Day 0 – Pre Travel Day

So what to do ?

A whole day ahead – and we just had the weekend so we were not exactly up against it in terms of getting organised

And its just two of us so not a huge amount of packing required

And of course I am currently at home and lots of time to get organised

Therefore it is a mystery why I was still cleaning at 2pm. But hey, that’s the pre holiday thrills for ya.

The day started by taking these two out for a good run round the field



I know, they look adorable.

Its all an act. Four legged fiends that they are.

Thankfully they didn’t come back too muddy so there wasn’t the usual carnage of buckets, towels and muddy paws.

It had been lovely and sunny and it was quite relaxing to be out with them rather than rushing around at home.

I finished up with the cases, including the goodies we had been asked to bring over .



And which were to be the source of some amusement at customs
.
I spent most of the afternoon grappling with OLCI.

Virgin, when you send me an email saying, Hey, time to check in , I think to myself, hey, its time to check in.

But the email was early – so I had to wait

And then when it was time, it didn’t work the first time.

Or the Second

Or the Third :angry:

And now I have a sweat on as I didn’t put in our API and we will be denied entry because its missing ...all because your STOOPID WEBSITE DOESN’T WORK

I do get myself into a tizz at times .

In the end I gave up and consoled myself that as we were doing Twilight check in , we would be ok.

Kind Dibber Lizzim suggested we try the App , so we will do that next time .

But I did check the seats.

It was a budget trip – but I already upgraded us to ELR for the trip home .

Andy was sure any seat would do going out.

I mean how bad can it be?

Well, they must fill the plane from the back alphabetically

We had the worst seats – row 66.

The very last seats .

Limited recline and backing onto the loos.

Not Good.

Definitely Not Good for Andy and his long legs.

Friends who have had similar seats in the past have told us the noise “disturbance” from being that close to the loos, is indeed “ disturbing”
.
It was still asking for £60 for Exit row seats and there were some available but that just felt too much.

I took the snap decision to get another set of ELR seats at £40 each.

That moved us further up to row 39 and a fighting chance of clearing immigration sometime before the holiday was due to finish – it’s a short trip, every nano second counts.

And I also did Alamo skip the counter.

We were a bit sceptical about this, but it really did what it said. Pretty impressive.

In the end, our bargain flights/car hire of £720 actually cost us an additional £145 to get fully inclusive car cover and £170 for ELR seats both ways. A revised total of £1035. Still not so bad I guess…..


After all the grappling with the website, we needed to get moving

To have Dinner

We are going to be travelling round the M25 in rush hour so its quite possible we may still be there this time next week.

Pre Filling our Hamster Pouches is therefore a must.

And our gourmet-licious dinner of choice ?



Yep. KFC

Jamie had asked us to order him in some Dominoes Pizza and that was arriving at 4.30 . We didn’t fancy that but also didn’t now have time to eat at a “proper” place.

A Dirty Louisiana Burger each it is then



And it was good – we could almost pretend it was like Shake Shack.

But Not.

Enjoyed it though.

We know how to live it up on pre travel day for sure

Back home and Jamie had returned from school , keen to see us gone asap so he could enjoy his pizza in peace and un interrupted Netflix viewing.

At 1645 we pulled away , with our measly two suitcases and assorted hand luggage. It felt weird to be travelling so light .

We had a pretty good run to Gatwick , traffic was slow in parts but we never came to a stop which is always a good thing on the motorway

We arrived at North Terminal at 1845 and pulled into the short stay / drop off car park.

A short walk to the terminal to find there was no queue at twilight check in. Result.

Cases weighed in at 17.7 kg and 18.5 kg and I explained our API issue. It was no problem, she just asked us for our destination address and we were good to go.

We enquired about exit row seats in the hope of blagging an upgrade - and were told there were some available but we would have to ask tomorrow morning.

As we walked away one of our cases got wedged on the travellator thingy and the system stopped and the alarm was going off. The lady assured us it would be fine, the case would be ok, we were good to leave etc etc .

I did walk away a bit dubious …..

