TRAVEL: LANZAROTE WITH THOMAS COOK AIRLINES

Part 1 of 3 of my holiday adventures this Summer is over. Thanks to Thomas Cook Airlines* and my paella cooking skills, I jetted off to Lanzarote for a week on the 7th and arrived back in London on Tuesday evening. 

Our outbound flight was at 9AM from London Gatwick which meant an early 4AM wake up call. It was only an hour's drive to London Gatwick and thankfully Josh drives so I could nap in the car. We pre-booked a space to park the car using Airport Parking*. You may remember me briefly mentioning my plans to use the website to book parking in my travel plans post. 

Airport Parking at London Gatwick is the easiest way to go about booking your car in. All we had to do before hand was enter our flight and car details and choose a representative to book with. As our flight was South Terminals, luckily the airport has on-site parking for South terminals so all we had to do was collect a ticket and park the car. We then took a 5 minute shuttle bus which dropped us right outside the South Terminal entrance. It was a super easy experience which I highly recommend if you have a car you want to drive to the airport but to be looked after too whilst you're away. 

I'm all about dressing comfortable when travelling and as it was an early start, I knew I would be cold! So, I wore trainers, denim shorts and the Paris Sweat* from Style Sportif which is super soft and retro looking with its red and blue stripes and bold PARIS print. I'm so glad I took it as I wore it on a windy excursion which you will read all about later on!

Once we got the boring part over and done with (baggage drop off and passport control), it was time to grab breakfast. Easily my favourite meal of the day; we had about an hour to spare until we had to board the plane so we had a full English... obviously!

 Time to board the plane! We took off at 9AM on the dot. I bagged myself a window seat (such a kid) and had a comfortable ride from start to finish. We was provided with breakfast which happened to be another fry up...ooops!

The flight time was just under 4 hours and we finally arrived at Arrecife airport around 1pm. Luckily, they are the same time zone as the UK which meant we wasn't as tired as we could have been! 

Check out our photo bombers!!

After having a bit of a mishap with euros, we waved down a taxi which took us to our hotel. We was booked in for a week at SENTIDO Aequora which is a 4 star hotel situated in Puerto del Carmen. Upon arrival, we were greeted by the receptionist and offered a glass of bubbly each. A lovely surprise to say the least! After checking in, we got given our room card and it was time to look for room 4028.

We was booked into a junior suite which had its own walk in shower, separate living room and HUGE double bed. Our room was on the ground floor which meant our balcony area (with its very own sun loungers might I add... bliss) was right infront of a swimming pool. We made a routine of going for a continental breakfast every morning and then having a morning dip in the pool.

The hotel itself has 5 different pools around the complex including an adult only pool. This one was right in front of our apartment and was always quiet... until me and Josh tried dunking each other, of course.

A few days in, we booked a car rental to drive to the North of the island to Cueva de los Verdes. These are the underground volcanic caves which is now shown off as a guided tour. It cost 9 euros per person and a tour guide took us around the caves explaining things along the way.

It was extremely dark in there as you can see and nearly almost impossible to photograph anything but it was so surreal being deep inside the passageways of a volcano which were once active. Quite scary actually!

SPOILER ALERT! 

There is a really cool optical illusion inside the caves which I managed to photograph below. See if you can work it out. If you can then well done! I spotted it a mile back as the tour guide kept emphasising the same sentence... "please no photographs on the next bit and be careful not to fall over... it's very dangerous!!"...

If you can't spot it and want to find out what it is then do your research! I don't want to spoil it too much for anyone who is thinking of visiting Lanzarote soon.

It was an amazing experience and I definitely recommend going there if you're going to the island any time soon. There is also another cave called Jameos del Agua that you can visit which boasts water based caves and apparently is the only place in the world where you can see white albino crabs! This also includes a visit to the King of Spain's private swimming pool.

We visited two beaches whilst away. The local one called Puerto del Carmen beach was a 10 minute walk from the hotel. It features a huge stretch of beach including golden sands and crystal clear waters. It's actually so big that we went around 2pm and had no problem with over crowding or privacy at all.

Whilst on our car rental drive, we came across a much smaller beach which I don't think even has an official name because it was so small in comparison to the 10 beaches that Lanzarote has. 

I think I had the coolest beach towel* on the whole island. It's by a brand called Beach Lulu and is from Amara.com. This one in particular is called the Mayan towel which features a colour palette of oranges, reds and yellows. I've seen round towels making their debut on Instagram recently so I am ecstatic to have one now too! It's most definitely going with me on the rest of my travels this year.

The final adventure we got up to was quite possibly my favourite thing we did. We booked an excursion directly with our Thomas Cook representative based at the hotel to do the volcanoes tour at Timanfaya National Park. 

It was around 70 euros for the both of us and was an early start to the day. We were told to meet outside at the bus stop for 8:30am and a coach picked us up. It was a tight fit but the tour guide from Thomas Cook called Joney was really informative and we learned a lot throughout the day.

Looking quite happy for 8.30am, aren't we?

The tour began by driving up to the park itself where we was told we could take a 20 minute camel ride if we wished. It cost an additional 6 euros per camel and it was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. 

When we exited the coach, there was a few hundred camels in front of us all sitting down waiting to do their rides. Whilst I have always thought it's cruel, I actually learnt that a single camel can take on average 300 kilos on their backs and are bred purely to transport materials such as wood to places. These camels in particular work from 9am-2pm and also get a month's holiday every year!

After the camel ride was finished (watch out for my vlog coming soon which shows it all happening in action!), we got back on the coach and took a trip through Timanfaya National Park. The roads were really slim and windy but it felt special as no cars are allowed on that route. 

We drove right up to the top which has a round restaurant. Super weird but really cool because you can see the whole of the national park by entering the restaurant... which actually only offers a lunch menu. We also got to exclusively see their very large BBQ area which is heated purely by the hot volcanic rocks below it.

We took part in some demonstrations which involved holding small stones which were hot from the active volcano tunnels below us. We was then directed to a large black hole in the ground and watched a man put some dried grass in. Within seconds, it was alight which goes to show how hot it really is in those volcanoes!

The final demonstration was showing the pressure below us. We were told to stand back and watched as the man poured water into several water spouts in the ground. Within 5 seconds, the water erupted into the air with a loud noise to go with it and we all jumped and laughed. 

Again, watch out for my vlog because I filmed it all! It was truly an amazing experience to watch. We are both really pleased we booked this excursion in particular.

The rest of the tour involved visiting an aloe vera factory where we learnt how aloe vera is extracted from the plant and the benefits it has to us human people. Following on from that, we took another coach ride to a vineyard where we got to sample some local white wine. We didn't like either as we are not wine drinkers but it was a nice (and very grown up) experience to say the least!

That's our trip summed up! We both had a lovely week away in Lanzarote and were very sad to leave so obviously we took a selfie to express such sadness...

I fully recommend on visiting Lanzarote at least once in your life because the island is so small but has so much to offer in terms of seeing things and things to do. We had a very pleasant and comfortable stay at the hotel and will definitely be looking into booking SENTIDO hotels in different countries in the future.

Thank you so much to Thomas Cook Airlines for providing everything. We had such an awesome time and lovely flights and service from start to finish. 

Disclaimer: This holiday was a competition win and was provided by Thomas Cook Airlines. A few other brands mentioned are travel collaborations.