On my previous 3 visits I have used the short stay car park, on this occasion I decided to use the long stay car park and found that parking areas that obviously had available spaces had barriers across the access roads stating the car park was full. These notices forced me into a very congested part of the park ending up in area "I" which is a considerable distance from the airport entrance, fortunately we managed to catch a courtesy bus to departure. On arrival back to Newcastle the time spent waiting at the baggage reclaim carousel was an absolute disgrace!! Outside the airport there was no signs of any courtesy buses so we had to walk with our cases in tow all of the way back to the car in area "I" and during the time it took to get back not one courtesy bus passed us.