angryduck71
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- Dec 9, 2010
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I have written a few Universal Studios trip reports.... and one about going to NYC to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child that got great feedback on here, so thought I'd report another Harry Potter (and Back to the Future!)-related report for those interested... my son Davy, 15, and a friend from law school, Ginny, and I did a Harry Potter-heavy England trip (although, my friend skipped the Harry Potter stuff -- her loss!). If anyone wants to do a trip like this, hopefully this report will help. I will skim over some of the trip that is not somehow Universal related, but feel free to ask me questions!
@schumigirl was very helpful in planning this trip! Shoutout to her! One of these days, hoping to be in the same city at the same time so we can meet!
DAY 1:
So, to begin... I first came up with the idea to go to England for my 50th birthday... So, we planned on going for my 50th birthday... in 2021... but, COVID restrictions and all.... could not do it. My son was crushed as he wanted us to do it for my birthday. I told him maybe we could do it BEFORE I turned 51 (which is this Thursday!). He was happy with that. So, we settled on going (mostly to London) Memorial Day weekend 2022 and staying for about 11 days. THEN... I HAPPENED to hear the Queen's jubilee would be that week.. I emailed schumigirl and asked, "should I change dates?" She said, "YES!" We did so quickly that day... changed flights and the airbnb. Found what looked like a lovely flat in Chelsea. Flights were no problem to change. So, now we were going end of June/early July. My son thought it was hilarious that we would be in England over the 4th of July.
Because we would be there then and I'm a HUGE tennis fan, had to add Wimbledon to the trip as well. We cut down the trip to 9 days because my friend asked me to. BIG mistake. Should have stayed there at least 11 days. Probably more like 2 weeks.
So, before the trip began, I tried plugging in the airbnb flat's address into various sites to see how far away things were... it would never work. I emailed the owner and asked if there was some way I was putting the address in incorrectly (he, or maybe she -- long story on that one, but the picture and name seemed to be male) barely communicated back and when he did -- he just said the address is right.
In any event, we were off!
We left Kansas City and headed to Chicago. Had a LONG layover then took off for Heathrow. We mostly watched movies on the plane. I watched "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" -- highly recommend. I forget what Davy watched - he has problems sleeping on planes, so he stayed awake the whole trip and watched A LOT. He finally started Ted Lasso (the first four episodes were on) after I had been telling him over and over he'd love it. He did. He has since binged it all.
During the flight, his tooth started to really bother him. He figured it was his wisdom tooth.
We landed and breezed through customs. I was like, "what is all the fuss about going through customs?" I hadn't gone through in about 20 years so I couldn't remember anything about it previously.
I had hired a driver from Viator (a touring company I have had great results from in the past). We looked for our name.... nothing. I emailed the contractor through Viator. Nothing back. I finally found the contractor's local phone number and called. They said the driver was in front of a certain store. I was standing right where he said... nope. No one holding a sign with my name. He said he would call back. He called back a few minutes later...so, the dispatcher who I guess subcontracted the drive, had told the driver HIS name instead of mine... so, FINALLY, found him. That wasted 30 minutes of time. I was not happy. The driver was fine... we get to the address... and there is a very expensive car blocking our way to the door. (Schumigirl would be very disappointed I can't remember what it was....)
We go up to the door... the instructions said to push the call button at the door so the cleaning woman would let us in... there was NO call button. Meanwhile, our driver took off.... The owner of this house showed up and said, "not again! They really need to fix this address issue because I KEEP getting people looking for the AirBNB!" I continued emailing the owner. I BEGGED him to call me. He would not. He just kept insisting that the cleaning woman was outside. I again asked if the address was really correct... he assured me it was. I told him that a woman had come home and said this keeps happening (no reply to that). Meanwhile, Ginny had found a similar address (it was weird -- we later found out that there was a building name and a street name in the address we had -- but you could not tell which was which.... and Ginny had decided she found it using the "other" name). I was hesitant to walk a long way with our HUGE suitcases -- the sidewalks were uneven and they were heavy even to roll... but, away we went... Got to the next address about 15 grueling minutes later, buzzed the door, and got screamed at because we were once again at the wrong place. Just then, a policeman walked by. We showed him the address and he was really confused. He knew we were in the wrong postal code (great) but couldn't figure out where the place was. He suggested we get an uber to drive us around as he said the postal code would be at least a 15 minute walk away if not longer.
