New York & Florida May 2011~ Day 1 Heading to the airport

[Guest]

The holiday has been a long time in the planning, booked back in the middle of October, but these past few months have literally flown by, but it hasi been one of the most memorable and most enjoyable that we have had. New York however was definitely the highlight of our trip.

So. . .here is our trip report.

Our pretrippie with links to the sites that I used in planning etc can all be found on this link HERE http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=469759


Cast”

Me ~ 38, “self employed” single mum, only organiser and planner. Enjoyed the first trip to Disney, but not someone who feels the "disney magic" and so can take it or leave it. However, loves to travel and I always enjoy the time I spend with my son on our trips, away from work and all the hassle at home that we fit into our schedules!

Bradley ~ 10 ~ loves to go to various different places, limited to the times he is able to travel next year due to his football contract and going away on tour in the main summer hols. Footie Nut or all round general sport nut, also plays golf, cricket etc but has a full timetable with his football commitment. Was very excited ahead of our trip to New York.


Monday 23rd May 2011.
Last day of work. Heading to the airport.

Although Birmingham Airport is about 45 mins away from us, after a nightmare trip to the same airport last year, when it took over 3 hours due to the motorway being closed, we decided that we would drive up the night before, stay onsite. Taking advantage of a great discount offer in December for meet and greet parking which gave us 26% off. As such, it worked out only a little more than just parking and so much easier on returning not having to queue for the bus to get back to the car park, something which at Birmingham can be awful early morning if there are several night flights.

The plan of action for today was DS to school, me to work. Come home, take dogs to the home from home boarder and then pick up cases and head off to the airport. As we had been originally going to eat before we travelled up to the airport, the Meet and Greet parking with Meteor was booked for 8pm. Decided to change it to 630pm and head off straight to the airport after dropping the dogs. No problems in changing it, and had full access to the booking to make any changes online. Also easy to change car registration details on the booking when I bought a new car in feb. Much easier than some of the other places I had used in the past and had to make changes.

Work was fairly quiet, I spent most of the day checking out the weather and things ahead of our trip, and decided at this time that I didn't want to risk getting the Airtrain and NJT from Newark into Manhattan, so booked a car with Dial 7. Printed off the booking confirmation and included the details in our plan etc

Although we had upgraded our seats etc to extra leg room, I didn't want to have to rush in the morning, so decided to do online check in. Checked in online which was easy and straightforward but it said due to having to produce documents in the airport we couldn't print off our boarding passes. We knew that this was the norm with Continental anyway so wasn't bothered, but at least we had gone through the main process of checking in (something recommended anyway).

I decided to finish an hour early from work so I could head off and do a couple of last minute things before having to pick up B from school. At this point, most of the packing had been done over the weekend, including all of the things for the dogs ahead of them going to our home from home dog boarder. So I was able to come home, have a quick sandwich and extra cuddles with the boys (the dogs!), leaving them is always hard, but we had found a lovely lady just up the road after our original plans “fell through”, was really happy with the choice and knew they would be in good hands, but still not easy to leave them

Headed off to collect son from school and came home, loaded the car up with the dogs bags, bedding and food for the next 18 days and then took the dogs to what would be their home for the next 18 days. The last time we left them, there had been difficulties, they hadn't eaten for a week and I had received texts while I was away informing me of this. But, they seemed much happier with our new lady and so after leaving all of their things and after having some lovely cuddles we headed off. One difference this time is our lady has dogs of her own, 4 to be precise, so our boys would have lots of doggy company with those, her doggy day care dogs and a couple of others coming in for home from home boarding. Fighting back the tears, we headed off and back home to load up the car with cases.

Even then, it was awful going into the house and not getting the warm welcome home we normally do. So, cases in the car, we headed up the M5 to Birmingham Airport. 20 minutes away we called through to Meteor to let them know we would be there in 20 mins and we pulled into the Drop and Go carpark at the airport. Our guy turned up, we signed the paperwork and off he went with the car.

B and I then walked across the carpark to the Ibis hotel where we were going to be spending the night. Having never stayed here we didn't know what to expect. Check in was quick, easy and simple. Hotel looked fine. Headed up to our room on the 4th floor and although we didn't have much of a view out of the window, we could see the runway. The twin room had two beds, and a bathroom. I was actually surprised at the size of the bathroom and the shower in particular, the room itself was oval and the shower took about half of it with two large double doors. Some places you struggle to fit through the sliding doors into the cubicle, but certainly not into here.

Here is the room



Another Room Pic


The bathroom/shower (kind of lol)


Clean, tidy, and practical. Cost £46 for the night, so was cheap and cheerful and it was somewhat better than expected (although would late find out how uncomfortable the beds were!) not much different than a travellodge or similar to be honest, but so handy for the airport.

