BONZO
<font color=660066>Has been known to go off topic!
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2001
- Messages
- 2,100
Wednesday 6th August
Preamble
Cast List
Me: No introduction required, I suspect most of you know me by now!
DW: Long suffering DW of the above
Alex: 15 - Coaster and Disney freak
Laura: 13 - Style queen
Well – it was finally D-Day -1. We never thought it would get here!
Just for a change I’d decided to take today off as annual leave, in order to avoid the usual manic rush in the evening. I guess the only problem was that it was so hot and humid I didn’t feel like moving around a great deal (no real change there then!). I’d better get used to it though as this is nothing on what Florida will be like!
Alison had been out faffing around somewhere, ferrying kids from place to place and dispatching the puppy off to the kennels. (Alison here – excuse me, I went into work for the morning!! - :angry: ) I digress, Alison is the chief bag packer and has been since year dot, and fastidious is her middle name. While I was sorting out some last minutes bits and pieces – emptying the fridge (my stomach enjoyed that!), letting the neighbours know we’d be away etc, Alison finished work, picked Alex up from Brownie camp where she was helping out, dropped the dog off at kennels and then came home and finished the last few bits of packing.
This year we’d decided to book into the Worth Hotel for the night before and take advantage of their long term parking option. In previous years we’ve had the M23 closed, bumper to bumper traffic jams on the M25 and so we decided to skip that and just have the 10 minute transfer instead.
www.gatwickworthhotel.co.uk
We left home at about 4pm and driving down during late afternoon on the M25 was quite a pleasant experience for a change, better than the early morning slogs I sometimes have to do to get to business meetings.
Check in at the hotel was quite smooth and well organised and they managed to give us two rooms opposite each other in the same corridor. That’s us in one room and the girls in the other. We’d decided that now that the girls were a lot older (13 & 15), they’d be a bit more responsible now and probably better off not sleeping in the same room with us. (And we can’t bear their moaning at my snoring! :d: )
We booked in on the 7.30 shuttle to the airport – for which we paid £4 per head, which covered the trip back to the hotel on our return.
Impressions of the hotel: - In a few words comfortable but fairly basic but saying that you really do get what you pay for, no more and no less. I could harp on about the tired décor and some of the fittings but that wouldn’t be fair. Sure, we could have stayed at the Sofitel or Hilton on site but that option would cost 3x the money we paid. Our view was to stay simply and save the additional money for holiday spends. We dropped off all our bits and pieces in the rooms and had a wander round the hotel to see what was there (not much) and decided to get out for something to eat.
The hotel restaurant looked average at best but Alexandra had previously checked out some other local restaurant options for us – as she does like her food bless her!
For goodness’ sake girl, we don’t want burger and pizza and chips, we’ll be having tons of junk for two weeks! And so we decided to go to Nando’s as a compromise as I don’t think we’ve seen anything similar in Florida and we all love it there. Still very muggy outside so the air con as we were seated was a welcome feeling. After a short while we’d all been turned into virtual ice blocks!
The food, service and ambience were as good always although they seemed to have a problem with the sheer volume of punters. Suitably fed and watered we drove back to the hotel. We just flopped and watched TV/read etc and left the girls to do the same in their room.
So far so good until Alexandra started banging frantically on our door. Confused, Alison went to see what the matter was. She, Alex, explained that they’d been playing a game whereby Laura was zipped up in a large clear plastic holdall (the ones where they usually keep spare pillows and linen). Alex had come out of their room to get us so that we could see how funny Laura looked scrunched up and zipped up but the door had shut and locked behind her! – YIKES!
We could vaguely hear Laura shouting from inside the bag and getting a little frantic, saying she couldn’t breathe. Alison was trying to shout under the door for Laura not to panic – that we were getting help.
As the only one who was half-decent (the others were in dressing gowns) I scurried down to the reception and quickly managed to get a spare room key. By the time I got back, Laura had managed to release one arm from the bag so was getting some air in but she was a bit shaken by the whole experience.
Not quite the actions we expected of 2 high achieving grammar school girls! :nonono:
Alexandra was a bit sheepish about the whole thing and I just said nothing. She knew that she’d done wrong and there was little mileage in me adding my two penn’orth. Alison however did speak to the girls once they’d calmed down. I think the rest of the hotel heard Alison’s quiet word too!
So excitement for the evening over, we all retired to bed.
Tomorrow is the big day!
(I think by this time we realised we'd left (or rather Alison had left) the camera charger at home and decided to hold fire on taking too many pictures too early on. To be honest, there wasn't much we want to take pictures of at this stage. There are plenty of pics to come for the rest of the reports though).
Preamble
Cast List
Me: No introduction required, I suspect most of you know me by now!