So, we got an uber. The driver was really nice. And... he went to the first place. We were like, "nope!" Meanwhile, the owner had emailed me again (after so many pleas from me to call me) and said the place was near a certain cinema. So, we go there... and saw a building with the name of one of the address lines. The driver said, "no way we could have found this by just the address. But, I am making sure you actually get in and this is the right place!" (I tipped him BIG!)
The cleaning lady came down. We got another email from the owner saying, "no one has ever had a problem finding it before...." Really? Because in the span of a little over an hour, two drivers couldn't find it, a policeman was unsure, and the woman of the address GPS kept sending us to was really miffed this happened AGAIN. The cleaning lady showed me the mail from the place and it had the address on it as we had it. she said the owner (who she kept referring to as "she" so I am not sure if I was emailing a man or a woman - not that I cared, but I wanted to picture who I was mad at) was calling her constantly that morning. Wish he/she would have called me once! The flat was darling though.
Well, they do say get outside and walk to get over jet lag... but, our walk trying to find the place did not seem to help my kid. Davy was DYING with his tooth hurting and lack of sleep. I just could not force him to go on any longer -- so he took some tylenol and slept. Ginny and I headed to the British Museum. We were about a 10 minute walk from two tube stations. We headed to one and ran into the police officer we had seen earlier. He asked what had happened and we told him. He was relieved we found the place and he had seen us again to find out.
The British Museum -- an amazing place! I won't post the million pics I took (I will a couple!).
But, highly recommend going to this if you like museums -- this is the best one ever.
We came back to the flat. Davy was up and feeling a little better. We found a neighborhood pub to dine at and it was delicious! Davy and I shared a dinner salad and fish and chips. Came home... and collapsed.
I will say, we were SO LUCKY about the timing of our visit. There had been a bit of a heat wave the week before and a transit strike. We missed all of that. Being 50ish... well, I'm hot all of the time. I was hot in 70 degree weather with the windows open. i can't imagine if it had been a week or two later when London was on fire (literally!).
Tomorrow -- Davy ventures out. I may have achieved some mischief.
@schumigirl was very helpful in planning this trip! Shoutout to her! One of these days, hoping to be in the same city at the same time so we can meet!
DAY 1:
So, to begin... I first came up with the idea to go to England for my 50th birthday... So, we planned on going for my 50th birthday... in 2021... but, COVID restrictions and all.... could not do it. My son was crushed as he wanted us to do it for my birthday. I told him maybe we could do it BEFORE I turned 51 (which is this Thursday!). He was happy with that. So, we settled on going (mostly to London) Memorial Day weekend 2022 and staying for about 11 days. THEN... I HAPPENED to hear the Queen's jubilee would be that week.. I emailed schumigirl and asked, "should I change dates?" She said, "YES!" We did so quickly that day... changed flights and the airbnb. Found what looked like a lovely flat in Chelsea. Flights were no problem to change. So, now we were going end of June/early July. My son thought it was hilarious that we would be in England over the 4th of July.
Because we would be there then and I'm a HUGE tennis fan, had to add Wimbledon to the trip as well. We cut down the trip to 9 days because my friend asked me to. BIG mistake. Should have stayed there at least 11 days. Probably more like 2 weeks.
So, before the trip began, I tried plugging in the airbnb flat's address into various sites to see how far away things were... it would never work. I emailed the owner and asked if there was some way I was putting the address in incorrectly (he, or maybe she -- long story on that one, but the picture and name seemed to be male) barely communicated back and when he did -- he just said the address is right.
In any event, we were off!
We left Kansas City and headed to Chicago. Had a LONG layover then took off for Heathrow. We mostly watched movies on the plane. I watched "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" -- highly recommend. I forget what Davy watched - he has problems sleeping on planes, so he stayed awake the whole trip and watched A LOT. He finally started Ted Lasso (the first four episodes were on) after I had been telling him over and over he'd love it. He did. He has since binged it all.
