Well still seem to accrue holiday brochures, no idea why think I like the pretty pictures even if they aren't true. Never really beleived the descriptions though.

I remember smoking & non smoking. Also remember china plates and silverware on a flight, not first class or anything swanky, just Air France from what remember.

Defiately remember getting home before me postcards, but think IPhones, email etc has done away with all of that, wonder if they still sell any?

A more recent memory is going to about 10 different destinations & them all playing the exact same 'kids disco tape' Was there ever only one made worldwide ?

Nowadays i 'm lucky if I manage to stay out till midnight and am norally asleep by 1am, gone are the days of the allnighter.

I also remember missing a flight, but not by an hour or so, by 24 hours as I had got the wrong day
and the company saying no worries you can go in a couple of days time, no charge or anything.

They also apologied that they couldn't get me on the next one only 17 others had been delayed by a motorway pile up and had taken up all the spare seats.

No wonder Intersun went pop.

As you say happy dayz.

I remember all of those but what I really , really . miss is the smoking sign. Nothing to do with ciggies but I felt safe !

Love your post fiona, and yes I do remember all those things too! I always requested the smoking section on the plane, and if there were no seat there, would spend the majority of the flight standing up at the back I also remember flights back from Saudi, where we would stick the babies on the floor in front of our seats, then push the seats in front down and sleep practically flat with the children beneath us!!!!

Remember the smoking section at the back of the plane , seems unbelievable doesn't it!! Bit I was telling one of the young lads I work with that people used to rent TVs , he thought I was making it up !! He couldn't believe it at all.
Some things really are different now ! But Doe's right in saying about the kids disco music , same everywhere , those black lace guys must be millionaires , and the words and actions to superman are embedded in our brain, which is ok if you've had a few too many
Also noticed that pool bar music always has the Eagles , Hotel California , perhaps the only place they don't play it is in California
The first time I went abroad with my work mate we went out got very very drunk and lost each other , we both ended up back at the hotel , how, god only knows I must have crawled back , I know we had spent nearly all our money after only a few days so we would got to th shop an get 24 cheap beers and drink all of them before going out to the bars around 12 to "save" money , we ended up going into a nightclub and finding out that a Spanish nightclub is a bit different to the ones we went to on a Saturday night in England Couldn't believe that we'd only been in there 2 minutes and pulled Bit naive eh

I really don't know how we managed to look after ourselves and get back home in one piece !

OMG thanks Fi, you've just brought memories of my house chocker block of brochures! Piled high in the corner and me thumbing through them all comparing prices etc. I'm sure that, at the time I was led to believe if I booked with X I'd have more 'comforts' than had I booked with Y.

Have to laugh at Andy66 at Black Lace etc.......:cheers Those songs were a godsend when my son was little
Blast from the past was Kath, Van and I adding hotels to the database from those mountains of brochures at our feet

Post cards?? Recently been away with the OH and my adult children (and grandchlld) - both our mothers who are both well into their 80s, asked for postcards!!
When I suggested that the vagaries of foreign (and UK!!) postal services meant that they wouldn't get their cards til after we were back (or not at all!) they BOTH said "write them whilst you are away,then post them when you get back, we like the reminder of foreign climes,now we aren't fit enough to go ourselves" -suspect we aren't alone in doing this for more elderly relatives.
Brochures,smoking on planes - brings it all back!!!

I used to ask to see the book that the TA kept UNDERNEATH their desk that gave the REAL picture of a hotel/resort

Then came teletext!! 'I'm sorry that holiday has gone...BUT we do have one 4 weeks later going to Lanzarote' (when we'd enquired about Greece!)

Postcards we'd write them as soon as we got there not knowing anything about the place just so they arrived back home MAYBE before us!

One year we didnt think and put post cards in the hotel post box two days before we left which was october half term and the hotel shut as soon as we were gone, they arrived the next May when the hotel opened again.

shrimper wrote:

One year we didnt think and put post cards in the hotel post box two days before we left which was october half term and the hotel shut as soon as we were gone, they arrived the next May when the hotel opened again.

Love it!

I can remember flights when smoking was allowed everywhere on the planes, I think it was the late 60's or early 70's that a non-smoking area on the planes was introduced. Airlines in the USA were the first to introduce the seperated areas and they were the first to totally ban smoking.
Seperated areas really didn't help as the smoke still circulated and your clothes and hair would stink on arrival especially on longhaul flights, though I guess it was better than sitting next to a smoker blowing smoke in your face for a number of hours.
For many years smokers who travelled in the front of the plane would head for the back to light up and there was often a real party atmosphere up the back. If the loos were in the back of the plane you had to walk through the smokers and your eyes would often start to water as you waited.

