[The Day Before] No Kids, July 2012

[Guest]

We landed back at Manchester this morning at 0800, so after catching a bit of sleep I guess it's time to get cracking with this report!

My Pre-Trip report has got a lot of background about our trip, how we booked/planned it and what we hope to achieve with this trip report. You can find the Pre-Trip report in our Index.

Trip Report Index

Monday 9th July 2012

I didn't actually make any notes for our day before day, so this will be a relatively brief one - and it's not really an interesting one anyway!

I got up mid morning, Jen had been pottering around a bit before me and I went upstairs to be greeted with breakfast! Good Start.



Jen had a hair appointment for midday, so she left to go do that whilst I finalised the packing and checked the passports and documents for the umpteenth time. With nothing much else to do, I washed the car and checked the oil/fluids etc.

OLCI for our flight opened at 1405 on the nose, I wasn't actually going to do the OLCI as we had exit row seats pre-booked and I couldn't request seating anyway. I still logged in and had a click through the interface regardless.

Jen was due back for 1500, but she was late - which just made the longest afternoon even worse whilst I paced the house, tidied up here and there and then checked the passports... again.

I think I was sat on the Dibb when Jen finally came in, hair all done and ready to go.



It was now just gone 1600, I was sick of waiting around even though there was no real rush to get to Manchester. We did one final check, jumped in the car and that was that... we were off!

Manchester is a pretty easy drive for us, M62 to M60, job done. It should be about a 90minute drive but we hit traffic at Leeds and torrential rain between Huddersfield and Rochdale slowing the traffic to a snails pace.

The final journey took us closer to 3 hours, but the hotel was easy to find in Altrincham despite the tripadvisor reviews for our hotel claiming it's hidden... perhaps the signage has improved since.

First impressions of the Altrincham Travelodge were excellent, the reception area was brand new and the staff very friendly. We collected our room key and got into the room, small even by travelodge standards but very tidy and felt new.





Had a nice view over the carpark, and more importantly my car!

We got our stuff together, then headed out to go do some plane spotting before it got dark. Our original plan was the pub at the end of the runway, but last minute changed our minds to the Manchester Airport official viewing area - and I think we made a good choice!

It was £2 for an hour in the carpark, which was well worth it. They've got some raised platforms so you can see above the security fencing and loads of picnic benches and stuff.

Most impressively, they've got a Concorde parked up in a hangar! I was too excited to take a proper photo (don't worry, I manage to shake this habit early into the holiday) but it was an awesome sight.

Unfortunately it started to rain, so we took a few photos and then jumped back into the car to head back for Altrincham.





We'd already eyed up a Frankie and Benny's round the corner on google maps, so we parked back up at the Hotel and wandered over to F&Bs for Dinner.

I know I promised pricing and stuff for all food/drink in our Pre-Trip report, but everybody knows the F&B menu so I won't bother for this.

I had the Black Pepper Mayo burger and Jen had one of the Calzone's, can't remember which.

You may see a few variations of this photo throughout the report:



We didn't stop for dessert, walked back to the Hotel and then got tucked into bed with Who Wants to be a Millionaire live for entertainment, followed by QI, followed by zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

[Guest]

Great pre travel day, bet you were very excited at this point!

[scotsprincess]

Great start

[RachelM]

Great start. How exciting to see where concorde is kept.

[ILoveDaveLamb]

Nice 'do' and good day!

[Iloveflorida]

Nice start to your holiday.

[Guest]

Great start! I like reading all trip reports but I especially love those that involve couples I think it helps with costing etc.

[disney owl]

a nice start to your holiday

[Guest]

Nice relaxing start to your hols

[Tinks]

Great start :-)