During the flight, his tooth started to really bother him. He figured it was his wisdom tooth.
We landed and breezed through customs. I was like, "what is all the fuss about going through customs?" I hadn't gone through in about 20 years so I couldn't remember anything about it previously.
I had hired a driver from Viator (a touring company I have had great results from in the past). We looked for our name.... nothing. I emailed the contractor through Viator. Nothing back. I finally found the contractor's local phone number and called. They said the driver was in front of a certain store. I was standing right where he said... nope. No one holding a sign with my name. He said he would call back. He called back a few minutes later...so, the dispatcher who I guess subcontracted the drive, had told the driver HIS name instead of mine... so, FINALLY, found him. That wasted 30 minutes of time. I was not happy. The driver was fine... we get to the address... and there is a very expensive car blocking our way to the door. (Schumigirl would be very disappointed I can't remember what it was....)
We go up to the door... the instructions said to push the call button at the door so the cleaning woman would let us in... there was NO call button. Meanwhile, our driver took off.... The owner of this house showed up and said, "not again! They really need to fix this address issue because I KEEP getting people looking for the AirBNB!" I continued emailing the owner. I BEGGED him to call me. He would not. He just kept insisting that the cleaning woman was outside. I again asked if the address was really correct... he assured me it was. I told him that a woman had come home and said this keeps happening (no reply to that). Meanwhile, Ginny had found a similar address (it was weird -- we later found out that there was a building name and a street name in the address we had -- but you could not tell which was which.... and Ginny had decided she found it using the "other" name). I was hesitant to walk a long way with our HUGE suitcases -- the sidewalks were uneven and they were heavy even to roll... but, away we went... Got to the next address about 15 grueling minutes later, buzzed the door, and got screamed at because we were once again at the wrong place. Just then, a policeman walked by. We showed him the address and he was really confused. He knew we were in the wrong postal code (great) but couldn't figure out where the place was. He suggested we get an uber to drive us around as he said the postal code would be at least a 15 minute walk away if not longer.
So, we got an uber. The driver was really nice. And... he went to the first place. We were like, "nope!" Meanwhile, the owner had emailed me again (after so many pleas from me to call me) and said the place was near a certain cinema. So, we go there... and saw a building with the name of one of the address lines. The driver said, "no way we could have found this by just the address. But, I am making sure you actually get in and this is the right place!" (I tipped him BIG!)
The cleaning lady came down. We got another email from the owner saying, "no one has ever had a problem finding it before...." Really? Because in the span of a little over an hour, two drivers couldn't find it, a policeman was unsure, and the woman of the address GPS kept sending us to was really miffed this happened AGAIN. The cleaning lady showed me the mail from the place and it had the address on it as we had it. she said the owner (who she kept referring to as "she" so I am not sure if I was emailing a man or a woman - not that I cared, but I wanted to picture who I was mad at) was calling her constantly that morning. Wish he/she would have called me once! The flat was darling though.
Well, they do say get outside and walk to get over jet lag... but, our walk trying to find the place did not seem to help my kid. Davy was DYING with his tooth hurting and lack of sleep. I just could not force him to go on any longer -- so he took some tylenol and slept. Ginny and I headed to the British Museum. We were about a 10 minute walk from two tube stations. We headed to one and ran into the police officer we had seen earlier. He asked what had happened and we told him. He was relieved we found the place and he had seen us again to find out.
The British Museum -- an amazing place! I won't post the million pics I took (I will a couple!).
But, highly recommend going to this if you like museums -- this is the best one ever. We came back to the flat. Davy was up and feeling a little better. We found a neighborhood pub to dine at and it was delicious! Davy and I shared a dinner salad and fish and chips. Came home... and collapsed.
I will say, we were SO LUCKY about the timing of our visit. There had been a bit of a heat wave the week before and a transit strike. We missed all of that. Being 50ish... well, I'm hot all of the time. I was hot in 70 degree weather with the windows open. i can't imagine if it had been a week or two later when London was on fire (literally!).
Tomorrow -- Davy ventures out. I may have achieved some mischief.
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