DW: Long suffering DW of the above
Alex: 15 - Coaster and Disney freak
Laura: 13 - Style queen
Well – it was finally D-Day -1. We never thought it would get here!
Just for a change I’d decided to take today off as annual leave, in order to avoid the usual manic rush in the evening. I guess the only problem was that it was so hot and humid I didn’t feel like moving around a great deal (no real change there then!). I’d better get used to it though as this is nothing on what Florida will be like!
Alison had been out faffing around somewhere, ferrying kids from place to place and dispatching the puppy off to the kennels. (Alison here – excuse me, I went into work for the morning!! - :angry: ) I digress, Alison is the chief bag packer and has been since year dot, and fastidious is her middle name. While I was sorting out some last minutes bits and pieces – emptying the fridge (my stomach enjoyed that!), letting the neighbours know we’d be away etc, Alison finished work, picked Alex up from Brownie camp where she was helping out, dropped the dog off at kennels and then came home and finished the last few bits of packing.
This year we’d decided to book into the Worth Hotel for the night before and take advantage of their long term parking option. In previous years we’ve had the M23 closed, bumper to bumper traffic jams on the M25 and so we decided to skip that and just have the 10 minute transfer instead.
www.gatwickworthhotel.co.uk
We left home at about 4pm and driving down during late afternoon on the M25 was quite a pleasant experience for a change, better than the early morning slogs I sometimes have to do to get to business meetings.
Check in at the hotel was quite smooth and well organised and they managed to give us two rooms opposite each other in the same corridor. That’s us in one room and the girls in the other. We’d decided that now that the girls were a lot older (13 & 15), they’d be a bit more responsible now and probably better off not sleeping in the same room with us. (And we can’t bear their moaning at my snoring! :d: )
We booked in on the 7.30 shuttle to the airport – for which we paid £4 per head, which covered the trip back to the hotel on our return.
Impressions of the hotel: - In a few words comfortable but fairly basic but saying that you really do get what you pay for, no more and no less. I could harp on about the tired décor and some of the fittings but that wouldn’t be fair. Sure, we could have stayed at the Sofitel or Hilton on site but that option would cost 3x the money we paid. Our view was to stay simply and save the additional money for holiday spends. We dropped off all our bits and pieces in the rooms and had a wander round the hotel to see what was there (not much) and decided to get out for something to eat.
The hotel restaurant looked average at best but Alexandra had previously checked out some other local restaurant options for us – as she does like her food bless her!
For goodness’ sake girl, we don’t want burger and pizza and chips, we’ll be having tons of junk for two weeks! And so we decided to go to Nando’s as a compromise as I don’t think we’ve seen anything similar in Florida and we all love it there. Still very muggy outside so the air con as we were seated was a welcome feeling. After a short while we’d all been turned into virtual ice blocks!
The food, service and ambience were as good always although they seemed to have a problem with the sheer volume of punters. Suitably fed and watered we drove back to the hotel. We just flopped and watched TV/read etc and left the girls to do the same in their room.
So far so good until Alexandra started banging frantically on our door. Confused, Alison went to see what the matter was. She, Alex, explained that they’d been playing a game whereby Laura was zipped up in a large clear plastic holdall (the ones where they usually keep spare pillows and linen). Alex had come out of their room to get us so that we could see how funny Laura looked scrunched up and zipped up but the door had shut and locked behind her! – YIKES!
We could vaguely hear Laura shouting from inside the bag and getting a little frantic, saying she couldn’t breathe. Alison was trying to shout under the door for Laura not to panic – that we were getting help.
As the only one who was half-decent (the others were in dressing gowns) I scurried down to the reception and quickly managed to get a spare room key. By the time I got back, Laura had managed to release one arm from the bag so was getting some air in but she was a bit shaken by the whole experience.
Not quite the actions we expected of 2 high achieving grammar school girls! :nonono:
Alexandra was a bit sheepish about the whole thing and I just said nothing. She knew that she’d done wrong and there was little mileage in me adding my two penn’orth. Alison however did speak to the girls once they’d calmed down. I think the rest of the hotel heard Alison’s quiet word too!
So excitement for the evening over, we all retired to bed.
Tomorrow is the big day!
(I think by this time we realised we'd left (or rather Alison had left) the camera charger at home and decided to hold fire on taking too many pictures too early on. To be honest, there wasn't much we want to take pictures of at this stage. There are plenty of pics to come for the rest of the reports though).
Oh dear, I know I shouldn't laugh, but blooming teenagers, what are they like ? - they put years on us 
Could you have been more wrong? (Said in my best Chandler voice.) Well I hope you've both learned a valuable lesson!
