Just a quick
WELCOME to the TR; I hope you'll all read along!
I've just decided to add this to the PTR, keeping it all in one place! I'm looking forward to going through all 14 days again
26/4/2013 - 27/4/2013: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS!
Firstly, this:
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Anyway, back to it! As mentioned in the PTR, we had booked the Travelodge Central Gatwick for the night before our departure - I'd hate the thought of travelling over to Gatwick at stupid o'clock in the morning, so an airport hotel the night before departure is always going to be the way for me! As many of you say, it's when the holiday begins!
Before setting off for the hotel, I spoke with Emma who was going to be sharing the room with me that evening. I just wanted to check that she had the address for the right Gatwick Travelodge (seeing as there's two!). Lucky I did, as they were totally going to head to the other one!
I left home at around 2:00pm, aiming to get to Gatwick for around 5:00pm. However, I completely forgot that it was in fact a Friday evening. That equals traffic, and it took a little longer. Emma was also planning to get there for 5:00pm - I contacted her whilst I was stuck in standstill traffic to let her know I'd be late, but she was pretty much in the same situation travelling from Birmingham. Just by pure chance though, as I was parking my car, Emma and her Dad literally pulled up next to me. I chatted to Tony (Emma's Dad) for a while as I hadn't seen him in such a long time! After goodbye hugs we then checked in. The room was fab considering we only paid £17 for it! Very clean and tidy!
We had also booked a meal with our night's stay; for around £10 each, we had a main course with either a starter or dessert plus a drink. We shared chicken goujons and cheese bacon potato skins to start, which I followed up with a burger and a Corona beer. Food was OK, just your standard frozen fare, but it certainly filled a hole!
We headed to bed after watching the Graham Norton Show, excited to start our holiday!
We were up bright and early on Saturday morning. After getting ready, we loaded my car with the luggage and left around 7:30am. I had booked the Gatwick Summer Special Parking for the next two weeks... the directions were not great (or they were, and I was just terrible at understanding them!), and we soon found ourselves completely away from the main airport and in some freight-ish/industrial area. I turned the car around at the next roundabout, and headed back towards the Gatwick signs. The directions said something about following signs to the North Terminal, and before I knew it, I was blocked into a barrier, forced into getting a ticket and finding ourselves outside Departures. I felt like we were in an episode of Mr Bean - again we were in the wrong place! I drove straight back out through the barrier on the other side of the terminal and luckily we weren't charged. As we were leaving and still uber-confused, Emma spotted this tiny yellow sign:
(This is about 20x actual size )
Finally we knew where we were going!
I checked in the car, and the shuttle was waiting outside to take us back to the North Terminal. After a short journey we made our way to the back of the hall for the BA desks. The previous day, at exactly 24 hours before our flight, I checked in online for the flight. It let me check-in Emma no problem, however, it wasn't behaving for me. It kept telling me that there was an "important message" that I needed to collect from the airport. The area was extremely busy, but I managed to hunt down a BA assistant. She took me to a computer and looked at the screen with a somewhat quizzical look. She asked me if I actually lived in the UK... ummm yes... she then showed me something on the screen that said something about my US residency. I WISH!!! All I could think of was that it might have been something related to my old work visa that I had for WDW in 2011, but she sorted it and printed my boarding card.
After dropping our bags and clearing security (which, for me, had been strangely uneventful thus far), we had a mooch around the shops and restaurants. First was Duty Free for the usual cigarette run for my friend and a few squirts of perfume! We were now getting a bit peckish so headed upstairs for breakfast - we sat in the EAT area where I had a ham and cheese croissant, and Emma a pain au chocolat. We gave Jo a quick ring at around 9am to see if she had managed to check in at Manchester for her flight, and she informed us that she had already started on the rosé! That's our girl
I also grabbed a coffee from Starbucks (always a skinny caramel macchiato
) and one of those lime and hibiscus "Refresher" drinks - these are my fave!
It was now time to head down to the gate - as we showed our passports to go through, I was told that I had been chosen for extra security checks. It's not embarrassing at all to have your brand new M&S undies which you have literally bought on the way to the airport and thrown in the hand luggage, whipped out in front of the queue! They searched my bags very thoroughly, pulling everything out and inspecting it! It was a strange experience; the security staff were lovely and quite comical. Probably not appropriate, but it made it all a bit less cringey
At one point, the lady pulled my external hard drive out from my laptop case, held it up and asked me what it was.
Me: It's just a big memory stick for my computer.
Security lady (loudly): So it's not a bomb is it?!
Me:
(did she just say that???)
I had no idea how to respond as that's not a question I was expecting to be asked, but I managed to squeeze out a "no" before it got too awkward
After the bags, it was then time for the pat down (or the free massage as they tried to sell it to me!). There was an awful lot of rubbing around the bra area, and seeing as I had a thick wooly jumper on at the time, I asked whether she would have liked for me to have taken it off. That's when she replied: "whoa Miss, calm down! No one said this was a strip search!" She was laughing whilst she said it, and I thought it was funny too, but the people in the line that I was next to definitely heard the words "strip search" and turned around. Eventually it was all over and I caught up with Emma who had been wondering what on earth trouble I had gotten myself into this time! I promise it was just random selection!
Continued in next post...