Our Jet2 Party Plane weekend in Majorca!

Well, in twenty years of comping I don’t think I’ve ever had an experience quite as extraordinary as this one! Last month I shared the news that Kirsty and Just Plane Lucky had won the amazing Jet2Holidays Party Plane competition – and that over 60 members of my Lucky Learners Facebook group and their family and friends would be travelling to Majorca together for the weekend. We went on the trip last weekend, and had the most amazing adventures! And the best thing? Most of us had never even met each other before – but with our mutual love of comping we all instantly clicked and became firm friends!

From our arrival at Manchester airport on Friday morning, we were treated like VIPs. Jet2 had designed a special Just Plane Lucky logo and it was plastered all over the airport. Our check in queue had a beautiful rainbow balloon arch, and we were all given specially printed red Jet 2 Lucky Pants when we checked in.

Kirsty made sure we all had our name badges, and I handed out our Mental Health Awareness green ribbon badges too. At the airport – and all weekend, in fact – the Jet2 staff went out of their way to look after us.

In the departure lounge everyone went round introducing themselves, laughing and taking selfies – and when the special guest Rylan arrived, a huge cheer went up! Before long it was time to board our special flight – but not before we’d each been given a Just Plane Lucky bag, complete with a branded keyring, branded waterbottle and a Jet2 beach ball.

Then we all gathered in front of the plane for an epic photo – just look at this lucky lot!

The plane journey was great – lots of laughter and fun, and tucked into each seat was a copy of our fantastic itinerary.

Rylan served us hot drinks and had a good old gossip, asking us about our strangest prizes. ‘A gravestone!’ someone shouted, and we all cracked up.

We enjoyed complimentary drinks and a lovely meal – then just before landing Rylan invited three guests up to do an interpretation of his safety demonstration for a competition. Julia did a hilarious rendition and won herself flights to a Jet2 destination of her choice!

On arrival in Majorca we hopped on the bus to the beautiful Meliá Calviá Beach hotel, where we had a drinks reception and enjoyed the beautiful view of the beach from the terrace. The afternoon was free for us to do as we pleased – some went off to explore Magaluf, and the rest of us lounged by the pool and on the beach. A few of us even braved the sea for a swimming session!

In the evening we enjoyed a buffet meal on the terrace, once again with complimentary drinks. Most people pushed their tables together to form bigger groups so they could chat to their new friends! After dinner we all gathered in the bar area and waited for Rylan to kick off Quiz Night – but only after he’d pulled on his special pair of ‘Just Plane Lucky’ pants.

If I tell you that the highest score was only 24/35 (and a lot of the questions were multiple choice!) then you can appreciate the quiz was on the tricky side – and our brainpower wasn’t helped by the huge glasses of wine that the bar staff were pouring! The winning team – Quizzimodo – won a £2500 Jet2 Holiday, and the runners up won four flights!

After the quiz several of us decided to head to Magaluf Strip – a noisy, drunken street full of flashing lights and stag dos (I wouldn’t recommend it). Nonetheless we had a fun time, and to my delight we found a bar that was playing ska music and The Smiths!

After breakfast and cava on Saturday morning we headed out as teams on a fun – but hungover – Treasure Hunt around the resort, and were set the task of bringing back the most unusual souvenir. My team decided to do a little photo shoot on the beach, then get the photo printed onto a cake, t-shirt, paper – anything we could!

We soon realised this was incredibly ambitious, and that nobody in Magaluf has the facility to even make a colour photocopy! Still, the Spanish barman at Mulligans was super friendly and we enjoyed our 30 minutes in his basement trying to print our photo out…

After all that effort we were glad to have a bit of down time on the Saturday afternoon – it was back to the beach for me, where I was happily enjoying a little siesta when a guy started drilling a MASSIVE HOLE in the sand right by my feet. What the…! After that rude awakening I decided it was time to go back into the sea for a swim on my inflatable pineapple…

Saturday evening was the big party night – at 7.30pm we all gathered again in the hotel bar in our lucky fancy dress costumes. I couldn’t believe the effort that people had gone to! The casino dresses were remarkable, and as for the Pot of Gold… I think Jet2 missed a chance by not having a ‘Best Fancy Dress’ prize!

The buffet food was what we’d included as part of our competition entry! A rather bizarre mix of Golden Nuggets, Fortune Fries, Prize Paella, Leprechaun-on-the-Cob, Lucky Burgers, Crossed Fish Fingers and Prawn Lucktail, followed by Lucky Lemon Meringue Pie!

After eating we were led outside for a group photo on the hotel steps, then taken to the surprise party venue. When I walked into the room – with balloons, lucky sweet wagon, an amazing stage set up with projections, and a huge bar area – I looked around at everyone’s smiling faces and I started to cry! It was such a wonderful feeling seeing all these people who’d only met each other the previous day hugging, laughing, dragging each other into the photo booth and dancing together!

The DJ did a fabulous job with the party tunes (many of which were from the Spotify playlist submitted as part of our entry), and then Rylan took to the stage to announce the Treasure Hunt winners. The Brummie Bumpkins – whose member Josh returned with a REAL #JustPlaneLucky tattoo on his wrist (now that’s what you call extreme comping!) – won a Jet2 holiday and runners up the Southern Belles won Jet2 flights!

Sue, Kirsty and Steve all celebrated their birthdays during the week of the trip – as did Rylan’s tour manager Ben – so all were brought on stage for a Happy Birthday sing song. Finally, Kirsty too was awarded a prize holiday so that her and hubby John could bring away her son next time!

Before long it was revealed who the surprise guests at our party would be. Troy the Magician mingled amongst us performing amazing tricks, while the live act was the fantastic Rudimental! Everybody went crazy – including Rylan! It was unbelievable having our own private Rudimental gig – and how we chuckled when the other hotel guests tried to sneak in and were swiftly ushered out by the Jet2 staff!

The party went on till past midnight, with congas, the macarena, YMCA, and absolute chaos on stage. Michelle from Jet2 did some fabulous dance routines to Uptown Funk and Michael Jackson, and even did some crowdsurfing. As it got later and later, the barman’s measures seemed to get larger and larger!

I hear a few keen partygoers made it out to the Strip that night – and ended their evening with a cheeky 2am dip in the hotel pool! As for me, I was happy with a lager and a laugh on the balcony before bed.

Understandably, breakfast the next morning was a little more subdued! We headed off to the airport at 10.30am and plenty of us dozed off on the flight back – there was still chance for one last Rylan selfie though. I had to laugh when Rylan told us what a wonderful weekend he’d had and how happy we was that we were all so ‘normal’!

As we collected our luggage we all hugged and said our goodbyes to all our new friends – confident that we’d all meet again in future! It had been such a special weekend.

Jet2 were incredibly generous and pulled out all the stops to give us the trip of a lifetime – fun, laughter and a bucketload of positive vibes. In fact, the only money most of us spent was on gifts to bring home for our families!

A huge thanks again to all who took the time to vote for #JustPlaneLucky, to all the enthusiastic members of my Lucky Learners Facebook group, to everyone at Jet2, the staff at the Meliá Calviá Beach hotel and to Kirsty who did an amazing job of organising such a creative entry for the competition. It really was a once in a lifetime experience!

Finally, I need to share my absolute favourite photo of the weekend – Derek, Amanda, Lynn and June on the Simpsons sofa. Derek and Amanda both travelled alone to Majorca, but both came back with 99 new friends!

During the trip we raised money and awareness for the Mental Health Foundation – if you’d like to contribute to the charity fund you can do so on our Just Giving page at www.justgiving.com/JustPlaneLucky. Thank you!