The Return to the Magic Trip Report! - Day 0

[oh_darling]

The Cast!
Me – Libby, just turned 23.
Ben – 22.

If you want to read about the background of this trip, you can find my pre-trip ramblings here - http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=452017

Day 0 – Saturday 25th September 2010-10-02

The first day of our holiday had arrived! It was my birthday the day before and I had been showered with gifts from Ben, amongst them lego Harry Potter for my DS and Mickey and Minnie keyrings for our suitcases which were swiftly clipped on!



My Mum dropped us off at Southampton Central train station and we waited on the platform for the Megatrain. We’ve got the Megabus loads of times before but never the Megatrain so weren’t sure if we had to get in a specific carriage or anything but when the train came we just got on and it was fine. I had bought our tickets a few months before for £4 each, BARGAIN.

The train journey to Waterloo was uneventful, we listened to our ipods (I had the dibbcast on mine! ) and I read my Brits guide. When we got to Waterloo we had to get two tubes to Kings Cross St Pancras to find our hotel. We got a little bit lost finding our hotel even though I had a map because it was quite a confusing area. I was fairly hot and bothered by this point and wishing I hadn’t packed so much in my suitcase and handbag!

We got to our hotel, the Kings Cross Royal Scot Travelodge. I’d booked it in August through a site that offered the night in the hotel and two tickets for the matinee performance of Dreamboats and Petticoats for £110, a massive bargain, especially as the cost of the hotel on it’s own was £100! But, I’d read really bad reviews of it on TripAdvisor which I always take with a pinch of salt but these seemed reaalllly bad So I was prepared for the worst, which we got!

We got to the front desk and I showed my printed out booking confirmation which was all fine, but the guy said check in wasn’t till 3. It said 2 on the website and on the confirmation, and we had to leave our luggage in the room in order to get to the theatre. I was slightly livid and explained the situation; the extremely unhelpful man said we could leave our suitcases in the lobby for £15 or pay £10 to get into the room early. I was all ready to fight our case but Ben is calm and relaxed and just paid the £10 stating “this will be the best £10 we’ve ever spent”!

So we got our roomcard and dragged our cases to the lift which was tiny and shabby and just horrible I’m really not a fussy person and we’re hardly seasoned travellers but this hotel was just really rough around the ages and I felt quite unsafe. Our room was not nice either, two single beds when I thought I’d booked a double, non-existent tv reception and it was just overly snug. I used to work as a chambermaid at a hotel so I think I notice the little things. BUT as Ben reminded me, we were only here for one night and it was going to make the Santa Fe look like a palace!





So we had an hour and a half to kill before we had to leave for the theatre so we popped to the shop across the road and bought some drinks because we were on HOLIDAY!

Ben had cider and I weirdly chose pineapple Bacardi Breezer! It was very refreshing though. We didn’t have a bottle opener (schoolboy error) but Ben assured me he could open them. The first one was cracked open easily but the second one resulted in a broken bottle neck which I then wasn’t keen to drink in case there was glass in the drink! So my gorgeous boyfriend invented a kind of drink sieve out of a teabag and sieved my entire drink for me

It was so funny! I documented the process and am going to include a few on here although this is mainly for our benefit It possibly wouldn’t have been as funny if we hadn’t already had a few…







About 3 we got the tube to Embankment and found the Playhouse theatre really easily. It was super busy and we went and found our seats which were practically on the roof A few weeks before we had been to see Les Mis at the Mayflower in Southampton and had very similar seats so we were prepared! We could still see everything though The show was SO GOOD, we loved it because all the music was played live by the cast which is pretty impressive in itself, and we both love 50s and 60s music so it was perfect! We did a lot of clapping and singing along to our faves, Runaround Sue in particular made me want to hop on the stage and join the cast!



The show finished about half 6 and we walked up to the Millenium bridge which was right by the theatre and took some snaps. We’ve both been to London lots and really love it, but we weren’t really in the mood for hardcore sightseeing so we did a kind of whistle stop tour in about 15 minutes of the major sights, then hopped back on the tube to Kings Cross.



This was when the hotel really annoyed me again urghhhh. We were both really tired and planned to just get room service from downstairs and eat in our room. The prices for room service pizza were really reasonable on our menu so we decided to go for that. As we were ordering downstairs I noticed the prices on their menu in the bar were about £4 more than the prices on our menu upstairs!? So I was like ummmm but Ben was already ordering. Then the card reader wouldn’t work and the lady asked if we had money but we didn’t (spent it all on peanuts at the theatre! ) and she looked kind of lost and just stared at us, so I just said don’t worry about it and we walked out. Just really bad service and why were the prices so drastically different? They really need to change the menus in the rooms otherwise they are tricking everyone!

ANYWAY. So we wandered outside and got some money out and bought a couple of pizzas from a little place down the road. We carried them back up to our room and ate them in bed watching the X Factor with really bad reception! We had an early night because we were going to DISNEYLAND the next day!

Day 1 coming up!

[Guest]

A great start!

Looking forwrad to reading more!

[Melanie R]

Great start - love the cases with Mickey & Minnnie!

[oh_darling]

Thankyou! They looked so cute hehe

[Guest]

Kings Cross in London isn't the best area for hotels I have to admit. Still with theatre tickets included I could put up with a few niggles.
You're on your wat to the Mouse and that is way more important!

[oh_darling]

Yes indeedio. It wasn't too bad really just expected more because we've always had lovely rooms at Travelodges! Was really only for us to be ready for the Eurostar though so it didn't matter at all

[JamelUK]

Luvin this Libby! Full marks for the T-bag strainer!

What a hero Ben is ensuring his girl gets her drink! And such initiative!
Clearly he watched a lot of McGuyver as a kid!

[oh_darling]

Thanks James! You are my trip report idol so I'm glad you're loving it! I think he realised the importance of getting me a drink ASAP to calm me down after the checking in incident! Very wise.

[NatsyNoo]

OMG You just had me so worried! We are booked into Travelodge Kings Cross the night before we travel. But I just checked and it's not your one, it's the other one! Phew! Hope I can post a better report of it!

Loving the trippie so far and Ben has arranged some lovely surprises for you!

The refurbed room looks lovely, far nicer than our room when we stayed at Santa Fe and I know parts of Cheyenne are being refurbed so maybe we'll be lucky enough to get a new room!

Looking forward to some more!

[hross42877]

Great read and I love your purple handbag!