Dilapidated arrival halls, endless lines and queues in the peak season, aggressive UK Border posters everywhere that make you feel like you're entering a prison visiting lounge, face/RFID scanners that frequently crap out, miserable/hostile border staff barking at you. I felt like a harassed cow going through an industrialised slaughter house the last time I flew in to Gatwick in the Summer.
Quite a contrast when you're used to travelling between Schengen area countries (or in my case, watching my French wife enjoy the benefits).
Will be fun to see how closely we start emulating the US once Brexit happens. Am sure my EU friends will love having all 10 of their fingers on file and a thorough "why are you here? how long for? where are you staying? when are you leaving?" questioning session every time they pass through...
My wife and I used the UK for a base last summer for a European tour. Big mistake: it doesn't matter which airport you're flying into: the lines are 80 miles long at LHR, the border agents at LGW look like it's 4:45PM on Friday no matter the day of the week, and a bottle of water costs 3 GBP at LCY.
We could have avoided all of this idiocy by simply moving our base of operations to a Schengen country -- no internal border checks, halfway competent security personnel and less stress overall.
Pity -- London was not terrible once you got into it.
Quite a contrast when you're used to travelling between Schengen area countries (or in my case, watching my French wife enjoy the benefits).
Will be fun to see how closely we start emulating the US once Brexit happens. Am sure my EU friends will love having all 10 of their fingers on file and a thorough "why are you here? how long for? where are you staying? when are you leaving?" questioning session every time they pass through...