Ink and Incapability

Friday 14th - Sunday 16th September: The adventure begins!

FINALLY(!) the day had arrived. Well, the day before the day had arrived. Either way it felt great and the adventure was underway at last…

Our holiday officially started at 3pm on Friday 14th September as we had both managed to secure an early finish from work and joyfully waved goodbye to the place until 4th October. We took the opportunity to celebrate by treating ourselves to a lovely carvery dinner - inclusive of a yummy ice cream sundae which had all the gooey chocolaty properties that I look for in a dessert! As I remember it I spent the rest of the evening being excited and nervous in turn, before progressing to full blown Fi Worrywart mode for bedtime. A sporadic nights sleep ensued which was unfortunate as we had to be up early to take the orange dude to the vet for his booster and annual prod and poke. Then again, I had no problem being up in time as I had in fact been awake since 6am - that wide eyed type of awake that you get when you are consumed with irrational thoughts such as “What if immigration don’t let me in??!”.

Spike (one of our moggies) soon took my mind away from its paranoid ramblings as he utterly loathes going to the vets. The problem is not so much the vets itself, but more so the journey to the vets. He hates being in his carry box, detests being in the car, and likes to make his feelings known by shouting for the duration of the journey. However we made it there and back again without serious incident and Mark even managed to get his haircut in between. The moggie maintenance was completed on our return home as we pinned Weasel (the other one) down and clipped her claws and applied the plastic cone in the hope that this would stop her digging holes in her own head - an ongoing problem as she has some quite serious personal issues!

With the moggies sorted out we were left with finalising the packing and checking the travel documents at least four hundred times… it is a miracle that the ink was not rubbed off of the tickets and I think my unnecessary worrying actually peaked when I started to ask the disboards (I will admit to having internet message board "friends"!) packing questions - as if the decision whether to take a cardigan or not merit’s a serious discussion! Clearly the only course of action was to go to bed - so we did.

The wide eyed awake look was back with a vengeance on the morning of 16th September, and was only assuaged slightly at 10.45am by a successful foray into the world of Virgin Atlantics Online Check-In facility. This was surprisingly easy and was thankfully eliminated from my worry list!

M's dad came to pick us up at 2pm and we were on the road by 2.45pm, having briefed him in where to put the re-cycling and how to keep the moggins alive for two weeks. We arrived at Gatwick South Terminal after a short and uneventful journey and headed directly for the Virgin Atlantic Twilight Check-in desk. I have to say that this is a brilliant service - if only for the smug feeling you get as you waltz past the hordes of people waiting to check hours before their flight and realise that a) there is no queue at the Virgin check in desk, and b) after handing your bags over, all you have to do is find some dinner, drink some lager, and fall into bed… that is if you have booked the Gatwick Hilton, which we had! So no queues for us and no problems, with the luggage weighing in comfortably under the 23kg allowance and the boarding cards showing the desired seat numbers 63A & 63C.

Everything was going so well that we opted for a beer stop at the “Village Inn” before heading back through the terminal to the Hilton. We encountered an objectionable man at the Hilton check in desk - the type of self important tosser who feels that he shouldn’t have to wait regardless of the fact other people are already being served. He struggled with directions such as “Wait Here to be Served” and required a map directing him to his room. Cretin.

Armed with our room number (2246) and completely map-free we somehow managed to locate our allocated digs for the night… it involved a lift and some corridors - real tricky stuff!

Having done the obligatory bed jumping and rummaging through the free toiletries we headed back again to the terminal for dinner. We’d had a tip off from my mum that the prices in the Hilton were a bit OTT and frankly why choose overpriced nosh when you could be at Frankie & Benny’s stuffing yourself with their fine Italian American fare?? We shared some potato skins and a napolena garlic flatbread for starters and then Mark had the New York Chicken, and I opted for the Chicken Parmigana.Too stuffed to have dessert at the restaurant but unwilling to forego a treat, we stopped off at Krispy Kremes for some takeaway goo and dragged ourselves back to the hotel.

I had a lovely hot bath - much appreciated as we don’t have a tub at home, only a shower - and then ticked another thing off of the worry list by filling in the Visa Waiver forms that we’d picked up at the Twilight Check-in desk. Somehow we also managed to fit in a game of Yatzee (M won), watched an episode of Medium, and some other activities that I won’t go into! Had no trouble getting to sleep after all of that - alarm set for 7.30am with the intention of heading to passport control at 8am… went to sleep with everything crossed for no delays and keeping our chosen seats!

Monday 17th September: Leeeeeaving on a jet plane!!

It was 7am and I had been awake for at least an hour, maybe more. Having admitted to myself that I was not going back to sleep I snuck into the bathroom to start writing my journal - I’d had some unfortunate dreams as an aeroplane had crashed in Phuket on 16th September and obviously it was splashed all over the evening news. Not great considering what we were about to do! Still I was thinking positive thoughts and did not have long to wait for the 7.30am alarm and the official start of “Flight Day”!!

