end result was a grouping of castles, protected by a moat with an outer wall which had a gap in it channeling water in. To be fair, Freddo made the hole in the wall I had built. And supervised marvellously. Other children came and marvelled.
Freddo would only become fully engaged when the sea became an imminent threat at which point he sprang into action and we found out what happens when an unstoppable force meets an
immovable objectstubborn boy. Freddo would bail out the water, rebuild the wall, get angry at the sea and then build a sole sandcastle on a mound of sand. He would then declare what I considered to be a pyrrhic victory and that was us thankfully finished our beaching for the day.We quickly got tired of eating too much food so most days ended up getting a simple but good sandwich lunch from a nearby supermarket and relaxing in our room. Then in the afternoons the boys partook in some of the available activities being a mini water park, a surf pool, a tree house and – most importantly – annoying each other. They really wound each other up. I do not get it. They actually had a reasonable amount of time apart but were still constantly at each other. iPad rights were repeatedly threatened and removed but to no avail. We would separate them yet minutes later they were “playing” together.
Grrrrr.
Dinner was either very reasonably priced room service (only €50-€60 as we have simple tastes), an excellent but fully priced buffet (€150) or a nearby cafe which had a decent variety but most importantly offered crêpes. It pushed €100 if we all had crêpes after our dinner. But they played non-stop 80s and 90s music so we felt right at home.
The holiday was pretty much the definition of fly and flop with the only adventure being a trip to Siam Park. Freddo had told his teacher we were going to Tenerife and she decided to work against us by googling water parks and informing him that Siam Park was the best water park in the world. Thanks Teach.
One sunny morning, with the beach reaching an early natural end on account of the construction project commencing too close to the sea, I figured we should just go to Siam Park as we were all in good form. We headed back to the hotel, got changed and made it to the bus stop for the courtesy shuttle a few minutes before the timetabled 11:30am. No bus. At 11:40am we gave up and got a taxi. €10 later we were there. I was relieved we made it in one piece although the driving was probably helpful in acclimatising us to strong G-forces.
On arrival the sun promptly disappeared behind a cloud. Mrs Froggee paid our €144 entry and took an executive decision that she would bravely save us the cost of a locker rental and relax on a lounger with our possessions. I went off with the boys. An excited Kermit led the way like a headless chicken. It became immediately apparent to me that there was a problem in that all rides required children under ten to be accompanied by an adult. Freddo is under ten. I am an adult. I did not like the logical conclusion reached by Freddo. I made the rules clear – no circular rafts where I go backwards.
We went head first down the Naga Racer where water tried to dislodge my contact lenses. Again said Freddo. We went again. I am ashamed to admit it but for all three of us the highlight of the park was witnessing a boy who would have been a bit older than Kermit fail to push off at the same time as his father and brother. The staff member at the top of the slide then tried to push him off with his foot while the boy held on for dear life, latterly screaming “I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go”. The staff member stepped back, the boy stood up, threw away his mat, and ran off. No such wimpery by the Froggee boys.
Then we went on the Jungle Snakes where I joined Freddo on a two man raft and Kermit went solo. Again said Freddo. We went again. The boys then chanced their luck on The Dragon. I said I would wait at the bottom. They were matched with a young couple who were willing to adopt. The man came off shaking as if deeply traumatised. I am guessing he went backwards. I was informed by Freddo that the man had screamed “effing h-e-l-l” and his partner shouted “language!” at him.
We passed The Tower of Power which tunnels through a fish tank at the bottom. I stupidly commented that it was such a shame it was age 12+ only as I would have loved to have gone on it with the boys. The boys insisted I went down it on behalf of the team. Dammit. The worst thing about it was the 28 metre climb. Drop slides do not bother me anything like spinny backwards-facing ones. Kermit then took us on a wild goose chase looking for I-have-no-idea-what-but-he-did-not-find-it.
There was still no sun and I was cold so I declared it lunch time. The park actually had some proper food at lunch but the boys had hotdogs and I had my only burger of the holiday. My tummy did not want anything fancy. Mrs Froggee had a red Thai curry. The sun was out and I warmed up.
After lunch the boys wave-pooled for a bit. Then we briefly queued for the Saifa water coaster but the queue was very long and if we could not match Kermit up with someone we would be out of luck. We gave up. We did the Giant where, sneakily, they turned us around mid ride and I ended up going backwards. We then went for the Singha water coaster where the queue was not too bad. But at the top we had the problem that concerned me at Saifa. Despite the rafts obviously being for three people it was exactly two per raft (min combined weight 70kg, max 210kg). No exceptions. We waited for a few minutes but had no luck finding a solo rider. Freddo asked if Kermit and I could go first and he could wait for me at the top. Apparently this was permissible. Kermit and I went down. We got repeatedly blasted with cold water as the raft was propelled along. I repeatedly shouted “oh that’s cold, oh that’s cold”. It really was.
