Widebodies and Short Routes – Into Barajas and The Crowne Plaza Madrid Airport

Into Barajas and The Crowne Plaza Madrid Airport
Widebodies and Short Routes

• Let’s do a challenge
• Off to Heathrow
• Points to be Made vs Economy Class and Beyond – Two idiots race across Heathrow
• Heathrow Terminal 5 and The British Airways Galleries South Lounge
• IB3167 London Heathrow to Madrid (BUSINESS CLASS)
• Crowne Plaza Madrid Airport
• Exploring a bit of Madrid
  
• Back to Barajas and the Iberia Lounges
• BA461 Madrid to London Heathrow (BUSINESS CLASS/BA FIRST)
• To the trains!
• Two sides of the IAG coin

Heading off the plane, Tim and I were not in the mood to hang around – we knew the last airport shuttle was around 11 pm (and after that – it was a “ring on demand service”). Therefore we needed to clear all formalities and be out of the front of the airport in 15 minutes or less.

Thank you A340….

Down the jetbridge.

 
To the clearance zone.

To the Exit!

We, therefore, headed down out of T4S to the main building and cleared passport control. With that done, it was time to head to the terminal shuttle. We had a small wait – at least this shuttle is frequent enough – which for a hub like Madrid is important

Down down, deeper than down.

With us leaving the terminal shuttle, it was time to work our way through the caverns of the airport, passing the closed duty-free shop (wait… an airport duty-free shop that’s closed and not fleecing people.. What is the world coming to?).

Everyone out!

A closed duty free shop? What is the world coming to?

At 22:40, we were landside. We did a short check to find out where the shuttle buses to the hotels went from… and headed outside.

Smoking area.

And lo and behold – a bus was waiting. Again, we couldn’t plan this if we tried.

With Tim and I loaded aboard, the bus began its drive around the Bajaras area, and towards our hotel for the night – The Crowne Plaza Madrid Airport

Crowne Plaza Madrid Airport

Shot the next day.

The hotel itself is on the edge of the airport perimiter (even if you have to go around the houses to get to it). It’s near a resiential area, with some mixed development nearby (and some rather reasonable places for urban exploration for those included). Certainly, it’s not a short walk from the airport – and you will need to use the shuttle.

We were welcomed to the hotel, as Tim and I checked in for our rooms. As usual, a points or drink amenity was offered – I went for the points (that never turned up).

The hotel itself isn’t that high (being on the approach/perimeter of the airport, so rooms were on all levels of the airport – in both our cases – on the ground floor of the airport.

We headed to our rooms to unpack and do our own room photos. Tim has his review here (he lucked out on a lot better room than me). My room – was functional, yet spacious enough.

Considering this to me was nothing more than a crash-pad, I’d take what I can get and I’d like it.

Arty bed shot

From the bed.

The bed. My trash on the left

Work area and mini bar.

There were various amenities in the room – including complimentary water bottles and again a Nespresso machine.

Included amenities

Because I like my coffee. And I like coffee from pods (even if the hotel cheaped out and used generic Nespresso pods).

With me decompressed, I fished out the hard disk, and the laptop and went to Tim’s room. And we got to work making a video worthy of a few Youtube Clicks.

Considering it was around 11 pm when got in and 11:30 when we started working, we worked pretty solidly until nearly 3 am in the morning

Tim of Points to be Made going through some of the footage.

By which point we had spliced the footage together, added Spongebob in-between cards in, and decided most of the stuff (except the audio tracks – which I did a couple of weeks later) we were both exhausted.

I headed to bed. And the bed was pretty darn comfortable at that point. Well, it was so comfortable I was an hour late getting up the next day to go into town.

Bathroom amenities were plentiful – and nabbable. The bathroom itself was a reasonable size, which is good to sometimes collapse in – or cough in. Take your pick when you’re getting over the flu.

Eventually, I woke up the next day and realised I had never been into the city of Madrid. Whilst Tim continued to work on other things, I decided to get on with a little exploring with the limited time I had.

I checked out of the hotel – with the staff checking I didn’t take anything from Minibar. With the bill already settled in advance, I was clear to proceed.

The shuttle at the airport is capacity controlled, and they do issue tickets for it at peak times (the mornings especially – so its important to meet your shuttle). At non-peak times, it is walk-up (which makes life a lot easier).

With that done, I headed aboard a waiting shuttle back to Bajaras T4.

Overall

Whilst the air was more than a little dry at the hotel, the Crowne Plaza Madrid Airport left a solid impression of a reasonably run property with good amenities, reasonable television selection, decent enough Wi-Fi and of course, a bed that you can sleep on without it swallowing you up.

Whilst a little expensive for the area, £74.33 for a hotel booked less than two weeks before the stay seemed reasonable value.

Next: Into Madrid. And Yes, whilst I might not run on camera, I ran when I saw this lot.

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