Travel Day - the day before is here

Ok

I confess

I am one of life’s horrible light sleepers

I need the room to be dark and quiet – the slightest distraction and I am awake

So it wasn’t great that when we turned the lights off there was still some light coming from one of the wardrobes – fab idea to have a light in there in the first place , but not so fab that it didn’t go off.

Well, we looked high and low for the switch but couldn’t find it so Andy did his best with jamming the door to narrow the gap.

But I of course became completely fixated on it.

Andy dropped off almost immediately – he has the most enviable ability of closing his eyes and falling straight to sleep.

I hardly ever do that. I am deeply jealous.

And of course, with deep slumber comes the snore fest.

Don’t get me wrong, I snore too.

Sometimes I even wake myself up with it.

Weight and age all kinda make the snoring thing creep up on you …..And drinky poos.

But Man, sometimes its like snoring as an Olympic sport.

And the morning after we always have the same squabble about who kept who awake...

Sigh, I know I snore but when I am awake, I am not snoring so I cannot possibly be disturbing you but you are most definitely disturbing me – see , its simple.

I win.

So the night kinda progressed like this



And you begin to imagine this


These are courtesy of Google Images

There are so many funny memes about this , these are probably the two most tame.

I am sure Andy would say the same about me too ….but he’s not writing the trippie

I recorded in my note book that I was awake at 0130, 0303 ( so precise) , 0440 and at this point I gave up , put headphones on and listened to the radio .

I must have drifted off, which doesn’t say much for Jenni Falconer on Heart Radio I am afraid… she sent me to sleep.

I was awake again just after 0700 and messaged home to make sure that all was well for the day ahead.

I was sooo tired but travel day does involve a lot of sitting down so I reckoned I would catch up on my kip at some point.

Andy made some coffees – he is the best at supplying morning coffees - and on opening the wardrobe, we discovered the switch to turn off the interior light was in fact on the side of the light itself.

Genius.

We hadn’t thought of that last night !

We headed down for breakfast at 0930 – there really was no rush this morning

It finished at 10 and we were pretty much the last down there. There was lots on offer.

Traditional English, selection of fruits and cereals, bread, toast, mini pastries and muffins.













I think this was £24.99 for the two of us or something very similar which we felt was very good value compared to what we would normally pay at the airport.

We ambled back to the room and become engrossed in some daytime tv – so much so that we were a bit surprised at 1030 when reception rang to say our taxi was here.

Eek, time to get going!

As we pulled out we could see the car had gone so Maple manor had been and collected it.

Or it had been pinched.

Who knows, home time will tell us which … as for now we are on our way so nothing else matters !

The very short trip cost £11 and we were dropped just here



We popped back to Check In to ask about the Exit row seats.

We were met by a charming older lady who flirted outrageously with Andy ( Oooh, I’d definitely like you in my exit row )

But she escorted us over to the empty PE check in desk and pretty much told the girl there to get us into any spare exit row seats.

Which she did

For free

Winner !

Yes, the ELR seats I had just paid for stayed empty the whole flight ….but I did wonder if they would have upgraded us straight from economy to Exit row with no fee – as it was just a small increase ( £20 each ) from ELR to exit, I reckon that’s why the waived it.

We felt really pleased and thanked the flirty old gal on the way out.

We were then directed out the building and around to another entrance.

Some (**insert word of choice here **)wit had left a case unattended

What is wrong with you people, its an airport, you dont just leave your suitcase and go for a toddle about.

It gets blown up and you really tick off everyone else you inconvenienced and who managed to read the ruddy great big signs that say DONT LEAVE YOUR LUGGAGE UNATTENDED :angry:

The area was sealed off and lots of serious faced people were looking at it

Well, unattended bag or not, we are getting in those blooming seats so we walked around as requested and straight to premium security ( £10 for the two of us).

Waltzed right in and out again in less than 5 minutes.

It was now just after 11

Departures was busy but still quite a few seats.

We had a short wander around duty free and Andy bought me the Chanel No 5 atomizer refill set –its my absolute fave and I was on my last bottle.

By the time we had done this and I had got some sweets from Smith’s , the gate was already showing and we know what a scrum for seats it can be, so we schlepped off to the gate.

We fully expected to be walking to the other side of Crawley as its usually the last gate but no, we were quite close and there she was





It wasn’t overly busy at the gate. A lot of couples and adult parties.

A few families with children but not many.

The joy of term time holidays … all parents will appreciate when you finally reach this stage ….

I amused myself by naming the buildings on the London skyline transfers on the windows.

I managed them all, except this one – what building is the green one ?



Andy , in his choice of travel wear.



All those years of mocking my white trousers . Good job he stuck with white wine on the flight ..

We were eventually boarded and after getting past the group of 5 who were having a strop about not being seated together ( and relax, there are loads of seats empty) we were in our places ...

Andy and his infeasibly long legs



Andy observed the seats were smaller – I think that a] he is larger and b] the fixed armrests were part of the issue.

But he was right, they were indeed narrower than the ELR seats as we discovered on the way home.