Two elderly relatives love to receive postcards and I have been known to occasionally send them when returning home. I have sent them though from all over the world and as far as I know all have arrived though some have taken months.

I still send postcards at times, my Nan/Grandmother likes to receive them likewise a little cousin I have as she doesn't go away. One strange memory I have is going to the IOW on the ferry, and the toilet was straight through into the sea below, I was scared I would fall in.

Some great posts
Smoking on long haul flights - I was only doing short haul at the time but thought I wasn't a great flyer because i always ended up feeling sick. But I realise that it was purely the smoke smell I hated.
Completely off topic but then this did happen a few years ago ( 2005) so hopefully I am forgiven! We were flying back from Singapore and had to divert to Frankfurt- remember the Heathrow strikes then? We sat on the tarmac for hours with not a clue what was going to happen to us. It was remarkably good natured banter but some were getting a bit fidgety. Permission was given to take smoking parties to the bottom of the steps for 10 mins at a time. As it was hot with no a/c working, more and more took up the option. Shortly there were folks sharing out their cigarettes to non smokers so they could leave the plane as well
That was just the start of the adventures as we had to stay in Frankfurt.
My most memorable flight was in the early 80s when we took the last flight from Glasgow to Benidorm. It had had a long delay and it felt like the last bus, rather than flight. Folks were drunk before they started, singing and drinking their duty frees whenever they thought the crew wasn't looking. I always remember this woman with a white jumpsuit- bad idea Wouldn't like to tell you what it looked like by the end of the flight. We did actually clap when we landed! On the way back- it was a 2am flight. I remember the flight being full of sombreros, straw donkeys and a huge party of males in grass skirts By the way- we were very sober ( didn't drink on flights then)

We used to look forward to the meal on the plane for some reason (think it broke the boredom up). You'd get your little hovis loaf, packs of butter, a little starter, hot meal, and a pud. Tea or Coffee, plastic cutlery (never had china plates or silver ware ), all balanced precariously on your pull down tray.

Elbows would be all over the place as everyone tried to remove the foil off the hot meal or the biscuit from out of it's wrapper. Then you'd try to eat your meal with said elbows tucked in so you didn't poke the eye out of your neighbour. After your meal you'd try to drink the scalding hot coffee without spilling it down your front - then of course - the window seat occupant would want the loo

Glynis HT Admin wrote:

Elbows would be all over the place as everyone tried to remove the foil off the hot meal or the biscuit from out of it's wrapper. Then you'd try to eat your meal with said elbows tucked in so you didn't poke the eye out of your neighbour. After your meal you'd try to drink the scalding hot coffee without spilling it down your front - then of course - the window seat occupant would want the loo :rofl

Still happens on long haul flights where meals are part of the package

Glynis- that still happens

I can never decide between wanting the window seat and then annoying the other two passengers when I want the loo, or having the asiel (dyslexia kicked in on that one) seat and being the one that has to get up all the time. The only thing I do know is I dont want to be in the middle seat.

Keeping the elbows tucked in is a bit of an art form during meals. I think the flight attendants do brilliantly never to spill hot drinks on travellers.

I discoved recently if you go with thomas cook style, they throw in the meals as part of the cost like in the old days, It does break up the flight a bit, trying to extract the food from the packaging.

no im not that old

Yes long hauls still the same - I think it's the complimentary glass(es) of wine that helps you through the 'elbows in' game!

Remember back in 1989 when we were coming into land at Sydney Airport, Australia. There was an earthquake taking place at Newcastle just north of Sydney .. 5.6 and 13 people died. The plane literally dropped out of the sky! Luckily seatbelts were in place as coming into land...but young ozzie guy opposite us was drinking cup of coffee at the time Boiling hot coffee all over him....and the ceiling of the plane! The hostess's gave him blankets to put around himself as his t shirt had to come off!

Fiona wrote:

Glynis- that still happens :rofl

brewerdave wrote:

Still happens on long haul flights where meals are part of the package :rofl

D'ya know - I'm cracking up could have swore I'd already posted in here, oh well here I go again.

It's probably only me who remembers as I only fly budget now
*Edit and I take my boiled eggs!!!