Signature, Slots, Shows and Starbucks - Day 0 Pre Travel Day

[BONZO]

Monday 22nd September

Link to Pre Trip Report:

Here

The Cast:

Me (Shaun): Grumpy so and so, on the wrong side of 50
Her (Alison): Patient Planner, on the right side of 50

For those who aren't familiar with our trip report writing style, I write them and Alison chips in now and again - although she does pre-read them in case I say anything inappropriate! (Alison: and he usually does! )

I was working all day but Alison had the day off so I graciously let her get on with all the packing By the time I arrived home pretty much all of the packing had been done, documents gathered up and all the final preparations completed.

We had dinner with Alexandra, who has moved back home after graduating from university this summer and is now doing a PGCE so that she can be a teacher (is she mad? ). We gave her final instructions (no parties!) and left home at about 8pm and drove to the in-laws to drop Rusty off for his holidays, safe in the knowledge that he’d be happier there than going to kennels, get plenty of walks and generally be spoilt rotten. As we drove over we kept thinking of things that we'd forgotten, nothing significant but annoying all the same. We didn’t hang about with Alison's parents and Rusty showed no sign of distress or anxiety about leaving us, in fact he appeared to be very happy with the situation!

We left Bromley and headed for the M25, still thinking about the various bits and pieces that we’d forgotten and what we should do about it. In the end we decided to double back to Bluewater and get Alexandra to drive to meet us there with the odd items that we needed. This included my extra strength Lysine as I’d recently felt a cold sore coming on and my nose in particular was becoming very tingly, not a pleasant sight.

We met up with Alexandra and she handed over the items. As compensation we bought some Krispy Kreme donuts as a small token of our thanks.

Finally on our way!

We got to Cophall parking near Copthorne. We’ve used them in the past and they were very efficient as always. We were the only ones on the minibus so he took us straight to the Premier Inn that we'd booked. Very quick check in and up to room on the 10th floor! It was nice to see that the check-in area had been revamped and appeared to be working efficiently. Well, so much for that last comment as the room keys didn’t work! I sent Alison down to get things sorted out and she quickly returned with keys that did actually work. (Alison here: Don;t worry about me - you just wait there! )

The room was clean and comfortable and a bargain at £29 having booked in advance.
The mandatory room photos:








And the view (or not) out of the window!




The bags were dropped off and headed over to the terminal to get a coffee and wander round (it was about 10.30 by now). After travelling up the travelator we saw a lift door open and ran and jumped in, pressed the button for shops and nothing! Couldn’t quite figure it out until we realised we were actually already at the shop level so we just ambled out of the lift as if we’d just used it to travel one floor – ho hum!

There were hardly any shops open this time of night so just grabbed a Costa coffee and headed back to the room. (Alison: Costa? Costa? Don't the people at Gatwick know about our trip report title! Can't believe there's no Starbucks landside at the North Terminal! :angry

Alison fiddled about with the bags, trying to re-balance the weight across the two and had a quick sort out of hand luggage for the morning. We finally turned lights out by about midnight and settled down to try to sleep - so excited for the next day and our first ever flight in business class!

[KarenG]

Yay! Great start!

[Helen0705]

Great start - Alison I'm with you on Starbucks - it's just got to be done !
Looking forward to reading more .

[florida girl]

Great start,you cant beat a PI for value.

[mossyflossy]

Great start but boo to the starbucks deprivation at North terminal

[disney owl]

good start

[abiknox]

Good start! I love reading pre travel & travel days!

[orlandosgr8]

Sounds like a good start to the holiday

[hross42877]

Great start!