The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

silvercar

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Thanks Silver, I'll let the person dropping me off at the airport know

I would have Tweeted the airport but they'd probably have directed me to the short stay.

OH tells me it's all changed now. Use the short term car park for £7 for up to Half an hour with a very short walk, the mid term is now free for 15 minutes but is a 10-15 minute walk, or the drop off zone is £3 for 10 minutes.

zagubov

Not trying to whinge but as air travel's the least environmentally-sound form of public transport, they've not much moral high ground to make life tough for motorists.

Pyxis wrote: »

Ok, who remembers Billy Whizz?

Oh yes! I do remember Billy Whizz! My neighbour a long time back drew him, and some characters called the Numskulls.:D

CKhalvashi

silvercar wrote: »

OH tells me it's all changed now. Use the short term car park for £7 for up to Half an hour with a very short walk, the mid term is now free for 15 minutes but is a 10-15 minute walk, or the drop off zone is £3 for 10 minutes.

My mother (who doesn't work on the day in question and is therefore dumping me at Luton) had a look and said the same. It's a walk past Hangar 89 (the Easyjet one) and into departures. I think I can manage that. I had a look and the exit I thought you were talking about at first glance would take me onto a live taxiway, which I've been advised by OH (who holds an ATPL and is therefore qualified to advise such things) is not a good idea.

I'm not paying £10 plus a contribution towards petrol for a drop off and pick up, so mid stay and walk it is, at least the £10 can then be spent in a local business (probably one whose main activity is the sale of alcoholic beverages) when I get back, as I think with the number of meetings I have booked on the 3 days I'm supposed to be recovering from 4 days of no sleep it'll be well deserved. :beer:

Pyxis

SingleSue wrote: »

?

Got a lovely parcel from James delivered today, a parcel of various bags of chocolate and a big box of crisps as when he stayed with me after his op, he discovered there was absolutely no treats in the house whatsoever due to my budget shopping regime.

Wheeeeee! :T

zagubov wrote: »

Oh yes! I do remember Billy Whizz! My neighbour a long time back drew him, and some characters called the Numskulls.:D

Numskulls! I just loved the numskulls! I thought the whole cartoon was very clever! And a lot of the anatomy was correct too!
(Not the bit about little people in your brain, though! )

silvercar wrote: »

OH tells me it's all changed now. Use the short term car park for £7 for up to Half an hour with a very short walk, the mid term is now free for 15 minutes but is a 10-15 minute walk, or the drop off zone is £3 for 10 minutes.

I can perfectly understand the need for parking fees, but charging people just to drop off customers seems ludicrous to me!

Imagine if a local shopping centre started charging people who were justdropping off their family members going shopping!

chris_m

LydiaJ wrote: »

I have come a long way from my original belief that satnavs were for wimps. It started after I'd navigated myself through over an hour of heavy traffic in London on unfamiliar roads with the aid solely of a rather battered A to Z. I got there all right, but I was aware that the map reading was distracting me from the driving, and that I wasn't driving as safely as I would have been on a familiar route. So I began by accepting them on the grounds that "I can drive a car and I can read a map, but I can't safely do both at the same time."

I got one after my first visit to the Lake District. I was driving with the OS map ready to hand on the passenger seat but every time I came to a turning and wasn't sure that it was the one I wanted there was either a line of cars behind me or nowhere to pull up in advance to check.

Nine times out of ten, when I got to the next safe place to pull up and check the map I found that I had to turn around and go back to what had transpired to be the correct turning. :mad:

So I got a satnav and programmed all the places I'd be likely to go as POIs, which made finding my way around far easier. It even provided me with route which meant I saw places I wouldn't have otherwise.

I'm not bothered about traffic info so much, there isn't much traffic now I've moved up here. Rush hour is a couple of farmers on their tractors, having a natter
Nor am I bothered about updating maps, about the only change that's happened in the last few centuries to most of the roads I use/need is that they've had a layer of tarmac added to the old tracks

Occasionally I'll find a new road which the satnav doesn't know but I can work things out without too much trouble. The oddest I had was a road on Skye where the satnav kept telling me to "turn right", turn left", turn around when possible" but I was on the correct road.
Eventually I spotted the old (narrow) road twisting and turning in the undergrowth about 50 yards to one side of the lovely wide new road on which I was driving.

GDB2222

silvercar wrote: »

OH tells me it's all changed now. Use the short term car park for £7 for up to Half an hour with a very short walk, the mid term is now free for 15 minutes but is a 10-15 minute walk, or the drop off zone is £3 for 10 minutes.

They charge you just to drop off a passenger at LUTON!? :eek:

I cannot think of another airport that does, but I could be behind the times. We usually take the bus.

Pyxis

GDB2222 wrote: »

They charge you just to drop off a passenger at LUTON!? :eek:

I cannot think of another airport that does, but I could be behind the times. We usually take the bus.

Well, I know of at least one where you can't get near the airport at all without having to pay.

You absolutely have to drive into the car park....... you simply cannot stop, even for a second, anywhere else, and anyway, you can't get out of the airport without going through the car park, and you can't get out of the car park without paying! £3.00! Even if you don't turn off the engine and they just hop out, it still costs £3.00!

And if you think, ok, I'll go and have a coffee while I'm here...... that £3.00 is only for half an hour! The price goes up after that!

CKhalvashi

GDB2222 wrote: »

They charge you just to drop off a passenger at LUTON!? :eek:

I cannot think of another airport that does, but I could be behind the times. We usually take the bus.

Stansted does.

There's also a way around it though (which I won't post here as I don't want it stopped by everyone else doing it)

GDB2222

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Stansted does.

There's also a way around it though (which I won't post here as I don't want it stopped by everyone else doing it)

A way around it? Travel Dave has loads of different ones, but I have no idea whether they work.

https://traveldave.co.uk/stansted-airport-drop-off/

silvercar

GDB2222 wrote: »

They charge you just to drop off a passenger at LUTON!? :eek:

I cannot think of another airport that does, but I could be behind the times. We usually take the bus.

I know, mad!

Free at Heathrow, though they charge for picking up.