Spain solo trip: Loret De Mar Day 1: Arrival & Travel challenges

Hi everyone! Hope your all having a great start to the week. It’s been a little while since I wrote to tell you I plucked up the courage to travel abroad again but, I’ve finally got around to writing the blogs. 🙌🏾

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I was all excited about my trip, that was until the day before, when I started to find fault with everything.

Vaccination proof

Although being fully vaccinated wasn’t required at the time of my trip, I had gone and got a booster so I could travel freely without having to list the location of where I was staying, then be possibly called at any point in time of my stay to take tests. However, I had noticed that night that the NHS had me listed at my old address. I wasn’t sure if when my covid passport was scanned, it  would show my address, and if so, if this would be a problem.

I decided I would just have to call the NHS service in the morning and find out if it was going to be a problem. If so, I figured I would just have to go through reluctantly as unvaccinated.

I managed to ring NHS customer services whilst at the airport. I was told the scanned documents might be okay. Not exactly the best reassuring words are they?

Holiday insurance not validated

As if discovering the issues of my vaccination wasn’t enough, I found out I would be travelling on invalid holiday insurance and this wasn’t anything I could fix. 🤦🏽‍♀️

As I read through my insurance policy, it prompted me to ring my new doctors, where I had just recently registered two weeks prior. The receptionist informed me that my registration was still in the process stage, which meant I was not a registered patient yet. And with an hour to go until closing time and a full surgery of patients, this was highly unlikely to happen today. Therefore, not being registered with a doctor invalidated my insurance!

Train cancellation

As I arrived at the train station, I discovered my train had been cancelled. It was a Sunday, so the next train available wasn’t until another hour! Having been advised to get there at least an hour and a half early, this would make me arrive just half an hour before, which panicked me a little. So instead, I decided to purchase a ticket and take a tram to the airport, then I discovered this was going to take more than an hour and I would arrive later than the train!🙄

Travel money card blocked

A few days before travelling, I got myself a travel money card. When I travel, I always take my debit card, some exchanged currency in cash and a travel card for extra precaution. Did you ever read what happened on my trip to Salou? I’ve learnt since my rookie travel days. Well, clearly I haven’t, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this blog ha.

I think I may have caused my card to block. I was supposed to activate my card at 10am on the morning of my travel day, but me being me, tried to do it before and blocked the card! I rang customer services from the airport and they unblocked it for me and gave me a new pin, but it still appeared to be blocked.

I tried to use the card on the plane but it wouldn’t work. Then again, when I arrived in Spain at my hotel, it wouldn’t work. Also, I was blocked on the card App. Therefore, I couldn’t rectify anything.

Great! Now I had no backup card, I thought.

Everything is always working out if you release resistance

1. One of the things that keeps showing up in my life, is that everything is always working out, no matter what the situation is…… Here’s what happened when I gave in to all the resistance throughout this travel day.

2. When I realised I was going to be late for boarding I jumped off the tram and took a taxi and arrived exactly an hour and a half early (the time required to get there).

3. On arrival in Spain, the lady took one look at my covid passport and allowed me to walk through and nothing was scanned.

4. Whilst I was blocked on the card app and couldn’t use the card to pay with, I discovered I could withdraw cash from it.

5. As for travel insurance, well, I still travelled with invalid travel insurance and a blessing to me, I didn’t need it, because everything worked out.

Arrival

After, let’s call it an eventful day, I finally reached my hotel at around 6pm. I stayed at the bluesea Montevista Hawaii , a 3 star cheap hotel which provided great value for money…. I honestly don’t like to spend much money on hotels, especially since I’m never in them.

My entire 4 night trip cost me £164 at onthebeach.com, this included flights, transfers and hotel. And get this, the hotel was All-inclusive. 🤣

As I arrived at 6pm, there wasn’t that much for me to do other than take a shower and try out the hotel’s buffet-style restaurant, which was great with a good selection of food and drinks. Not long after this, after an episode of Good girls,I was ready to sleep and that was the end to my first night.

Thank you for visiting my blog today, I hope you enjoyed reading.

Stay Blessed 🙏🏾

Natalie ❤