I was freezing and somewhat discombobulated at the bottom but Freddo was waiting for me so I gave Kermit an instruction to WAIT HERE and up the steps I went again. There was quite a long queue by now which I was very happy to join and shiver in while I regained my composure. But no, the kindly staff member came down looking for me and I was plucked out of the queue and fast tracked. More freezing cold water. I would say that Freddo screamed like a girl but that is deeply unfair to girls. Freddo screamed like Freddo. At the bottom Freddo wanted to go again. My right arm was involuntarily shaking and I was shivering. That is a negative Freddo.
We sought out Mrs Froggee and thankfully the sun came out again. We had ice cream. The boys wave-pooled a bit more and we and concluded that four hours was long enough. We went to catch the 4pm shuttle bus which was already waiting for us at 3:55pm when we exited but did not leave until 4:10pm much to Freddo’s consternation. Spanish time Freddo, said I.
I cannot fault GF Victoria. Every single staff member was friendly and engaging. After going to the pool one afternoon, we were locked out of our room. We went down to reception to get our keycards renewed (and so Freddo could make peepee). Instead of just changing our cards, the receptionist came up with us to ensure all was well. There was a fault with the magnetic release on the lock. The receptionist got out his phone. A minute later the maintenance man appeared. The receptionist stayed while our door was dissembled and reassembled. The boys were fascinated. I was impressed at the level of service as most hotels would have made us traipse back and fro.
Our flight to Prestwick left at 11:05am and we were to be picked up at 8:20am. The bargain flight cost €696.44 including two hold bags, one carry-on and another possible exit row seat for me. Mrs Froggee had arranged for us to be allowed into breakfast ten minutes before normal 8am opening but had missed the instruction to go to reception first so we ended up standing outside the locked breakfast room for ten minutes before the doors opened. Twenty minutes was enough though. I had my statutory bowl of porridge, a coffee and some fruit, and went to hand back the key cards and check the bill was in order. The bill was excellent at only €20 for a couple of goes on the surf pool as Mrs Froggee had settled everything else the prior evening. I did not wish to ask Mrs Froggee how much it had been in case she invoiced me.
Our driver was waiting and the same bellboy from our arrival put our bags into the minivan. I forgot to tip him. My bad. Our driver was a bear of an Argentinian man who had married a Scottish lady and he said my name in a better Scottish accent than I could manage. It was barely 15 minutes to the airport which Freddo spent sobbing as he was apparently sad to be leaving Tenerife. Our driver pretended to be a bus and dropped us at a side entrance right outside the Ryanair checkin area. The boys were issued with lollipops by him and he was issued with €10 by me.
Check-in was busy with the queue pretty much filling the tensile barrier. But it moved swiftly and “only” took about 25 minutes before we were through. I thought this was good. Kermit disagreed. Security did not look bad at all but a lady shouted “famílias con niños” at us and we got taken to an empty security belt. Mrs Froggee paid €23.80 for two baguettes and two sandwiches (twice the price of the supermarket and half as good) and I paid €6.80 for four bottles of water before clearing immigration. There was zero queue and the officer did not even look at our passports as he stamped them. We were the only flight at gates A1-A8 so it was all quite civilised. “Boarding” commenced at 10:15am and because of Mrs Froggee’s strong feelings about storing our wheeled case I had to go and stand in the queue in position #5. After 15 minutes I sent her a YouTube link to “I’m still standing”. 15 minutes later when boarding actually commenced and the crush started I sent her “Don’t stand so close to me”. She messaged back “Walk like an Egyptian”. Unhelpful.
After ten more minutes of standing I was on the plane and an exit row seat greeted me this time. Hoorah! The gang joined me in due course. Kermit unwrapped his lolly to find little creepy crawlies on it. Yuck. Mrs Froggee disposed of it in a ziplock bag and then freaked out because it had been in her bag when not ziplocked. I wanted my €10 back. Nobody was happy.
The flight was about as good as Ryanair flights get although I did not actually find that the extra leg room made much of a difference to my comfort levels which was a bit weird. Because Prestwick Airport is teeny tiny, we walked straight from the plane to immigration and were through and reunited with our bags in all of ten minutes. I found my car which looked much as I had left it other than it had been absolutely plastered in guano as a result of me parking it under a large floodlight stanchion thinking that would make it easier to find. It certainly was easy to find for the seagulls.
