4 people, 2 weeks, 1 room! Offsite trip report, arrival day.

[ashilda]

Wow it's been busy. And hot. And wet!
Its 8am and we should be on our way to universal but everyone is sleeping and kids were exhausted yesterday so I'm going with the flow and letting them sleep in. We will go to IHOP when they wake up then universal this afternoon. I must say I am liking the relaxed vibe this time, last time we came (2015) we did everything Disney, I booked rides and meals and it was great but kind of regimented to get it all done. We had a relax in the hotel pool yesterday and it felt like we were on proper holiday if that makes sense!

So after our lovely meal at Miller & Carter Tuesday night we went back to the hotel (premier inn East) and tried to sleep, kids were a bit hyper and Cecil was getting fed up so I got dd to have a shower knowing it takes her an hour, once kids were seperated it calmed down and we slept pretty well. I didn't realise but we had a free grab n go breakfast which was a nice surprise, I was expecting it to be rubbish as they said it's very small just a bacon roll and drinks. I thought it would tide us over until the airport, but it was actually good and we didn't need breakfast at gatwick.

There were a couple of workmen that filled 4 bags of food and wiped everything out while we waited for them politely, they left and we then made drinks etc while another workman reached over us to grab things, I'm not a fan of people tbh! Anyway there was a Costa coffee machine and bacon/sausage/scrambled egg & mushroom rolls and pastries on hot section. Porridge pots were lined up by costa machine, for grab & go it was good.

I had 2 pastries, porridge with syrup and a latte. I do have a sweet tooth!

At the airport we bought 3 boots meal deals as none of liked the afternoon tea sandwich. I had a strawberry lime cooler from Starbucks which wasnt nice, it was chemically and I drank a bit then binned it, dd was happy with her usual peach iced tea, she loves Starbucks even though shes obvs not had coffee!

On the flight we had the usual pretzels and I had a gin and lemonade even though it was 11am! Everyone else had full fat coke, I told the kids they could eat and drink what they want for 2 weeks so they will pick sugary drinks all the time as they are banned at home!

The menu was the one I thought it was and hadn't changed after all so I got my pesto pasta and it was pretty nice, dd had kids meal and ate the tomato pasta and mini cheddars but doesn't like fruit strings. Ds had adult meal of chicken & mash and predictably didn't touch anything so he ate my boots cheese & ham sandwich that I bought for him really anyway and some pringle's. Cecil had the chilli and ds meal. I bought babybels in airport for my meal deal and we had them on our crackers rather than the garlic soft cheese. I had a blue innocent juice drink to feel healthy.

Cecil actually ate the afternoon tea roll which was a surprise as he hates garlic and pesto, he didn't want mine though. We all shared plain ham and plain cheese boots sandwiches, pringle's and strawberry jaffa cakes which I didn't picture. I ate mine and dd scone and had an amarula. We also had a solero which was meh, bring back fab virgin!

In my first post I told you about the rain and lightening when we arrived in Florida so I'll get straight to the food! We found and hotel and its nicer than I thought, room is basic but i asked for kids suite so that have bunk beds and a third bed in a partition so feels like a bedroom and much better than us all in 2 queen beds in 1 room! Ds keeps popping his head above wall when on top bunk and scaring me though! I'm very jumpy!
They left us a gift which was nice, theres about 15 flavours of taffy in the box!

We were all exhausted but hungry so we went to the nearest restaurant which was denny's. We ate at denny's first the last time we came. The service was super slow, not what you want after hours of travel! I had the $9 special of steak, eggs and hash brown. It was really good, I just had water.

Dd had chicken tenders... please get used to this image it will be repeated!

Ds and Cecil both had burgers which were dripping with grease... eww. They had onion rings and Cecil got a side of bacon tater tots which dd ate. Dd and Cecil went full sugar coke once again and ds had lemonade, its v strong over here but hes always loved lemon things!

Well that's arrival day done, I will be back soon to post foods pics from yesterday, day 1 at islands of adventure!, I'm off to shake family awake to start day 2 😁
Thanks for reading!