Sarah and Rachel do Hawaiifornia, July 2009 - Day 0

[DisneySarah]

The cast:
Me (Sarah) 24 – Disney addict and holiday planner extraordinaire

Rachel, 21 – Lover of sleeping in late and not doing a lot else. Partial to a little Disney. Oh, and my little sister.


Day 0 - Travel to Heathrow
Sunday 12th July

Usually this is the most stressful day of any holiday for me, but today I woke up fairly calm - despite not having packed!

Dbf and I lay around until about 10am, when I decided I needed to get myself moving. Had to practically drag my sister out of bed by her feet, but nothing new there! Dbf cooked us a yummy cooked breakfast/brunch to keep us going all the way down to London and Rach and I ran around like headless chickens trying to get everything packed before the taxi arrived at 2.30pm.

Taxi finally arrived 10 minutes late and we were on our way. Got to the station and the train was on time - result. Except as we sat on the platform waiting, the screen kept showing the train being delayed, 3 minutes at a time. First it was supposed to arrive at 15.15, then 15.18, then 15.21 and so on until it go to 13.39...urgh! Oh well, never mind, we're not in a rush. The train finally arrived at 15.39 and we took our seats in first class, (which we got for pretty much the same price as standard class...gotta love travelling on a sunday!). Unfortunately the cabin's air conditioning had broken so it was sweltering for the entire 1.5 hour trip. The group next to us were evidently very hungover and we kept getting whifs of stale alcohol...lovely!

We made it to St Pancras at about 5pm and headed straight for the tube, which was a nightmare as I had 2 suitcases and my carry on and Rach had 1 really heavy suitcase. The tube took about an hour to reach Heathrow and went through about 25 stations! After getting off the tuvbe we grabbed a trolley for our suitcases and hot-footed it to terminal 2 - we were starving having not eaten since mid morning - and found a Weatherspoons.

Ahhh, A cool drink and some food, just what we needed. I had a burger and chips and Rach had a baked potato. These were actually about our 4th choices of food off the menu as the kitchen had apparently run out of nearly all the food, even though it was only 6pm.

Suitably full, we then headed for the hotel shuttle buses as we were booked in the Radisson Edwardian for the night. It was here we realised that we both had no idea which bus to get or how they actually worked! So we tried to get on the first bus that came. Er, no, it seems we had not actually bothered to read the front of the bus which said which hotels it went to and the driver was not impressed. We did eventually get the right bus after asking for help from some American tourists - how embarressing! We ended up spending £16 on shuttle buses to and from the airport and wished we had just got taxis :angry:

Checked in to the hotel fine and then we relaxed, showered and watched TV for the rest of the evening.



Rach mentioned she was starting to feel ill but I told her it was probably just nerves fabout the flight tomorrow...famous last words!


Tomorrow: Flying to San Francisco!

[Guest]

Great start, cant wait to read more!

[Guest]

Sounds like a great trip you have planned! Can't wait to read more

[Tinkers]

Great start, can't wait to read more.

[tracyh]

Sounds like a fab holiday and an exciting journey, even if half the day was spent on the train! Your holiday still started early!

[ashc13]

Great start! I can't wait to read more!

[DisneyMadAng]

Glad I'm not the only last minute packer. The tube sounds a bit of a palaver with all your luggage. Hope Rach feels better soon although I'm guessing not by your comment

[Guest]

Great start!

[purple myra]

Good start...looking forward to the rest...hoping your sis was ok!

[Guest]

Great start... off to read the next installment.