I could not get out of the car park with my parking barcode but a lady answered the intercom and let me pass. The journey back to Edinburgh was smooth enough although my knuckles turned white every time I went round a roundabout. After stopping off for fish and chips we were home shortly before the very expensive Jet2 flight to Edinburgh had even landed.
Would I do it this way again? Maybe. But totally without the whole crashing the car thing…
A week after arriving home I received a postcard from Freddo telling me how much he had enjoyed the holiday. Very high levels of emotional intelligence that boy.
A trip to the garage showed the car to be officially unharmed other than a little squirty jet thing that exists solely to clean a headlight being dislocated. Given my £650 excess, it not worth claiming for but I await my insurance renewal with some trepidation
As expected the insurance claim was settled as a 50:50. There were no witnesses and it sounds like the little old lady who drove into me was somewhat disingenuous with her version of events. But so be it. Nobody was harmed and life goes on.
In conclusion, it appears that the key for a good Froggee family holiday is to have the disaster before the holiday and get it out of the way.
The end
In any collision between male and female it’s always the man’s fault. I have many many examples I can quote.
Like the lady who turned right aross my path where I hit her square in the passenger door – apparently me driving straight through a green light isn’t acceptable.
Like the lady who drove out of a parking space into the rear of my car as I was reversing past her in car park – But at tribunal she swore (corroberated by her passenger) that she had her keys on her lap, was turning around to attend to her child, but still managed “to blow her horn as I reversed into her”… yet she was 2 meters out of her parking space.
The GF hotels are locally owned and run and pride themselves in their staff. We’ve stayed at the Gran a few times and have always been well looked after.
Excellent write-up as always.
Top form as usual, nice read.
An expensive week away but the postcard from Freddo sounds like it was all worth it!
a good read thanks
Great read, at the poolside while we wait for our room to be ready. Tenerife is a favourite of mine; I technically did my year abroad at uni there but remember very little about it 😂
Little old ladies are the worst! An incredibly posh one parked next to us at Cliveden a few years ago, scraping her vehicle along the side of ours as she did so, then proceeded to get out of her vehicle and walk away! OH chased after her and had a stern word with her about her obligations under the Road Traffic Act.
We also heard a lot of 80s and 90s music in Bimini last week. The strains of “Five will make you get down, down” made me so proud to be British 🇬🇧
Such a great read! Thanks so much. We might have possibly crossed paths as we were in that area in February as well!
Stayed at the cheaper GF Fanabe across the road in December and had a wander past the other GF hotels in the area. It’s definitely a quieter part of Adeje but nicely near to the long sandy beach if that’s your thing.
A future as a structural engineer maybe awaits Freddo….Always a great read, but your room bills here, as in Paris, always puts me off the idea of kids…!
It’s not so much the kids, it’s having to take them away in the school holidays which requires you to sell a kidney! This is where HFP is invaluable, however, and you can be swanning off to exotic climes in Club World while your friends re-mortgage their homes for a fortnight in a villa on a heaving Mediterranean coastline.
Sorry for your loss @Froggee, though glad you were able to go away with the family and have a reasonably good holiday.
Great writing as always.
I ended up in court after a mini roundabout collision. I was stationary on a roundabout in cars queueing to exit right, the offender went into the driver side rear wheel arch after entering the roundabout from the entrance before mine, claiming traffic entering the roundabout to my right has right of way. It does, but not if someone is already on the roundabout at a standstill! She tried to claim she was on the roundabout first and I had manoeuvred around her and then stopped, so she had no option but go into the side of me. The judge suggested she used her brakes in future!
Thanks for another entertaining read. Glad everyone was ok after the prang and the car not damaged too bad.
Great write up as always, love the details
Brilliant as always. I hope the Froggee family holiday reports continue for many years yet!
Ha great story as always.
We went to the same GF a couple of years back. Had the same experience was really nice they ran a lot of stuff for kids I distinctly remember a foam party in the tennis court.
Hope the car get sorted quickly.
Thanks for another fun review. How was the pool temperature at the hotel?
The boys only went in the main pool once (I ducked that one) as it did not offer the same level of splashiness as the mini water park. They did not complain about the temperate and they do sometimes complain so it must have been okay.
The mini water park pool felt pretty pleasant temperature wise to me.
As for the car, I sat and waited for two hours at the garage having booked it in for a 60-90 minute while you wait appointment. I was then summoned to be told that they had ordered the wrong part! I am very confused at my reaction which was “great – thanks very much” and being very nice about it as opposed to, you know, “WTF – you have wasted my morning, grrrr”
But I had two cups of coffee and two packets of Borders biscuits while catching up on reading and the ambience was actually nicer than the BA lounge so it could be worse. The garage haven’t called me back yet actually so maybe Volvo are totally sold out of squirty headlight washy things.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
