London
Sep. 6th
We arrived on time around 11am into London Gatwick Airport. The deplaning was pretty normal, I don’t think anything fully stood out, most of the passengers were probably a bit groggy anyways.
What DID stand out was passport control, it was freakishly long ...
THIS is the line. Signs say Non EU Passports
At the time the above image was taken, we had already been in line for a little bit. We were one of the first to get off the plane because of premium class and yet it STILL was backed up into a hall, then that hall turned to the left and there was a HUGE single file line, which, towards the end, passed this window that looked down into the passport control area. Many people tried to go down the EU Only passport ramp but were promptly turned away.
The kicker with this? We could have avoided this with
Premium Gatwick Passport Control which is only £7 per person. It has an exclusive lane that you can just pass through and limited to 50 passengers per hour. This can be purchased no matter what airline or class ticket you have.
Well, we didn’t get this option because Gatwick is usually pretty mellow BUT today was excessive, there were agents that just couldn’t believe how packed it got. So, while we didn’t get the express service, a few other families that were going on the same cruise did.
The line ended up taking about an hour but it really didn’t feel that long because we were moving at a decent pace (it was that freaking long!). We didn’t have a problem getting through once we saw the agent, I don’t think we even had to show our confirmations for the hotel/cruise but we had them ready just in case.
After going through Passport Control, the baggage area was right there. We just went up to our carousel and saw that it wasn’t moving BUT many bags were pulled off and already put in a line next it. We found ours pretty easily and picked them up, nothing was missing. Then, onwards to Customs!
This one was slightly eventful because we still had snacks in our backpack that we packed for the full day of travel on the planes, one of these snacks being meat sticks. Meat products are not allowed into the country, HOWEVER, we did go through declarations for it and told them that is was fully sealed but are willing to surrender if need be. They allowed us to go through with the snacks (which really was helpful later) and said that this was an exception and not to do it again.
We truly forgot it was there and just remembered when we were racking our brains to figure out if we had to declare anything. There was no intention of disregarding rules.
When traveling, please review customs information (this is a good reference for the UK:
VisitLondon.com). I knew this rule, I think my brain just didn’t function for a bit.
Anywho, after that, we were on to the train! We had booked tickets on Thameslink prior to leaving the US, so we just had to pick up our tickets. Well … easier said then done …
The train station is connected to the airport, so we just had to go down a hall or two and voila, chaos! Of course this makes sense because of the massive lines to get through passport control (customs was crazy fast). We were a bit overwhelmed and confused. I was still on my night meds, which make me groggy. We were theoretically suppose to just go up to a kiosk and get the ticket out but the instructions were not too clear, so we waited in line to talk to a teller. We showed them our receipt and they just printed up the tickets.
It didn’t take us long to find our train
Though, it was pretty entertaining trying to get through the turnstile with our luggage. Thankfully we went through the wheelchair accessible one, but it was still amusing since we didn’t have our full wits about us.
I should say that I didn’t have my full wits and I’m used to this chaos since I’ve flown into London 2 times before (into Heathrow though), but Richard was just looking around and soaking everything in. It doesn’t help he has ADD so his head was pretty much doing 360º turns lol
The train was already right there, so we just hopped on and ended up stacking our luggage and taking the WHOLE area behind the seats dedicated for luggage.
In our defense …the area wasn’t that big …
Our ticket says it was a printed at 1:26pm, so between obtaining the ticket and the train taking off, it was probably about 10-15 minutes.
Rich would like to make it known that the litter in this photo is NOT from him
The train. You can see a piece of our luggage to the right. It’s that blue thing.
The barrier is actually clear and the blue is the suitcase
We wanted a snack, so we dug one out of our backpack!
These are so good …
Getting closer to London
London Bridge
We got off in St. Pancras/Kings Cross. It was quite amusing getting out of the ticket gates this time because they tried to eat Rich lol. One rolling suitcase was in front of him and one he was pulling behind him and he had on a backpack. The gate closed on the backpack and the back luggage pieces while the front suitcase was already through! It was pretty dang funny. Luckily there was an irate lady that had amassed quite a few station personnel and one of them saw the pickle Rich got in so they made the gate open again for him to get through. She also found it amusing, by the look on her face, and so did I. Goodness, I wish I was able to take a photo! Alas, I was hauling luggage as well and could not get to it.
We went right across the street from the station to our Bed & Breakfast; The Alhambra Hotel. Funny side note, I’ve actually been to the real Alhambra.
I have stayed in this area of London prior, it’s a great hub for what we were planning on doing. The rates here are also pretty low. The rooms are QUITE small but we truly do not mind. Even though Rich is tall, he likes to bunch up when sleeping.
The pictures of the outside of Alhambra are not mine, but sourced from tripadvisor
Looking down the street. The clock tower is St. Pancras Station
There are a lot of hotels/hostels/B&Bs on this street (Argyle Street)
Pretty unassuming entrance. Inside was nice and staff was amazing.
We were assigned room 17 in building 22, which was across the street from the building the lobby is in. We were in the bottom basement area and it was pretty quiet. Being that these buildings are old, and possibly historical, houses, there are no lifts in them. The staircases were very narrow and we had a few doors to go through … it was just quite amusing with all of our luggage.