However, the news was just coming in how some of the UK airports, mainly in Scotland at this point were closing due to the new volcano eruption in Iceland, a year on from one that caused so much havoc. I thought that after months of planning that it was going to be wasted and had visions of not being able to get there. It said that they didn't expect the cloud to reach lower down into the UK for about 48 hours, but depended on the overnight weather. I just had to keep my fingers crossed that it would hold off and that we would make it up into the air.

We decided to head off into the airport, check out where the desks for Continental were (we didn't actually find them lol) and then headed upstairs to have dinner at Frankie and Benny's. It is our tradition to eat at F&B's, although its normally at Gatwick which is where we normally fly from. But it was nice to relax, especially having been diagnosed with a deep ear and sinus infection over the weekend which had left me feeling pretty rough, dizzy and not great.

DS had garlic bread to start followed by pizza (he doesn't do kids meals normally at all now!) I had potato skins with cheese and bacon followed by Chicago Grinder, a deep filled calzone pizza with meatballs, pepperoni, chicken, onion, sweet corn, peppers, mozzerella and BBQ sauce. Now I am not a fan of pizza, but this really was delicious. Washed down with a Magners (rip off price tho for such a small sized bottle!) and a cider shandy lol, DS with his fanta and coke. We were too full for dessert, so decided to head to the M&S food place in the airport to get dessert to eat later in the hotel. Paid the bill which came to around £45 and headed back through the airport, picked up a chocolate melt dessert for DS and a fresh fruit salad and a couple of bottles of fizzy drink for the room and headed back.

Found the extra pillows and watched TV in the room.

It was nice to relax to be honest, but the beds left a lot to be desired. The mattresses are thin and placed onto a wood (mdf) frame, so they felt very hard and uncomfortable. We couldn't get comfortable even watching TV, but we sat, watched Eastenders and some various stuff afterwards while DS munched on his chocolate cake, I ate my lovely fresh fruit salad from M&S and all washed down with lemon and lime flavoured fizzy water. Nice and relaxing, it felt as if we were on holiday.

Had a lovely text from our dog boarder, who sent us a photo of her curled up on the sofa in her PJ's (they'd just returned from their wedding and honeymoon in Florida the day before so were getting hit by the jet lag) and along with her were my two boys curled up on her chest, she said that Bear (one of the dogs) was definitely a chest man LOL It was a relief to see them happy and settled. I had hoped to get them out for a walk before I had dropped them off, but it had lashed with rain so couldn't do so.

Anyway, felt a bit more at ease knowing they were ok. Settled in for the night to try and get some sleep . . .

But, the beds were awful . . .

It was going to be a very disturbed and uncomfortable night for me but DS was sleeping soundly and it was less stressful than having to travel up during the night.

Anyway, we were so excited about the next day and getting to New York, we couldn't have cared.

Next day . . .flight to New York, Manhattan by Sail

[christybell]

Yay you are doing a trippie,.

Really appreciate all your advice so far regarding New York, looking forward to reading about your adventures

[jocat]

I've been waiting for this to start.

Really enjoyed reading all of your pre-trip planning Karen, so can't wait to hear how it all went.

[Guest]

I'm going to try and do a day each day LOL although I didnt make any note of what we did during our time in Florida so it wont be very detailed for that part of our trip

[Alyson]

Good to know the dogs were settled in.

Shame about the beds, if your anything like me you don't sleep much the night before anyway, but still, it would be nice to be awake in a comfy bed!

[jocat]

Originally Posted by karen_uk

I'm going to try and do a day each day LOL although I didnt make any note of what we did during our time in Florida so it wont be very detailed for that part of our trip

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Well much as I enjoy reading Florida trippies, personally I'm here for my New York fix. So as long as there's lots of details for that part of your holiday, then I'm happy!

[00swan]

Yeah - have been keeping an eye out for your trippie, after finding your pre-trippie so valuable.

We've just booked our 5 nights NY / 16 nights Orlando for next year, so we're looking forward to picking up some more hints from you !

Hope you've had a wonderful time - look forward to reading more...

[liverbird]

I'm another one who's after a NYC fix, so happy it's going to be detailed . Shame about the bed being so uncomfortable - I never sleep much the night before in whatever hotel we stay at, rest of family can sleep on a washing line, it's so unfair .
Will watch out for your travel day!

[SammyScotland]

I've been looking forward to your trip report. I am so pleased you really enjoyed New York. I'm hoping we have as good a time as you have had.

[tracy99]

another one,who has been waiting for this report,so looking forward to reading it.we also loved new york,when we went last year.glad you both had a great time,
tracy