Bldy&McGoo What Are We Thankful For Trip 2016 - Day -0

[BLDY&McGoo]

Day -0 - Friday 18th November - Pre Travel Day

So today I woke up at 7am (the curse of normally having a 5am alarm) and immediately felt excited/nervous as today was airport day!
I laid in bed for a while playing Bejewelled, Dibbing & having a look on Facebook.
I couldn’t resist posting an excited post to Dad & Kim too!
At around half 8 Scott stirred but neither of us actually got up until about 9am & sorted a few bits out that we hadn’t finished the day before.

My mum was coming to house sit so we had spent a few hours on the Thursday doing housework so that it was all nice for her. We had washed and changed the bedding, hoovered, tidied, cleaned all over and even went as far as replacing the battery in the fire alarm and cleaning the oven. She was being spoilt  

Scott had a hair cut and beard trim booked for 10am so he toodled off whilst I sat on the bed eating a chocolate muffin, as you do!
I then had to go into the loft as the tv aerial in our bedroom had broken but id remembered seeing one up their the other day so thought id give it a go. Luckily it worked and after searching for all the channels again the TV was ready for mum to enjoy.

After a quick diversion to put our friends bin out for them (Jamie who has been friends with Scott since school, his Fiance and little girl moved over the road from us back in the summer #VeryUseful), I then walked 10 mins down the road to have my nails done by a lady Id found on my local FB page.

At the beginning of the year id set myself 3 missions to complete. 
1. Learn to drive - I started in Jan and its been a slow process but my test is booked for December 13th so fingers crossed! 
2. Project 366 - a FB photo challenge where you post a photo everyday. So far I’m spot on! 
3. Grow my nails - I am very happy with myself that I have also achieved this! 

The last time I had my nails done was in 2013 when we got married, I had acrylics. In May 2014 I got a new job and because It meant I was working with food meant goodbye to nice pretty nails, Sad times!

Having now got some length on my nails and not having to go to work until the 6th of December it was time to treat myself for a couple of weeks. So I went for a gel manicure, natural colour with silver sparkles & then went full sparkle on my toes to match. 

It was all done by half 11 & Scott picked me up so I didn't have to walk back. I was very pleased to show him my sparkly hands & tootsies, he being male didn't seem too bothered! Typical! 


I sent a photo to Kim though and she sent me one of hers back later on so at least someone appreciated them!

We parked our car away in Jamie's garage, so that our parking space was available for my mum to park her car, and went back indoors to finish up the housework.  Scott finished the oven whilst I popped the last few bits away in our cases & had a little cuddle with Gingey who had got scared of the hoover so had hidden under the bed covers.

The bags were ready!

We were taking our hand luggage which was the pretty normal fare of cabin case for me and a rucksack for Scott, then 2 holdalls which each had another inside for the return.

We are flying with Norwegian so have 1x 20kg each there and 2x 20kg Each on the way home plus 10kg hand luggage each. Thats a whopping 100kg coming back! Wowza!

So now its 12:30pm and we have nothing to do =[
I had wanted to go to see Fantastic beasts at 12:50 (luckily we have Cineworld cards so didn’t cost us anything to not go) but Scott thought it was a bit too tight for time as the film is over 2 hours long. This made me a little sad but it would have been a bit more rushed so made sense to leave it for another day. I think I mainly wanted to go to pass the time quicker & being an avid HP fan I was totally more keen than Scott was in the first place.

I struggle a little with nerves when we go away and I thought it would be a good way of keeping my mind off it but instead Scott laid in bed with the cats having a nice nap together & I laid on the sofa catching up on some TV I had recorded to pass the time wearing my dressing gown and wrapped in a blanket because I was so cold. Roll on the Florida sunshine! 

At half 3 Scott woke up feeling more refreshed and pleased his nap meant it was nearly time to leave. Shortly after my mum came over and I began the long old list of house sitting info that I had planned that she needed to know. 2 & a half A4 pages worth :S
Whilst I was chatting with my mum Scott nipped to the shop to top up our gas and electric key. He hadn’t been back for long when his friend Marco arrived who was our ride to the airport.

It was only 4:15pm so Marco was early and therefore after last goodbyes to my mum, Oreo & Gingey (although Gingey was clearly not impressed that bags were being taken outside, he didn’t particularly want a cuddle)
At 4:30pm we were all in the car on our way, here I’ve been told I must mention Marco’s fancy pants new car which was a very nice ride.

We hit a little traffic just by our house as it leads onto the motorway but were soon moving and were on our way.
We arrived at 5:15 which was pretty good going although as had got closer to the airport the traffic going back the other way was gridlocked. #PoorMarco

We said our goodbyes and gathered our luggage, we knew where to go as we had stayed at the airport before. Twice at the Yotel & twice at The Bloc hotel.

