Postcards from Poznań

Tiger and I set off for our February Half term mega Poland road trip on Valentines Day, Friday 14th February. We were heading out to Poznań as this was just about the cheapest place to fly to in Poland! The actual flight with Ryanair (booked in May 2024!) were £88.92 for both of us which included the mandatory reserved seat charge for traveling with a child. I then additionally bought Stansted Fasttrack for £9 each and a 20kg bag for £89.98. So the total of all of this was £196.90.

This time our flight was from Stansted so we drove the 2h15 to Stansted from our home in Bordon, Hampshire, for a night in the Premier Inn Stansted which I had booked via Holiday Extras combining the hotel with Meet and Greet parking for £158.57.

Initially, we had to pay £15 to park right outside the Premier Inn (you need to check in and get a code at the Reception desk) but then in the morning drove to the Meet & Greet parking which was 1.5 miles away. We left the hotel on Saturday 15th February at 05:30, drove 6 minutes to the Meet & Greet. You drive up in lanes, leave your car, hand your car keys in and then walk the 2 minutes into the airport! Perfect. So we were at the airport for around 06:15 with plenty of time for the 08:15 flight to Poznańso we had a bit of breakfast in The Windmill pub for £14.

The flight was 2 hours long and we settled in with Netflix downloads to our iPad and phone along with the perfect coffee for £3.15 in the air!

We landed on time at 11:10 at Poznań Lawica Airport, got our big silver suitcase and at this point the grand plan started to fall apart as we couldn't find our car! The car hire for 9 days was just over £100 but I had paid £158 including a Damage Refund Insurance via Holiday Autos to book with Express Car Rental. So, clearly this was a steal but I am not entirely sure the hassle was worth it. I hadn't appreciated that there would not be somebody there to meet us and was told to go to the 'Kiss and Fly' area which is basically an empty car park (go out of airport, bear left so you can see McDonalds, walk through the car park almost to the exit and you're there)! So we went all the way out of the airport searching for this area (in the snow!!), couldn't find it or anyone to help and had to go back to where we had started. The Information Desk lady phoned Express Car Rental who said they had given up on us and left and to get them back I would have to pay a further 50 zloty (£10) to get them to come back which of course I did. But we were then sat outside waiting for the blooming car in the snow and having go to the Information Desk initially around midday, didn't actually get the car until 14:00 and arrived at the hotel for 14:45. I had actually booked for the 14:00 English show at the Croissant Museum in Poznan so we sadly missed this thanks to the car debacle! Well, that'll teach me. Read all the information in great detail and be very cautious about booking with a company who does not have a desk at the airport!

Nevertheless, the driving once we finally got the car was fine using Waze. Our hotel was the Park Inn by Radisson and was 299 zl (£60) for a double room on a non refundable booking. Whilst the hotel does have private parking at 80zl per day (£16), we parked on the street as we only needed to pay (on the Mobilet app) until 18:00 on the Saturday as it was free on Sunday. We paid for four hours so it was only about 20zl (£4).

After we had checked into the hotel and decompressed a bit, we headed out to Stary Browar shopping centre by Uber (£2.20). We didn't manage to find the promised soft play (called Plac zabaw on the map) but apparently it is there somewhere! Instead we really enjoyed the food court and bought boots, hats, gloves, scarves and swimming pool shoes - basically everything we had forgotten! We also picked up essentials from the supemarket in the basement of the shopping centre. Then Uber'd back (£3) and collapsed into bed.

After a good lie in at the hotel, we enjoyed the complimentary breakfast in the hotel and drove the 20 minutes to the Thermy Maltanskie Aquapark. It was open for 09:00 but we got there just before 12:00. Here, you can buy one hour, three hour or full day tickets. The important part though (as I had read online) is that this is from the moment you scan your wristband through the turnstiles to the minute you scan out. If you go over, you are fined! So to save worrying about the time I had bought a full day day ticket which for 1 adult 1 child was 203zl (£41) for the whole day. In the end, we probably didn't need it and 3 hours would have been enough as we were late and then needed to get on the road but nevermind!

The actual aquapark was lots of fun for Tiger and we had lunch there for £35 (175zl) and paid £5.62 (28zl) for our car parking. Next stop, Torun!