These were great seats. As the flight wasn’t full we didn’t have hordes of people waiting for the toilets. We were served pretty quickly from the trolley and certainly for Andy it made life a lot more comfortable

I had the middle seat – that one where the arm rests are in no mans land and both people either side of you claim them

Good job I am small then

I think this was supposed to be a view of the space in front of us …



Soon time to get this out and crack on with the film fest



I watched Jack Reacher ( Tom Cruise is always a flight must for me ), Fantastic Beasts and where to find them ( Good.. but .. I have to confess I nodded off part way through ) and Dr Strange – which I loved. Sherlock vs Hannibal with magic powers. Squee. Loved it .

Andy watched Jack Reacher , The Accountant ( he enjoyed it) and Deepwater Horizon ( he also enjoyed that).

Loads of choices, could have been there all day …oh wait, we were there all day ..

The feeding schedule ( all based on departing UK time) was :

1300 flight

1320 actual take off

1400 drinks and pretzels



1445 Lunch



I went for meatballs, Andy had the curry









I think we must be somewhat weird as we generally enjoy flight food , and this was really nice !

1800

The teeny brain freezer



2100 Afternoon Tea ( now 5pm Orlando time)





I think Andy was hoping I would share mine, not a chance !

Thumbs up VA. Definitely better than the meal coming home ...

It was a pretty uneventful flight and that all fine by me

I had the mid flight – OMG , still 4 hours to go moment,



But I think that’s when I had a crafty kip and then afternoon tea revived me

All good then and we landed in one piece. Always a bonus.

We were off the aircraft pretty sharpish and directed into the "returning since 2012 and on an ESTA" lane.

There was a queue for the kiosks which I moaned about – but since reading people were there for hours, I really had nothing to moan about at all

As we declared food we got the dreaded X and as we lined up we could see the “ non returners” lines were clearning much faster – basically we were in a line for two officers, the other lanes were in lines for 5 or 6 officers.

But this is not the place to be jumping around in queues is it.

So we waited our turn and after Andy had his finger prints taken again, we were waved through.

We got our bags pretty quickly and were onto the customs line. As we had declared food we were sent to the second line which meant an xray of all our bags.

I had written a list of our “ food” and the officer there laughed when she saw it and shrugged but we had to put our cases through as we were already there.

No hassle, all fine, and off we go to pick up the car.

It was dusk as we got on the little train of happiness



Andy insisted on asking the Virgin Reps where we should go even though I had said we just go straight to the garage. But by now I think I was just super cranky from lack of sleep.

Into the garage and Andy had his eye on some sporty hatchback in some disgusting yellow colour. We certainly wont lose that in the parking lots …

But the boot wouldn’t open and he didn’t fancy anything else in the line ( only about 5 cars there at the time) so the guy wafted his hand at the row opposite and said take any one of those ……

So our little economy car turned out to be



A Jeep Patriot !

And very nice it was too.

Although we discovered it had no boot cover so you could see the cases in the boot which made me a bit anxious about leaving the car on our various travel days. The tinted rear windows were good though as you couldn’t see the handluggage in the footwells.

As he does every time, Andy hit his head off the boot as he put the cases in. Never an issue for me ..

I had already got the satnav going so that we could avoid the also perennial wrong turn out of the airport.

And we were on our way.

It had taken 65 minutes from getting off the plane to pulling away so not really too bad. Although I felt it was a long time but in reality, not at all .

By now I just wanted to be at the hotel.

It wasn’t long before we saw the familiar sights of I Drive





All good at the Rosen Inn – check in was very quick and we were round the corner in Block A , overlooking the pool



The bedding and décor looked different to our last stay but the familiar layout







We both wanted a bite to eat and a drink but didn’t fancy the walk to /noise of Millers so opted for the in house Zebra Sports Bar.

Its an ok place but a bit soul-less maybe as it has so many people just passing through and its got a quite odd layout.

Anyhoo, some bloke was doing his best crooning and some laydees who must have been on the Malibu were joining in. Its not karaoke luv, give the bloke a break.

I did feel like I was in an episode of Benidorm. You know when you are so tired its like everything is an out of body experience ?

That was how I felt.

But the wings and chicken quesadilla were nice – hot, fresh and just perfect to keep us going.





Bit of a first night fail that I didn’t note the price but I know it would have been reasonable . Andy had a beer and I had a glass of wine.

We picked up some water from the 24 hour shop and headed for bed. I cant remember the time but it was something like 10 pm local so more like 2am UK time.

Soooo tired !

And I forgot that the aircon here is like a jet engine .

Good job I packed those earplugs then …

The next day is HERE

Good, relaxing (if tiring) travel day - white trousers intact yay! (Even if they weren't yours &#128514

Glad you had a smooth travel day!

Lucky you on the legroom!

Nice car!

Oh you sound so tired at the end, but it wasn't too bad a travel day really. Everything went relatively smoothly. Looking forward to more.

Great travel day. I feel your pain at the wardrobe light. I'm the same with the TV standby or smoke detector lights. My eyes are just attracted to them & I can't sleep 😁 Looking forward to the next instalment 😀

hi looking forward to another great report, the building you were asking about is the Tate modern, i cant claim knowing asked my son architect student in london.

Good travel day

Joan

I like the title!
The Jeep looks fantastic. We have driven past the big wheel thing a few times already, its lovely lit up at night. I know what you mean about an out of body experience!
Looking forward to reading along.

Nothing more annoying than a snoring husband! Haha!

Nice easy travel day all in all

I remember the air con bring really loud when I stayed there many years ago (was still the Quality Inn Plaza then!)

Xx