Scott captioned this photo on FB as ‘All my strongman training has come in useful’. A farmers walk with these bags would be easier compared to their weight on the way home 😜

We made our way to the lifts and up to the 3rd floor is for the Bloc reception desk. Within seconds the man had issued us with a keycard and given us room 648.

We headed off up to the 6th floor (these lifts are so fast they make me feel so sick) and got to the end of the corridor where 648 should have been. It wasn’t so we retraced our steps a tad to realise there was a special door way to just 3 rooms. I liked this as I hate in hotels when you can hear people walking past your room all the time.
We got to the door, scanned our card but the green light lit up but the handle wouldn’t move. Sad times!

I rang reception and shortly after a lady arrived, unlocked the door with a key and we were in. First impressions were good. We had booked a VIP room and despite it being dark now, we had a pretty good view of the runway. In fact we later worked out that one of the photos on the Bloc’s website was taken from our room.

Scott was a bit gutted the TV didn’t come out of the foot of the bed but instead there was a wall at the end of our bed which I thought was pretty good. We took a look at our ‘Armani’ shower room with a pretty amazing shower and tried out the bed. It was a king size and harder than our bed at home but very comfy.
Having previously stayed at the Bloc before the fact this room layout meant that you could walk around both sides of the bed was much better than our previous standard room.
The flooring was also nicer than the standard rooms, there was a little coffee maker, a big wardrobe and the tv has a full Sky box too which is useful considering there isn’t anything else to do at the airport other than eat or sleep.

We paid £146.30 for the room and although we only live 45 mins away from the airport it makes it a nice treat but more importantly for me it helps my nerves and excitement. Being at the airport makes me feel settled, after all I am in the place I need to be and I cannot fuss or worry about having forgotten something.
I also find I sleep better as I don’t worry about having to get up early to leave or the worry of overlaying. That said our flight isn’t until 2pm so Id have to oversleep quite a lot to be late

We had to sort out some Wifi drama my mum was having at home, resulting in us getting Jamie over to help her and then my dad was heading there after he finished work to try to sort it out. In hindsight we should have set her laptop up for her before we left as she isn’t particularly technically minded but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

About 6:20pm we made our way back down into the lifts onto level 3 where we found our trusty Giraffe.
We got seated in a booth, we think it’s the same one we sat before, and looked at the menu.
Id barely eaten anything all day (a chocolate muffin & a bag of crisps to be exact) so I was pretty hungry by this point.

I chose tuscan lamb meatballs for my starter and Scott went for Cajun chicken wings.

Then I went for the Harissa chicken burger and Scott had the smoky joe burger (minus the healthy salad)

All the food was really good, Scott declared the chicken wings as amazing. The meatballs were an unusual choice for me but they were so good I’m glad I chose them. I've worked out that I am partially lactose intolerant and cannot eat cheese anymore without making myself feel rough so finding starters without cheese is actually quite difficult.

My burger was also really nice, the chicken itself I expected to be more flavoursome but it had some really nice yoghurt and mint dressing which really made it good.
We paid £41.90 (also included water for me and a Stella shandy for Scott) and nipped downstairs to WHSmith's where we bought Scott 2x mini magazines (£9.00, mini the car, not really small versions) a pack of facewipes from boots as I had run out & a dessert each from M&S (£3.05)

We then headed back to our room to enjoy a nice relaxing evening. We asked for some more towels to be brought up which they did shortly after and both showered (the only downside of this room was that the shower was quite limescaley which wasn’t particularly VIP, it worked fine just didn’t look great). The products they gave us smelt so good!
We settled down to watch I'm a Celeb before heading to sleep around 11pm, ready for what would be a long day tomorrow.


COSTS

Food - £44.95
Shopping - £9.00
Other - £146.30

[Guest]

Lovely nails! Enjoying your trip report.

[Dissie]

Great start, your room looks amazing. Never heard of Bloc before.

[Floridaagogo]

I love your mermaid blanket ❤️ Looking forward to reading along x

[BLDY&McGoo]

Thanks Guys!

I wrote most of this that evening so the rest of the report probably wont start properly until we are back home!

We have taken things a little slower this time round but still seem to be on the go alot which is great!
Thanks for reading x

[christybell]

Hope you are having a ball, looking forward to reading all about it

[Guest]

Have a great time

[MinnieMrsA]

I feel your pain on the cheese front - I have a gastrointestinal allergy to cheese, but having grown up with it I can now smell/taste it at 100 paces! I do struggle sometimes to eat out without poisoning myself with cheese. I also find when I am very stressed that I can tolerate a lot less lactose than usual. Hope you had lots of fab food in Florida! ❤

[margyloveswdw]

Oooh, good start! Hope you're having a great time! Look forward to reading all about it!

[EJSakaAnna]

Great start, love the nails . Hope you're having a great time! x