Where half your holiday is spent! (Tenerife Renia Sofia Airport (TFS))

Member Name: jaylad

Product:	Tenerife Renia Sofia Airport (TFS)
Date:	05/06/01 (167 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small? lol

Disadvantages: No signs, Departures very hard to find

Why is it all Spanish airports all look and run the same? This place was no exception, a big concrete lovers paradise with plenty of cold tiled floors and walls with zero decoration.

We departed our aircraft using an airbridge connected to the terminal and you enter the building and all the passengers waiting to get on thier return flight are above you overlooking a balcony. They usually do passport checks here as well, and if you wanted to smuggle somthing in iam sure you could just chuck it upto sombody leaning over the balcony who has passed passport checks! Oh, and they seem to take forever to check every single persons passport, because a charter flight full of a load of brits wearing bermuda shorts looks well dodgy doesn't it!!!?? honestly!

You then enter the baggage hall. The baggage hall here could rival Earls Court for size, its huge! Now the experience of baggage reclaim seems to be made ridiculously silly because there are about 14 conveyers, yet if 3 planes have just landed, they put everyones luggage on just one!!! This will normally be the one right in the corner where about 500 people will be fighting to watch the belt! Battle to get a trolley and if its not broken you'll be lucky. Wait an age for your bags to appear (its hardly a busy airport) and then its off to the taxi rank for us.
Outside there is a queue of people so long I couldn't see the end. 1 taxi arrived every 10 mins or so but it took ages for us to get one. If you banked on car hire, then make sure you have it prebooked because I have never seen the rental desks actually open!

After a nice sunny holiday we arrived back at the airport.
The check-in could be made easier if they had more desks open but thats probably not the airports fault. Now trying to find the departures gate is a nightmare. You expect a massive entrance with loads of signs above it but not here! You have to go upstairs and then theres a tiny door with departures written ab
ove it! We walked through and there was nobody even at the x-ray machine, so we waited a few minutes (we could of just walked straight past) and then this security member ran out and turned the machine on for us to use!!
It seems the Spanish are very tight on what and who comes into the country but couldnt car less about what goes out!

Oh, and dont expect to bring your trolley with you through departures. They are banned from every floor except the ground floor (they put metal post infront of the lifts) how mad is that!!?

There are a few shops in the departure lounge that never seem to open so how they do business nobody knows. There is also a cafe, and if your delayed, which you usally are here, then you will usually end up here! Because its about the most exciting place

We boarded the plane through an airbridge thank god, otherwise its a long walk over the tarmac, and if your very lucky - they might just bus you to the plane, but these occasions are very rare!

Iberia, Airtours, Britannia, Monarch and Go all have permission to use the airbridges but Air Europa and Futura departures are all banished to the far side of the airfield!

Renia Sofia airport is ok, but they still have lots of work to do!

Summary: