Me And My Boy Take 2 - Day 0 Pre-Travel Day

[meandmyboy]

Monday 10th November - Day 0 Pre-Travel Day

Managed to get a decent enough nights sleep. Jake came into my bed when he woke up and we talked about how it was finally Time for Disney! and then he said he didn't want to leave our house! But he did enjoy crossing off the last day on our Countdown to Disney chart that I’d made him.

I spent morning doing final packing, washing up, emptying bins etc. then we had an early lunch and Jacob went for a nap. Whilst he slept I did online check in. I had to redo our API but still got the seats I'd reserved in the bubble.

Last minute house preparations (putting up voiles in the front window and setting timers on lamp and TV in a feeble attempt to make it look like the house wasn’t unoccupied) and even time for a final cup of tea whilst Jacob napped. Jacob woke up just after 2pm and then very shortly after that my Dad arrived to drive us to Gatwick. Bags were all packed and ready to go, so just had to get Jake into his shoes and the car seat fitted into Dad’s car and we were off.

The journey to Gatwick was good, apart from Jake asking 'Are we there yet all the time'. He has never asked this before and I began to worry about how tomorrow’s flight was going to go. I gave him my phone to play on and that helped a bit. Stopped at Fleet services for a toilet break. I was really pleased at successfully getting Jake to wee even though I had to bribe him with smarties! Back in the car and literally we’d just got back onto the motorway when he pipes up from the back 'Are we there yet?'!

Get to Gatwick and Dad watched Jacob as I manhandled his car seat into the travel bag and loaded up the trolley. The check in queue was fairly long as usual. Jacob celebrated his release from the car by running around and getting me stressed. In the end I sat him on top of the bags on the trolley to keep him captive - but he enjoyed this. I’d finally reached the front of the queue and was about to go to the next available desk when some woman came out of nowhere and walked right up to the desk and stole my spot!

Checked in our one and only suitcase and then dropped the car seat off at oversized luggage. We set off to find the monorail to the north terminal and the Premier Inn, popping into Boots for water. Jacob insisted on riding on the trolley until I had to ditch it before the monorail. Once we got off the monorail I couldn't work out which way I needed to go to get to the Premier Inn, but fortunately a nice airport man saw me wandering aimlessly looking at signs and showed us to the right lifts.

I had done online check in for the hotel so just used automated machine with some help from a member of staff. She asked Jacob if he liked Frozen as Olaf was in the restaurant tonight! Jacob was quite excited by this and so we went to meet him before we went up to our room. To my surprise Jacob was quite shy and nervous about meeting him and made me hold his hand as he went up. Little did I realise this was a sign of things to come!

After a warm hug and a photo with Olaf we made our way up to our room to ditch the bag, and then headed straight back down to the restaurant as I had booked the dining meal deal at online check in earlier today. The lady seating people said we should have booked a table as they nothing available for nearly an hour. What? Nowhere had the website advised we do this, otherwise I would have. I’ve never had a problem getting a table for dinner at any of the restaurants attached to Premier Inn’s I’ve stayed at before so I was a bit miffed by this. Anyway, there was no way Jacob was going to wait around for an hour and I wasn’t going to go somewhere else to eat as I’d already paid for this meal, so I complained and we got seated immediately. Where we were seated there were lots of free tables, that stayed that way throughout our meal, so I’m not sure what the big deal was!

For dinner we shared crispy chicken wings and bacon pizza (yes, bacon pizza - that’s what you get when you let a 3 year old choose what to have on your pizza). Jacob behaved really nicely until near the end of the meal when he started fidgeting a bit. He got given a helium balloon on leaving which caused much excitement.

We headed back up to our room and got ready for bed. Settled Jacob into bed by 8.30pm. but he decided he was not going to go to sleep though! I ignored him and pretended I was asleep until he finally fell asleep at about 9.15pm. I read a bit and then decided to try and get to sleep for real as I knew I’d be needing as much energy as possible for tomorrow.

[WileyCoyote]

Great start there, how annoying about the restaurant sAying you needed to wait but good they sorted you out in the end and a bonus character meet too !

[meandmyboy]

Originally Posted by WileyCoyote

Great start there, how annoying about the restaurant sAying you needed to wait but good they sorted you out in the end and a bonus character meet too !

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Thanks for reading! Yes it was really annoying - would have booked a table if I'd known it was necessary - couldn't understand it really as there were so many empty tables too! We were really pleased to get to meet Olaf too (although he does look like he's been hitting the bar!).

[meandmyboy]

Originally Posted by Rollercolster

Great travel day - looking forward to reading more

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Thanks for reading!

[rens]

great pre-travel day! Love your countdown chart and the picture of Jacob with Olaf

[meandmyboy]

Originally Posted by rens

great pre-travel day! Love your countdown chart and the picture of Jacob with Olaf

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Thanks for reading! Yes it was a nice little bonus character meet getting to see Olaf!

[sarahewoods]

Great start, good on you for complaining xx

[meandmyboy]

Originally Posted by sarahewoods

Great start, good on you for complaining xx

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Thanks for reading!

[Guest]

My son wouldn't have waited either, I would have done exactly the same so good on you. The pic with Olaf made me smile

[meandmyboy]

Originally Posted by PrincessSteffy

My son wouldn't have waited either, I would have done exactly the same so good on you. The pic with Olaf made me smile

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Thanks for reading! Yes, kids just can't do waiting well can they?!