We were back at the car within 15 minutes and on our way to the
Sandman Signature at Three Bridges.

Less than 10 minutes later we arrived here



This had been an excellent deal. £129 to stay, leave the car with maple manor parking for 11 nights, meet and greet on return , plus breakfast .

The hotel is undergoing some re furb – it didn’t affect us but we wondered if they had a lower rate because of that.

Very efficient check in , we were asked what time we needed a taxi in the morning , breakfast times etc and we left the car keys and made our way to our room











Microwave/ tea/coffee/fridge







Iron and board/ safe



I thought it was really well equipped

Andy thought I was totally potty taking pics of an ironing board – but we know these details matter !

Here I am taking it all very seriously



Those were my travel clothes by the way – farewell the white trousers ….

We headed down to the bar, via a sneaky look at the hotel pool






Its just been done up and looked really nice

They are still working on the lobby – all steel, wood and glass – my camera struggled to focus with all the shiny stuff but we thought it would look quite chic when its all done



The bar/restaurant was a bit soul-less





Lots of non matching furniture and you could see where they were making changes.

But we had no problem finding a table and I had one of these





A furious boar indeed – very nice too. What a great name for a wine !

We didn’t eat but people round us were ordering – it’s a decent menu with prices on a par with the airport so £15 for burger and chips, £10 for a panini.

The couple next to us had curry and it smelled delicious .

the hotel menu is on line if you wanted to check it out before booking ..
We had a couple of drinks each , probably costing around £20 before heading up to the room to watch football – there is always football on when we go away.

We rang home to make sure that all was well and just lazed about ready for a good nights sleep

And we all know how that goes don’t we ...

Wow that hotel looks fantastic and what a fab room. Glad you pre travel day went smoothly.

My friends has not. she couldn't check in, wax machine broke when she was having her legs waxed and her son has locked his only key in his car in a town about 15 miles away. So they still haven't left the house yet!

I will follow your report with interest along with all the other dibbers, I won't be doing mine live though

Yay you've started! Sounds like a nice calm pre travel day apart from the OLCI blip, I hate technology when it goes wrong as I haven't a clue what to do. Thank god for twilight check in so you could sort it.
Hotel looks very swish!
What was it like leaving the kids at home? I'm very jealous, only another 6ish years until I can do the same

Great start to your trip report!
I would not want to sit in front of the toilets, usually a queue and wouldn't want people standing looking at me or my tv screen

Great start looking forward to following your trip

Joan

Hello there Eek look at your countdown. Almost there
We were really impressed with the hotel - brilliant value we thought .

Oh dear for your poor friend, that sounds like the pre travel day from hell. I hope it improves for her !

I am in awe of those Dibbers that can do live trippies, Im not fit for anything at the end of each day let alone write up my notes - this is fresh out the box though as we only got back on Friday

Hello

I really like Virgin but I cant get on with their website at all. I always thought API had to be done like 72 hours before flying .. maybe not !

It was odd. Of course Connor is away anyway but it was weird leaving Jamie - he is very capable and is used to getting himself to and from school and sorting out the house after all those months that I had that horrendous commute. So I knew he would be ok, he was on his own for just a couple of days before our friends came to stay - I think he would have liked to be on his own the whole time !

It was quite smooth really. I kept thinking we must have missed something

It definitely made for a different holiday without them ...

Yeah, we normally sit near the loos in exit seats , but thats ok as we are to the side and people tend to stand in the bit in front of the seats. We had heard that it was noisy if you back onto the loos with people just banging about in the cubicles - nothing you can do about that, they are so clunky !

Hi Joan, thank you

Yay pre travel day 👍🏻 But boooo for technology issues 😡

A very good start, always fun when you manage to fit in a glass of wine 😋. Looking forward to the next instalment!

Great start...reading along

I was sooooo frustrated, it kept telling me payment couldn't be taken ... What payment , I'm doing check in ?! :angry: and when I booked the seats separately, the payment went through just fine. But apart from that, all cool

It wasn't a very exciting day but nice to go away quite calmly for a change and the wine was lovely, very fruity

Ah, thank you