I smell something stinky and it's not coffee.... (Faro International Airport (FAO))

Member Name: janharper

Product:	Faro International Airport (FAO)
Date:	18/11/03 (169 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap duty free

Disadvantages: poor coffee, smelly toilets

I recently travelled to Alvor in the Algarve and had the doubtful pleasure of going through Faro Airport.

My breath was really taken away just five minutes after we landed. The toilets had a distinct aroma of p*** They looked clean but the strong smell was enough to make your eyes water.

Anyway, enough of that! Faro really comes into it's own when you go back for your return flight. The toilets had a distinct aroma of Zoflora, or some equally strong floral disinfectant, which had clearly been used to cover up the other aromas. I found them by using my sense of smell as the signs in the airport were very confusing.

The coach pulled up at one end of the departure lounges and we had to walk a hundred yards to get a luggage trolley. The first three we tried refused to co-operate. Once inside it wasn't easy to find the departure gate (the holiday rep had done a disappearing act and left us to our own devices.)

There were three desks allocated for our flight to Manchester but there was nobady working on one of them. When two members of staff arrived, they spent half an hour having an animated conversation and ignoring the queue.

After check in we went through to departures.

There is a reasonably good selection of shops including a large duty free store selling cigarettes (at least ten brands), perfume, chocolate and alcohol. There are also a variety of smaller shops selling clothing, jewellery, books, sunglasses and even designer handbags and watches. You can even buy Portuguese cheese and sardines if the mood takes you. (I wasn't tempted though!)

There is a choice of three coffee shops including a burger bar and an up market 'Costa-type' establishment. We opted for the largest of the three because it had more seats available.

I had a black coffee and other members of group I was with had coffee, or coke. (The relevance of this will become apparent later in this review.) The c
offee was luke warm and quite strong. It cost 1.25 Euros.

Our flight was sceduled for 11.45am but we asked to board at 10.30am. It took some time to work out what the announcers were saying.
We were herded into buses which had no ventilation and swayed around all over the place. By the time everyone was seated it was 11.10am so many of us had already been aboard for almost 40minutes.

Take off was at 11.25am (20 minutes ahead of schedule.) After an hour in the air people started to feel very ill and the hostesses determined that it was those had drunk coffee in that particular coffee shop who were suffering. I did wonder if they had not boiled the water before making the coffee.

So, that was my experience of Faro International Airport. If you go there you'll find the duty free shopping cheap but don't drink the coffee!

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