The Woods Wonderful WDW Hol November 2010 Day 1 The journey

[sarahewoods]

The Woods Wonderful Walt Disney Holiday November 2010
Day 1 – The Journey to Gatwick

To see who we all are if you don't already know, please check out my pre-trip nonsense here

Trip index here

Well hello everyone, we are here, the day is upon us. It is finally our turn to go, after such a long countdown. I mean I had a long enough countdown, and there was only so log the pre-trip could run….

Today is the 2nd November 2010 and I woke after a not too good a sleep. I went to bed with all good intentions at 10pm last night, but was too excited to sleep. I was keeping Nick awake so I got up and cleaned the bathroom. Eventually just after midnight I felt tired so tried bed again. Took me a while but I dropped up eventually. Then promptly woke again at 1am, this continued up and down and at 3am I just got up, closely followed by Charlotte and Beth. As soon as I woke, I grabbed the camcorder as I wanted to catch the children waking, however, as everyone woke just after me, I didn’t actually catch them waking, and this as you can imagine didn’t go down too well with Beth.




Meanwhile my mind is absolutely crammed with lists and information. Why is this? Everyone knows that my ‘to do list’ has been finished for the past 4 days prior to leaving. So with that the last few days should have been nice and relaxing, if there is such a thing.

So at silly o clock 5.30am, we all had a quick breakfast, boring cereal and quickly get cleaned up. The weather outside is damp, but a reasonable 12C. The time is now 6.20am and we aren’t planning to leave until 11.30am so I have plenty of time to be ready for our trip of a lifetime. I again get everyone’s hand luggage out and go through my check list, which has been done probably over 50 times already….As it was yesterday, everything is still accounted for. .Oh my, look at all that luggage, and that’s with a case hidden inside the floral coloured one. I must point out that we have several requests for filling the spare case, however, all were over the weight limit and the max was 32kg, so better luck next time.



Charlotte was looking rather sorry for herself, and I asked her what was wrong, she was feeling a little nervous, and after a cuddle and a little chat, she slowly began to cheer up. Both Charlotte and Max spent a good deal of time riding around the house on their Trunki’s.


I am now satisfied that everything is sorted so I send the children to watch a DVD, so I can get my last bit of housework done. I can’t leave mess, and think most of you ladies are the same. I am happy when all is done, and bag up the few bits of dirty washing for my friend to collect tomorrow to sort for us whilst we are away. Nick goes around the house checking all light timers are set, and all plugs are off. I promptly follow double checking.Afterwards he decides to load the car. I set the timer on the camera and take a family photo of us, and theres also one of me and kids.



At 11.15am my MIL and Step FIL arrive, who will transport Nick and 2 children, sounds like there off somewhere really wacky don’t it, and Nick’s dad arrives to take me and the other two children in our car to the bus station. This is it folks, we are off.



We dually arrive at St Margaret’s for 12.05, and say our good byes to the parents. We sit and wait, and wait, but the bus turns up dead on time. The bus was busy, and not many seats available but we ended up sitting me and Max, behind charlotte and Nick, and then about 4 rows back was Beth and Brandan. About ten minutes into the journey 4 police cars went zooming past, and slowed the entire 3 lanes of traffic down to about 5 mph. Then about five minutes later there was a chase with another 3 cars behind, after 5 minutes or so, we speeded back up and continued on our way. The next 3 hours and 45 minutes goes very slow. At Milton Keynes I noticed both Max and Charlotte were fast asleep, and stayed that way until we hit Gatwick North Terminal.


My excitement levels are at the highest I have ever experienced. I am playing every possible scenario in my mind for our holiday, and I am very happy. On approach to Gatwick the nerves set in, why am I nervous? I don’t know, maybe because I want everything to drop into place. I want everything to go to my little plan, and everyone enjoy this wonderful holiday. So off the bus we are and start the walk over to the terminal, and find the Virgin twilight check in desk. Max was a little worried as we entered, as there was armed police everywhere, and we had to walk single file, past them all with Max leading… when we reached Twilight check in there was a small queue, but nothing too major, and we are soon checked in. With boarding cards in hand, we decided to hop back on ourselves to the Hilton, so the Kids can drop their hand luggage before we have dinner.


I did request connecting rooms and this were what we got, very nice rooms, we were Impressed with our rooms at the Hilton. We head downstairs to get a bite to eat in the buffet restaurant, which we all thought was very nice, no photo’s as we were in the middle of the room and felt everyone was looking at me, plus it was only buffet

The place was heaving, and would much have preferred to eat at Frankie and Bennys, but a it was now closed due to work in the village we had to settle for here. Service was ok, and it was a 3 course help yourself buffet.


Nick had Minestrone soup and bread roll, then a bit of al-sorts of main and skipped on dessert washed down with a pint of Stella, as he was stuffed. I had a cold selection of salad and meats, then turkey dinner, chocolate cheesecake, and a glass of Rose.
The children just picked at what they fancied, and all had diet cokes with their meals.
All stuffed and satisfied we pay our £76.55. Which included 10% and rounded it up to a further £80.00.


After wards we popped into the shop and spent 8.49 and mints water, and a magazine.and headed back to our rooms at the Hilton. The time is now 7.30pm. I Bath all the children, and try to get the settled. However it is now 9.14pm and everyone is still awake apart from Nick who has been snoring for past 10 minutes.

Thanks for taking time to read our travel day 1

[Froggy88]

Good to have you back Say Hi to Brandon for me he was awesome last Saturday and thank you all once again~!

Will you be doing a day every weekend like you did for your pre trip report.

[macdonald88]

Yay i can't believe it's time for your much antiscipated trip report. I hate the sleep the night before, you normally see every hour on the clock! Glad you got to the airport safely, can't wait for the next one! Hope you managed to get a decent sleep last night.

[chaffey]

OMG can't believe that you've got day1 up already.

Hope you have all recovered from the jet lag

Why is it we can never sleep the day before we go on holiday.

Glad you had a safe trip down and can't wait to read the rest

[Guest]

Great first report,cant wait for the rest x

Its true i didnt sleep at all when i went x

[disneymadkids]

Welcome back Sarah. Loved your first day report. I felt nervous for you reading it! I got back a couple of days before you and first logged on to see your nightmare of a journey home. That must have been awful for you and my thoughts were with you but am glad you managed to get back ok. Hope you manage the jet lag this week. It took us about 5 days to feel back to normal and now have the holiday blues.
Have a good sleep tonight. xx

[Ms Finkelstein]

Sounds like a great start to the trip so far! Very early risers in your family though!

Di x

[MEZZA]

OH I'm all excited for you

Great travel day

[Guest]

Hey Sarah

yippee you're off to a great start... Lovely suprise to find your the first day up so quickly... hope you are not too jet lagged. Hope Brandon has recovered ...

Cant wait for flight day ...

ATB
squigls

[Guest]

Hi Sarah - ooh I'm all excited for you! Great trip down to Gatwick for the start of the hols. Can't wait to read more!