Saturday 22nd July 2017 – Pre Travel Day Dinner at the Mercure Hotel near Heathrow
I had a slight headache when I woke up at 5.30am, largely due to the consumption of a couple of Manhattans the night before.
There were always going to be cocktails in this trippie, we had to get in the mood for NYC, sorry about the lack of photo.
We didn’t really have much to do and we were killing time waiting really. We packed our hand luggage bags. Dave made some rather tasty breakfast burritos for lunch and made 4 spares which he put in the freezer for our return home. I think this will have to become a holiday tradition.
We arrived at the Mercure Hotel at Heathrow at 4.30pm. We were checked in all fine and went up to our room, number 149, only to find that the key card wouldn't work. The door definitely wasn’t opening. :angry: So we went back down to the check in desk and the receptionist realised she’d written the wrong number on the card, it was supposed to be room 148 and not 149. Oh well, no harm done. She was very apologetic and gave us 2 cards for a free drink in the bar for our inconvenience.
We decided it was well worth the inconvenience and headed back up to our real room. As we passed
room 149 we gave a silent apology to the occupants and hoped they hadn't thought someone was trying to break in earlier.
We had some limited supplies with us. Some cans of Gin & Tonic and what was left over from a bottle of red wine - it would have gone off if we left it at home. It wasn’t long before 2 cans had disappeared.
Hurrah I have a photo of G&T
Shrek the third was on the TV and we sort of watched the end of it. I dragged one of the armchairs into the bathroom. Now, this is not me being mental (ok it is slightly
), but I struggle to sleep before a Floriday and I didn't fancy sitting on the cold bathroom floor reading in the middle of the night...hence the chair in the bathroom...unfortunately it did get quite a bit of use.
We decided to go the bar and use our vouchers as pre dinner drinks. I had white wine, Dave had red and bought another with dinner. The kids both had tiny bottles of coke. I said they had to make them last as they weren’t getting additional cokes as I wanted them to be able to sleep later and not be wide awake from the caffeine. In no way is the G&T in the room responsible for the blurry drinks photo!
I will say it upfront, I would NOT eat here again. We are lazy people, we should have wandered down the road and found a nice pub. Please if you stay at the Mercure don’t eat in the restaurant, the food was only ok and for what it was I think it was quite expensive (it was like Whetherspoons but double the price
). We also had to wait a loooonnnnng time for the food, over 45 minutes between them taking the order and bringing the food to the table. I'm sure this was their tactic to make us order another drink, but we had supplies in the room and besides I already knew I wouldn't sleep and I couldn't have been more excited about Floriday being just around the corner.
Both the boys went for fish and chips with mushy peas, £12.95. I ate Max’s peas as he doesn’t like them and they were tasty. He managed to eat all the fish in spite of Dave saying he would help out if needed. It was just ok, not brilliant.
I had chicken tikka skewers with rice, naan bread and onion salad, £14.95. This was tasty, but very spicy, I like spice but even my lips were starting to tingle.
Kate had lasagne with garlic bread, £14.50. It was not a very large portion of lasagne and even though she is not the biggest eater she did manage to finish it. She is rather partial to a lasagne though and she said it was rather tasty.
Looking around the restaurant there were a few single diners and, bizarrely, a couple sat in their thermals and winter coats.
It wasn’t that cold.
I have tried to take photos of all the bills when they arrived as I know I find these really helpful when I read food reports...
£67 for four dinners and one glass of wine, no pudding today, although DS was NOT impressed
and yes he did have a little strop
We consoled him with thoughts of all the ice cream and cakes to come.
We went back to the room and Dave drank a last glass (plastic cup) of red wine while I drank another can of G&T (out of a plastic cup, definitely not out of the can, I'm not common you know
).
I was about halfway through the cup of G&T when I got an alert on my phone from American Airlines saying there may be delays with our flight due to inclement weather
and the flight coming over from USA leaving late and not arriving in LHR on time
. Didn’t they know I have a hard enough time sleeping without this added worry? We set the alarm for 5.15am, like we’d need it, I knew now that a sleepless night was inevitable and that chair in the bathroom would get a lot of use.
Coming soon, travel day! Breakfast in the airport, may contain a cocktail - who am I kidding? of course it does, a complete lack of plane food photos and our first meal in NYC.
