The last flight!

Thursday 27th March

We woke up and packed up our room and cases as we were checking out of the hotel later. Once all packed up and ready for the day, we wandered down to the harbour where we met mum and James for a morning drink in the sun by the water.

Mum and James stayed on for some breakfast, but Harry and I left them to go up to Montjuic before leaving today, as Mum, Dad and James had visited that yesterday.

We walked 20 minutes along the harbour front (picking up a croissant on our way) to the funicular.

The funicular ride up the mountain was only a 5 minute ride, which took us most of the way up to the top. The options were then either a cable car or walking the rest of the way up. James had told us he thought the walk would only take about 15 minutes, which would save us the 11 euros each way on the cable car and it was a lovely day, so we opted to walk. We took an easy walk as it was all uphill, but as James predicted it only took about 15-20 mins to the top.

At the top was Montjuic castle. We didn’t pay to go inside, but we wandered around the outside which was pretty in itself and had lovely views from it.

We decided to walk back down to the funicular again as the walk up had been easy enough, seeing the cable car above us.

Part of the walk back down involved a slide, so we embraced our inner child!

We just missed a funicular, so waited for the next and went back down to the harbour. We then walked back to the hotel where we met mum and James to check out of our hotel rooms.

We all wandered into the Gothic Quarter where we found a little square to sit and have some lunch in the sun. We ended up at a Greek restaurant where we all had pitta wraps and fries – they were really good. After lunch we couldn’t resist one more gelato before leaving!

We then walked back to our hotel to book an Uber to take us all to the airport.

At the airport we checked in, dropped our bags, went through security and sat in a cafe for a while to pass the time. When the gate was open we then headed to the gate where we saw our plane. Dad was inside – he had just flown the plane out from London and would now be flying us home on his last flight as a pilot!

As we started to board we spotted dad in the cockpit.

As we got on the plane Dad also spotted us and popped out to say hello. The lead cabin crew also greeted us and told us our new seat numbers in club – one final upgrade – thanks Dad! Harry and I were row 2 and Mum and James row 4.

Once boarding had finished, we were surprised to see dad come out of the cockpit and make his announcement from the cabin rather than the cockpit… We then realised it wasn’t just his normal announcement, he was making a retirement speech!

It was a brilliant speech and received claps and whoops at the end!

He returned to the cockpit and we took off for his final time. The views of the sunset from the sky were amazing.

The crew were lovely and really looked after us. We were lucky and got given a meal too – in fact we got the pilots meals who didn’t want them!

The flight was very smooth and went too quickly. As we started to come down, the view over lit-up London was also amazing.

We had a very smooth landing and the whole plane clapped and cheered, not even initiated by us! It was the best flight ever! It felt quite emotional.

As Dad was happy with his landing, he happily stood outside the cockpit to say bye to the passengers as they left the plane. Everyone wished him a happy retirement and congratulations as they left.

We stayed on the plane until everyone had left to have some pictures with dad.