Final day began with a well earned hangover. Sitting on the balcony at 9am eating my breakfast when Tez pops out in his running gear asking if I fancy joining him on a 5.4km run to St Agatha Tower (Red Tower) and back. No. No I sure as fuck don't bro 😂 and off he goes, the mad bastard! 🤯😂 Half an hour later he's back dripping in sweat 🏃🏼 fair fucking play! I am meanwhile crying into my coffee feeling like death 😅
Moz and Stace head up to the Sky Lounge Pool. Tez is still getting sorted after his run, and I'm packing up my stuff and making sure the apartment is clean and tidy so we don't incur any charges when we leave. The additional pastizzi's that Stace bought from Is-Serkin go into the bin and Moz has to put the cheese he bought into his suitcase for the next ~15hrs 🤦🏼♂️ I leave Tez and head up to the pool at 10:20 for a soak, then we head back down to handle the check out at 10:50 to get it out the way. All our suitcases are deposited in the luggage room and we return to the rooftop bar to enjoy the last morning here with a coffee and a couple of warm cans of Cisk 😂
We grab a bus up to Debbie's Café at 1pm for some breakfast, this time Tez opts for M&M pancakes and Stace goes for Blueberry Pancakes with Bacon. I go for the full English that Tez had yesterday because it looked incredible. Moz orders some bizarre named food called Ħobż biż-Żejt which looked rank 🥴 after we've finished eating we head down to grab a few souvenirs from nearby shops since we'd neglected it all week and get back to the Sky Lounge Pool around 3pm. The rest of the afternoon is spent relaxing in the sun and the pool.
As 5pm nears, we make the call to eat some tea at the hotel to avoid the headache and overpriced options at the airport. Tez and Moz go for caesar salads, meanwhile I go with the pasta. Bafflingly my food comes first, and the others have to wait until almost 17:30 to be served 🤯 after eating and relaxing a little longer by the pool, we make the sensible call to head down to the luggage room and get changed out of our pool clothes into something more fitting for a flight. The transfer to the airport advises us to be ready at 18:30. At 18:40 Tez and Stace are still repacking their suitcase in reception because it's over the luggage allowance 🙃😅 I'm getting stressed so I go sit outside and get some fresh air. The transfer coach finally arrives at 7pm and we all get seated in separate seats since it's so big and empty. That doesn't stay the case for long, and at one point I'm convinced some rando is going to sit beside me, but thankfully that never transpires. A kid sits behind Stace however and keeps saying 'Kevin' 😂 There is some young lad on the coach who repeatedly checks the stairwell for a toilet, despite already checking and not finding one. Makes me think of when you keep looking in the fridge 😂
We arrive at Malta International Airport just after 8pm to discover there's a 20-minute delay on our flight meaning it's now 22:35. Not ideal but also not the end of the world. We come through check-in and a young distraught kid is crying for her Mum the otherside of the glass partition. Not sure what was going on, but broke my fucking heart. We go through duty free and I buy some aftershave since I have € leftover that I had already earmarked to spend on this holiday. We do a lap of the airport trying to find somewhere for Stace to eat since she hadn't eaten at the hotel; seating is sparse and ultimately we end up back where we started at Hard Rock Cafe. At 21:00, Tez manages to secure a table. At this point I cba at all; the restaurant is noisy and packed, and I just nope out, preferring to go sit somewhere quieter. Sensory overload issues.
At 21:15 they announce the gate as 18 and show it as closing at 21:45. I nip for a piss then go let the others know. I sit down at 21:30 to the news that they're still waiting on food 🥴 at this point my brain is in overdrive. I'm trying to keep calm but as times ticking by, I am becoming increasingly anxious about missing the plane. The food comes, and at 21:50 we're still sat in Hard Rock Cafe. Tez settles the bill and Stace boxes up her leftover sliders, then finally we're through Passport Control (despite Tez getting stopped because they can't find his entry stamp 🥴) and we're at the gate. Naturally the plane has not even started boarding yet which makes me look like I'd been stressing over nothing 🫡 There is a group of annoying young lads in the terminal and I actively avoid them. We get onto the plane at 22:25 and one of the lads is sat on Moz's row 🤣 then the pilot announces there is a 40-minute delay on our takeoff due to air traffic congestion... Awesome.
Moz can't get his belt on again and is losing his shit. Then Tez orders bottles of water and tries to pay with € coins; the air hostess says they don't accept cash payments, but Tez just opens the water and starts drinking it right in front of her 😂 then she's asking if he has a card to pay on and he tells her no, she'll just have to take the cash, which she does stating she'll have to pay on her own card and pocket the cash! 😅 me and Moz share headphones and listen to some classic nostalgia from our childhood for an hour or so, and then Moz whips out his Pokemon Cards to adhere to his new tradition 😂 he's happy as punch when he packs a Yveltal Holo! I'm dozing off and on, feeling dead AF but unable to sleep. I'll never understand how people sleep on flights. We arrive back in Manchester Airport T3 at 02:05 and after grabbing luggage from baggage claim (on a conveyor that said it came from Palma), and Stace having a costume change, we head back to the car park on the shuttle bus. Tez disagrees with me about which bus stop we should be getting off at, and we subsequently drive past our stop and have to walk further back to the car which seemed quite a fitting end to the holiday 😂 Tez drives us back home, getting me in at 03:25 and after sorting stuff out ahead of Lysh coming at 9am, I crawl into bed at 4am and I'm out like a light!
