Mayia, Rhodes day 1

We spent last night at the Ibis at Birmingham International, ready for our 8am flight. We chose to stay over as parking was horrendously expensive and there weren't any trains to Birmingham that arrived at the airport by 6am. We caught the train last night, checked our luggage straight into Birmingham at 8pm and then made the short walk to the hotel. It was all extremely easy and stress free. I even managed to get the hotel for about £40 through Booking.com as I had some credit for previous bookings! 

We set our alarms for 4am, had a quick shower, threw our belongings into our backpacks and walked to the airport where we passed through security really quickly despite all the bad press that Birmingham have received recently.  I'd definitely do this again as I normally find getting to the airport extremely stressful.  We had some breakfast before heading to our plane. After a small panic attack (I hate flying) we boarded the bus and then the plane. Rhodes here we come!

The flight was thankfully uneventful, apart from one small bout of turbulence. We arrived in Rhodes 30 minutes later than planned and then stood in a queue for an hour trying to get through passport control! Finally clear, we quickly collected our cases and jumped in our taxi. The journey took about an hour and we were really excited to arrive at beautiful Mayia for the third time. We've never returned to a resort before but we just fell in love with Mayia and the amazing staff (as well as the food!!). I was slightly disappointed with the room as we were on a different side of the hotel to previously but the receptionist reassured me that they would try and move us to our old room if possible.  We went down to the street cafés for a cake and a cuppa before changing for dinner. The night time entertainment was a Drifters tribute group that were brilliant and succeeded in getting everyone up and dancing. A fantastic start to our holiday.