We're Doing a Sequel! Day 1 *Pre Travel Day*

For the Index, click here.

For the Pre Trip Report, click here.

The day had finally arrived! It was Monday, 4th May and today we were making the journey to Manchester airport for an overnight stay before flying to the happiest place on earth.

I was so relieved to be going - work had been getting really, really busy for me and I was taking on way more responsibility. It's great but I was ready for a break!

I woke up at about 7am. My alarm wasn't set for a around half 8 but the excitement was too much to be able to sleep. I'd packed most of my things the night before, and there were only really the essentials to go in, so I had a quick breakfast and got ready at a leisurely pace.

Me and Lewis are both still living at home while we save up for a house, so he was sorting his things out at his. He woke up a lot later than I did! Before heading to Newcastle Central I hung back at home to wait for online check in. Once 11am hit I was straight on and printing the boarding passes, and shortly after my parents drove me to Lewis' as his parents were dropping us off at the station.

Our train wasn't until 1:10pm, but we arrived at just after 12. We were feeling a bit peckish so we grabbed some lunch from UGOT inside the station. I've been invited here before to review the place on my blog, so I already knew it was a good choice.



We shared a baguette, ordered two cacao hot chocolates and treated ourselves to a muffin each. Lewis went for orange and coconut and I opted for the apple and cinnamon. The muffins were amazing! They're gluten free so they're more dense, but I prefer these over regular muffins as I find they can be quite dry.





We headed over to our platform afterwards to wait for our train. The journey was going to be around 3 hours, with a change at Leeds.



The first half of the journey was relatively uneventful. In fact, I slept most of the way. We had a couple of girls across the table from us but they were pretty quiet (although one was really into her Nutella, she licked one of the travel pots clean!)

We had about a 20 minute wait at Leeds, and hopped on to our next train where we were shortly informed that there were some signalling problems near Huddersfield and there was going to be a delay. Sigh.

We took a few selfies and had a bit of a giggle when we realised the girl behind us was having a snooze in them, and we were soon on our way again.



As we approached Manchester the family in front of us on the train decided it would be appropriate to change their baby's nappy on the table instead of taking him to the toilet and using the changing facilities. WHY WHY WHY? Chances are the tables do not get wiped down after people disembark and some poor soul could be eating off of it on the next journey!

The poor old lady sitting the in the row beside us was eating a sandwich, but put it back in her bag when she realised what was going on.

We headed straight to the Radisson once we'd arrived at the airport, and checked in at the front desk. Our stay here was actually free, as Lewis earned 3 weeks' worth of Club Carlson points when we was doing some training in London last year. However, as a member you can upgrade to business class for £40. We decided to go for it and thankfully they had rooms available.

We made our way upstairs to our room (feeling rather unposh), dumped our cases inside and went straight to the window to check out the planes taking off and landing.





I was really looking forward to a nice, relaxing bath later that night to have a bit of a pamper before the flight in the morning. But I went into the bathroom and there was no bath Just a shower! Well, there go my plans.

We decided to take a stroll into the business class lounge as it was practically next door, and had a few little canapés and some water. I wasn't that keen on many of them, so we headed downstairs to check out the restaurant.

The menu was looking pretty pricey, but since Lewis is a Club Carlson member we got 25% off of our bill. I ordered the Ham and Eggs, which was basically Eggs Benedict with a bit of salad and some chips. It was pretty good, but I couldn't finish it all.





Lewis opted for the sizzling chicken fajitas, which he noticed when we walked into the restaurant. They came out piping hot and sizzling away, so he was pretty pleased with them.



We ordered desserts afterwards as the service was pretty slow and we had time for our mains to settle. Plus, my sweet tooth needed satisfying. The sticky toffee pudding was an obvious choice for me, I love the stuff. Lewis ordered a brownie sundae.





My dessert came with a generous pot of custard which was delicious - it wasn't overly sugary and had more of a buttery/eggy taste to it which complimented the sauce nicely.

The bill wasn't too bad with the discount, I think it came to about £43.

We rolled ourselves out of the restaurant after and went back up to our room. We got ready for bed, hopped in and watched a bit of TV before I asked Lewis if we could watch the rest of Iron Man 2 that we had started watching on the train, but I swiftly fell asleep 5 minutes in.

Tomorrow: A short delay then we're on our way!

Looking forward to reading the rest, great report so far

Great start, those puds look divine!

Thank you! x

Great start, looks like a nice relaxed way to begin your holiday!

Great day, love the photos and Lewis' t-shirt!

Thanks! He got loads of compliments on his t-shirts over the holiday, he was dead impressed with himself haha!

That brownie sundae looks fab.

The baths in hotel tend to be pants anyway, about half the length and width of one at home!

Great start! Look forward to more