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-   -   Florida Trip no3 - Pre Travel Day - September 2019 (https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1148216)

AJ86 3 Oct 19 04:16 PM

Florida Trip no3 - Pre Travel Day - September 2019
 
Index Here

Pre Travel Day – Friday 13th September 2019

The day that strikes fear into most, is also the day that brings me the most excitement, Friday the 13th or for me pre travel day!

My day starts like any other from the past few weeks, waking at a stupid hour then struggling to sleep again. Today I have a half day, so I take my wife to work so I have the car in the afternoon.

I work from home, so no commute for me! I book business travel for a living, and last night was the night that BA cancelled all their flights on the 27th September for their pilots strike, so my morning has been full of re booking travellers and also printing out various documents for holiday.

I check us in at spot on 24h before departure, online check in with Delta is pretty straight forward, and soon enough it prints out both sets of boarding passes, London to Detroit, and Detroit to Orlando. No SSSS for us!

1245 – Out of Office is on!

I’m not sure how but I have had a list of jobs to do for the past week, little things like charge cameras, sort the sat nav out among others. I have been putting them off thinking it’s ok I’ll do it tomorrow, then before I know bam! I’m here I am running round sweating trying to sort it out and tick as much off before my wife realises I haven’t done much the last week or so, thankfully I booked a half day, so can tick a few things off!

Amongst running round like an idiot trying to sort stuff before picking my wife from work I have also been trying to plan out my wife’s 30th birthday holiday. So what else would you do on your pre travel day than book another Disney Holiday! Yes, British Airways have a sale on that ends while we are away, so I have booked a week in March next year to spend a few days in San Francisco, then 3 days at Disney in California! This afternoon is turning into a busy one!

Next up on my todo list is currency, again this was one of those things I had been putting off for the last month or so. I head off to John Lewis in town, thankfully find a space on the street outside, and go get my Dollars, rate is not to bad 1.21, and the lady says it’s the best it’s been for a while so my laziness has paid off for once! I celebrate with cheeky Greggs sausage roll for lunch, devour it in about 2 bites and have the evidence all down my top and stuck in my beard.

Today so far has flown by and its soon time to pick my wife up, I head to Hertford to collect her from work, and we are back home in no time. We use the next hour or so to sort out hand baggage, and of course clean the house, would hate for any burglars to think we keep a messy home! We shamefully throw out food we couldn’t palm off onto friends and family and as much as I would love to take some week old potatoes and a stick of broccoli with me i don’t think US customs will allow it!


Packed and ready

Around 5 we pack the car up and head to Tesco to get some snacks for the room and plane the following day. The ride to Heathrow isn’t that bad, only hitting a little traffic in the usual spots. We park up at the long stay and take the obligatory photo of the bus stop and wave good bye to the car.


In case you needed to know where we parked!

Our home for the night is the Hilton Garden Inn terminal 2. This is located at the back of T2 short term car park, and has only been open for a couple of months, so everything is fresh, shiney and new. Our room on the 12th floor over looks the runway, so the plane spotter in side of me watches the planes for the next half hour while the sun sets.




Excuse the mess!


View from the room looking over Terminal 3 and the departure Runway

After I am done plane spotting we head up to the roof top bar which offers near enough 360 views of the airport, so if you love planes or fancy a cocktail with a view this is the bar for you. They have plenty of window seats inside and an outside area once its complete and open.




View from the bar

Back in the room we order burgers from the room service menu, 2 burgers, chips and onion rings comes to an eye watering £40, they must be getting us ready for Disney! We watch Bake off an extra slice, the new version of supermarket sweep, have showers, and have a faff with our bags before setting our alarms, checking them a million times and then drifting off to sleep. Given how close we are to the runway we can’t hear a peep of noise outside!

Turns out the Eco group trying to fly drones was a no go today, I read online the police arrested a load of people before hand and that the drones they had didn’t really work or get off the ground. Approaching the airport you could really see the police presence, standing on every spare bit of land was a group of 2 or 3 officers and there were vans full of them dotted around, nice to see they took it so seriously, but would hate to think what this cost the police in wasted man hours and money.

Travel Day coming soon

ravenwing 3 Oct 19 09:59 PM

We travelled on Friday 13th last time - I had to try not to draw attention to this fact to my OH for as long as possible as he's a bad traveller at the best of times!

AJ86 5 Oct 19 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ravenwing (Post 14109345)
We travelled on Friday 13th last time - I had to try not to draw attention to this fact to my OH for as long as possible as he's a bad traveller at the best of times!

We also had a full moon this Friday the 13th so definite no no for your OH!

margyloveswdw 14 Oct 19 03:09 PM

Great views from your room!

Looking forward to reading more :D

rubberduckie89 5 Jul 21 11:50 AM

Only just getting around to reading your report - second hand excitement for your trip!


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