Magaluf - "Everything Will be Fine"

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Friday - “Everything will be fine”

I’m woken up at 2:30 a.m. and remind myself that this is a holiday. Henry picks myself and Richard up and we make the short drive to where the minibus is picking us up from. There are 11 of us on the minibus; Mark couldn’t get time off work and is flying out later tonight.

The group is a combination Richard’s (the groom) family, the bride’s family and Richard’s friends. I think I’ve probably met about half of the group before and I vaguely recognise some of Richard’s friends as his friends from his school days. We can easily be divided into two groups :- 3 Old Farts who are all over 50 - myself, Mick (groom’s father) and Henry (bride’s father) and the other 9 who are all under 30 (though only just, hey Mark?)
We get to Manchester Airport with plenty of time to spare but only 4 of us are able to check in straight away because the rest of us have bags which are “too soft”! This is a new one for me. I’ve caused confusion by checking in a guitar before but I’ve never been in trouble for having a bag which is too soft! Anyway, we take our bags round to the special soft bag check-in where they are checked in and sent to join all the other bags so that the baggage handlers can play football with them.
We make it through to departures at about 5 a.m. For me this will be one of the defining moments of the trip - is anyone going to order a lager at 5 a.m.??

YES!!!! The younger members of the group all decide that the best thing for breakfast is a pint of lager. The Old Farts decline. Nobody puts any pressure on us to “get into the party mood” though. We find a Giraffe’s upstairs and settle for strong coffee and bacon butties.
Our flight leaves on time. The seats on the plane seem to have even less space than usual! Is it just my imagination that they are cramming even more people in? Everyone tries to convince me that it’s just a case of me getting fatter. There’s a bit of turbulence at first and the seatbelt light stays on for quite a while and we’re not allowed to leave our seats. Our lager drinkers are beginning to look a little uncomfortable - they all need the toilet! But they ask politely when they’ll be allowed out of their seats and cross their legs and wait. They obviously weren’t the only ones getting lagered-up at the airport because when the seatbelt sign does eventually go off half the plane makes a dash for the toilets!
We arrive at Palma Airport and have to wait what seems like an unnecessarily long time for our bags to arrive. There’s obviously lots of stag and hen parties coming into Magaluf - everyone waiting for their baggage is wearing a T-shirt. There are lots of “Shirl’s Girls” and the “Yorkshire Birds”. Where’s my T-shirt?!? All the other groups have T-Shirts. Where’s mine? What would we have called ourselves? I could have been “Sexy Steve” or “Steve the Stud”! Who was supposed to be organising the T-shirts?!?
Gary, the best man, has organised the weekend and he’s been given instructions to make it as cheap as possible. There are no extra’s whatsoever. We squeeze as many people as possible into taxis and head off for the cheapest hotel that Gary could find in Magaluf - I’m dreading what it’s going to be like, but Gary is cheerful and positive. His catchphrase for the weekend is “It’ll be fine”! When we get there, I’m surprised. We’re in Aparthotel Martinique and the apartments are quite good. They’re clean, our room has plenty of space for the four of us, there’s small kitchen with a fridge, we have a reasonable sized balcony looking out over the pool and it’s SUNNY!! - about 27 degrees.
This is obviously the place where all the stag and hen parties come. We say hello to Legover Leanne from Bolton on the next balcony. I wonder how much sleep I’ll get tonight?
We go down to the pool and my first impressions are not good. This is definitely the place for the stag and hen parties and the area around the pool seems to be dominated by groups of people posing. It’s seems that everyone there wants to show off that they have a new tattoo and that they’ve been to the gym and on the sunbeds - everyone is trying to impress. And there’s some really shite music blasting out over the pool. Maybe I’m being too critical and I’m just tired after such an early start?
We have some lunch and then spend the afternoon by the pool. We don’t go off in search of Spanish food, we find ourselves in Arfur’s Bar run by Paul, a Millwall supporter. After lunch my mood improves, maybe it was the burger and chips from Arfur’s Bar that helped. We spend the afternoon by the pool sunbathing, swimming, diving in and drinking beers.

Everyone in our group is relaxing and enjoying themselves - even the music has improved! Unfortunately we then have our first incident and injury when Adam tries to use a sunbed as a diving board. This results in the sunbed breaking into several pieces and Adam cutting his leg in several places. We also lose Ash to what we think is sunstroke.
In the evening it’s back to Arfur’s Bar for dinner (chicken and chips!). We’ve already lost 3 members of the group who are sleeping off the afternoon. Everyone is shattered by the long day. The Old Farts, having been up for 20 hours, decide that bed would be a good idea but the youngsters have a better idea - Vodka and Red Bull will keep them going! - and they head off into town. The Old Farts head back to the hotel - how much sleep will we get??

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Photos

It's 5 a.m. At Manchester Airport
Breakfast!

Mistaking A Sunbed For A Diving Board
It's an easy mistake.
We've all done it!