The narrow stairway down to our room
One of the drawbacks about the budget hotels are that is that they don’t have A/C (old buildings, not retrofitted) BUT we found a fan in the little closet and we plugged that in right away while we unpacked. We did have an ensuite (toilet, shower & sink in the room, no sharing), which was our biggest requirement other then price. Granted, it was pretty dang tiny. I’m used to the tiny because I have traveled, literally, around the world but it was a bit of a shock to Rich.
The small bathroom allowed me to shave my legs pretty easily while we kind of puttered around. We were getting ready to go back out and explore London! Well, a small part of it.
Our primary method of getting around the city was using the underground/tube, which we ordered our Oyster Travel card prior to arriving. This is a rechargeable card for getting around the city and is a reduced price for those coming in from out of the country.
Specifically, the food halls of Harrods. I remember going on my last trip and it was just amazing. The layout has definitely changed and I’m not a huge fan of it BUT it works, I suppose …
We wandered through the different halls that were split into sections. They weren’t halls that you traverse through to get from one room or another but they were rooms themselves.
These rooms were themed to what they held, like Pastries/Sweets, Meat Hall, Deli Hall, etc.
Rich’s only goal was to get tea that has the Harrods’ logo on it. I shared the same goal but also wanted some food to eat since we haven’t eaten since the plane … or those cookies on the train, which I don’t count as filling.
Some mini cakes in the pastry display
More mini cakes
I found a unicorn cake!
We found the tea area and took quite a bit looking for our ‘perfect tea’. We almost went with “Blend 49”, which was a type of black tea, BUT then we found kind of a souvenir tea pack of 4 tins that were themed to each season (Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring).
Spring: Herbal Infusion of green tea, ginger root, cardamom pods, lemon myrtle, lemon verbena and marigold flowers.
Summer: Fruit and Herbal Infusion of apple, hibiscus, reship, beetroot, sweet blackberry leaves, strawberry pieces, blackberries, raspberries, and safflower petals.
Autumn: Fruit and Herbal Infusion of rooibos, cocoa husk, ginger root, apple place, cinnamon pieces, macadamia, brittle, roasted almond, hazelnut, sunflower petals and safflower petals.
Winter: Fruit and Herbal Infusion of rooibos, hibiscus, cardamom pods, raisins, orange peel, cinnamon pieces, apple, clove buds, cardamom seeds, ginger and cornflower petals
Each tin is also colored and artistry themed to each season. There will be a photo later in the report of this
I also wanted to get preserves but we couldn’t agree on which one to get, so we ended up getting British Cotswold Honey. We love honey. The take-away sandwich we got was chopped chicken with avocado on sourdough bread. We also ended up getting a little Patisserie set to go:
Miniature versions of (starting bottom left): Millefeuille, Victoria Sponge, Tropical Choux, Harrods Chocolate Bar and a Lemon Meringue Tart.
We ended up sitting on a bench just outside of the building so Rich could eat half of the sandwich. It was a pretty long one and was quite filling. Poor guy, he had been so distracted with the experiences that he didn’t realize he was so hungry. I wasn’t really hungry at the time so he saved the rest of the sandwich for me and we headed across the street to take more photos.
JANE HAT ALERT
After the little photoshoot, we ended up going to a place where, you really couldn’t blame us for going ..
We had to!
Soldier Donald is a little blurry
I was on the hunt for THIS tote bag …
I saw it on a facebook group about 3 months prior to this trip and I knew I HAD to get it!
There were quite a few items on sale at this store and we ended up getting a Mickey Hand Holder that you put on the stove to set the utensil you’re using for cooking something and the tote bag. We also found out that the coin currency I had (from previous trips) was no longer current tender! They would not accept it, so we had to break a larger bill. They told us we can exchange the old tender for new tender at a bank though, so we weren’t too concerned.
We got back on the tube and got off at Euston Station, which is a few blocks from St. Pancras/Kings Cross because I thought I saw a small grocery on the street when looking it up on google maps.
I was wrong. Terribly wrong.
After the busy day with not much sleep, we were quite tired and my feet hurt (fashion over function today) but we needed to get more food to have for the evening. We ended up going to a store in St. Pancras and got some dessert (forgot we had some, even though we were still carrying the bag) and a few chicken wraps (Piri Piri for Rich and Fajita for me).
Once in the room, we kind of collapsed on the bed, ate food while watching T.V., set the alarm for 8am and fell asleep around 9:30pm.
Up to this point, we had gone 33 hours without sleeping in a bed!
Day Three in the next update!
Pricing
The USD prices next to the British Pound prices are what we ended up paying after conversion rates.
• Pre-Ordered Foreign Currency (British Pound, Euro & Canadian Dollar): $676.31
Canadian Dollar ($60 CAD) - $48.85
Euro (€50) - $60.50
Great British Pound (£420) - $566.96
•
Thameslink Tickets for 2: £21.40 ($28.50)
•
Alhambra Hotel (booked through Hotels.com), Standard Double Ensuite room for 3 nights:
$618.32
•
Travel Oyster Card for 2 w/£20 credit each & shipping: £54.49 ($74.09)
• Harrods: £53
Season Tea Set - £20
Chicken Sandwich - £6
Cotswold Honey - £9
Mini Patisserie Set - £18
•
Disney Store: £8.59
Mickey Spoon Rest - £5.59
Tote Bag - £3
Didn’t get the grocery stop but I estimate it was about £12
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