We checked out at 8.30am and headed for passport control. When I saw the queue I was VERY happy that we had used the Twilight Check-In and stayed overnight at the airport - all those people that didn’t must have been up at stupid-O’clock to be on time to check in and join the big assed passport queue. Somehow there are also people in the world that don’t know that airport security is a bit tighter than it used to be, and can’t grasp simple ideas like not bringing all their toiletries in their hand luggage. Thankfully we were not in this group - the only problem we had was M leaving his mobile phone in his pocket and setting off the alarm… mildly embarrassing for him!

Even more queuing ensued after passport control - this time for brekky. We opted for Upper Crust as all the table service places were rammed. I was very good and had a fruit salad and water - M was not quite so good with a pastry, blueberry muffin and an Oasis drink. We managed to find a seat to eat our brekky, got some snacks from the WH Smith and by then it was 10am and time to get to Gate 17. On arrival we discovered that our plane would be Ruby Tuesday and we only had 15 minutes to wait before we started to board - wealthier people first (1st class & Premium Economy) and then economy passengers. We were on fairly quickly as they filled up from the rear and thankfully we had managed to keep the seats that we chose way back on 2nd January!

My wish was granted and we did not experience any delays - setting off basically on time at 11am UK time. The first order of the day was drinks and snacks in the way of diet coke and some sour cream and chive flavoured pretzels. Shrek the 3rd started almost immediately on the seatback entertainment screens and we both opted to watch it. A bad decision as it’s pretty poor. Lunch was served during the film - choices were meatball marinara, chicken tikka, or vegetarian cottage pie. I don’t know who’s idea it was to serve curry on a plane but it was a bad one! M and I both had the meatballs - it came with a pasta and mozzarella salad, small brown and white roll, crackers and cheese, and a mini GU chocolate pot. Drinks were a small bottle of water and tea/coffee for afters. You could have had wine but it was a bit early for me. I thought the food was fine - I liked everything, especially the chocolate pot! Mark professes to be a bit of a plane food connoisseur and he gave it two stars which isn’t bad as our Frankie and Benny’s dinner achieved three stars… I’m assuming he scores out of five although I have never actually asked.

Following the food I read a magazine, did some puzzles, listened to my music and watched the information thing on the seatback TV. This became a bit compulsive until I realised that we had been flying for about five hours and were STILL over the Atlantic… then it just got boring. For posterities sake however I can reveal that our flying stats were:Flying time - 8 ½ HoursETA - 14.22Altitude - 35,000ft - 38,000ftSpeed - 605 MPH / 498 MPHWe got higher and went slower due to turbulence bad enough to have the seatbelt sign switched on. Obviously at this point I realised that I need the loo… On the up side, the stewardesses came round with the ice-cream. We both watched another film to pass some more time - I watched Reign Over Me which was very good and made me cry, and M went for Oceans 13 which he seemed to like. We also had a snack later in the flight in the form of sandwhich and cookie.

We finally landed (on time) at 2.30pm and joined the scrum for immigration. I really had not been looking forward to this moment… It took at least an hour and was a bit nerve wracking. Still, my online investigation stood me in good stead - my form was filled in correctly and I managed the fingerprint/eye scan thing without too much fumbling… even with a shaky finger and sweaty paws! The official asked my reason for travel, who I was travelling with, when I was last in the USA and when I was returning home. It is not a particularly pleasant process but we were both through and our bags were waiting for us on the other side. We did a quick tour of Orlando International Airport before locating the Mears transport desk and our shuttle - number 35, driven by Marcella. Only a short journey later and we were checking into room number 912 and the Sheraton Studio City… a surreal experience having been planning it for so long!

The room was as expected with two double beds, TV, and a plethora of towels - and we had a view of Wet n Wild. Unpacked and settled in, we headed out for a bit of a nosey around. First impressions - the roads are big in America! We spotted Sweet Tomatoes which was my number one pick for dinner and then decided to have a dip in the hotel pool before eating. We had something very important to do first though - walk to Wet n Wild which was just over the road from the hotel and collect our four park flex tickets. This successfully

achieved (another thing ticked off the worry list!) and we quickly got our swimming togs on. The hotel pool was quite dinky but deep and a good temperature although it was very blustery around the pool area. We were both hungry after our swim so changed and mooched back up the road to Sweet Tomatoes.

This is a fabulous little eatery where you pay about $10 each for what is essentially a buffet with salad bar, soups, baked potatos, different kinds of breads, desserts etc. Dinner was YUM - we basically ate

everything and particularly enjoyed the cheesy bread and soups. Couldn’t resist the chocolate brownies and make your own sundae for dessert either!

I was still only about 9pm at this point and it seemed rude not to have a round of crazy golf as Congo River Golf was located right next to the hotel.

The course was great but sadly I lost to M 60/57 - booo!!

It is also rude not to have a drink in your hotel bar on your first night - however we only managed a lager apiece before remembering that we had been up for at least 22 hours and tiredness finally kicked in. We went to bed supremely happy at the thought of SeaWorld in the morning…