A Universal Adventure February 2020 - Day 0: Travel to Gatwick and Giraffe

[moosha]

Day 0 - Friday 14th February 2020

My alarm was set for 5 am which is actually only 45 minutes earlier than my usual weekday alarm unfortunately (the joys of having a child who goes to grammar school 20 miles away from home.)

Speaking of said child, Seren had been out late the previous night at her boyfriend’s house and didn’t get home until 10.45 pm. This was the reason for my extra early start today as I needed to drag her out of bed to do the things she hadn’t done the night before (shower, packing her bag) since there wouldn’t be time later. She wasn’t exactly in my good books because of all this but she got everything done. I got Freya up ten minutes earlier than usual at 5.45 am so she could wash her hair. Everything ran smoothly considering there was loads to do and it was so early. Mat was working from home today so he was around doing things he needed to do too (basically trying to fit his usual 10 hour workday into about 6 hours.)

The girls and I were ready to leave at 7.10 am as usual. Seren had accidentally left her school blazer at her boyfriend’s the night before and she was worried she wouldn’t be able to get on her school bus without her bus pass which was in her blazer. They had a new driver who had been checking passes every day. I agreed to drive her to school instead which was annoying as it’s so far but I knew if we left now the traffic wouldn’t be as bad as if she waited to see whether she was allowed on the bus or not. Still, teenagers . Because Mat was home he was able to drive Freya to school (her school is less than ten minutes drive from home thankfully) and he got on with his work once he was back.

The traffic wasn’t bad and I was back before 8.30 am thank goodness as I also had a lot still to do and only half a day to do it. I got showered and did the rest of the packing. I always leave things until the last minute and then have a massive panic, and I did worry at about 10 am that I just wasn’t going to have time to get it done. But then there’s that point where it all comes together and I can finally relax which happened sometime after 11 this morning.

Mat dropped the cats at the cattery mid-morning which Stitch was not happy about. He ran away and hid a couple of times (in the house) so it took both of us a good few minutes to retrieve him and get him in his box.

Because of a lack of photos in the first half of today's report, here is a picture of my Hogwarts Houses themed nails which I'd had done the previous day. They didn't quite go to plan as my fab nail lady Sophie who's done my nails for years and done all my Disney nail art ran into problems with the nail tape she got for the stripes (the stuff was a nightmare) so it took way longer than it should have and the result wasn't perfect but you get the idea.



I received this quickly drawn folded A4 paper Valentine's card during the morning after giving Mat his card and him saying 'Oh I didn't think we were doing Valentine's Day this year' (we've done it every year for the last 19 but ok .)



I had lunch at 12 pm (Mat was still working) and then I had to drive the 20 miles back over to Seren’s school to collect her at 1.30 pm as she had a ‘dentist’ appointment. The previous year, we had all set off from where Seren’s school is (slightly closer to Gatwick) at 3.30 pm when she finished but it had taken three and a half hours to get to Gatwick being the Friday before half term, which was super stressful (it’s a 90 minute drive on a good day.) So we had decided to collect both girls a little early and get a head start.

I was super excited on that drive over as it felt like the holiday could now start. On the way back to collect Freya, we got caught in a bit of traffic and got stuck at the level crossing in the next village to ours which meant by the time we met Freya at her school reception at 2.18 pm her first words to us were a rather stern ‘You’re late’ (three minutes). Typical Freya.

Ten minutes later we were home and the girls did the quickest change of clothes I have ever seen them do. Mat had pretty much only finished work and had been getting his stuff together just before we got home. While I was basically running around shooing everyone out of the door, Mat put the cases in car (of course after saying ‘they don’t fit’ as he does every year before then managing to get them in fine.)

The girls and I were ready and in the car waiting for Mat to finish faffing (he was getting changed) and we hit the road at 3 pm. We’re five minutes from the M1 and like I said, getting to Gatwick should take 1.5 hours but we haven’t experienced that quick a journey in the last two trips to Florida. As well as last February’s epic journey, in 2018 I think it took about two and a quarter hours, so we weren’t overly optimistic about a quick journey today, but at least having left early it hopefully wouldn’t be too late by the time we arrived.

Mat was stressing a bit about the purple parking confirmation as I couldn’t find it on either of our phones. After about an hour of the drive I checked again and found it on my phone so we knew the arrangements for when we arrived.



There was a lot of traffic. We ate Colin the Caterpillar sweets and enjoyed the tunes (apart from Mat who doesn’t like 90% of the music the girls and I listen to because he’s an old fart.) This is probably a good opportunity to share the holiday playlist:











The weather was a bit grim. The traffic was bad. Seren read and both girls played BitLife on their phones and texted friends. Did I mention there was a lot of traffic?

My Instagram story from the journey:



Nearly there:



Yay:



We arrived at 5.40 pm so two hours 40 minutes. Not great but at least better than last year. I had pulled up the instructions for Purple Parking meet and greet at the south terminal on the email confirmation and we found where to go with no problems. It’s in a multi-storey connected to the terminal. It was all pretty familiar as we had done the same the previous year. I would definitely recommend the Purple Parking meet and greet; it’s easy and convenient, the staff are helpful and it’s reasonably priced. We paid something like £68 for nine nights and a return taxi was coming out at £150.

We pulled into a space and Mat went over to the guy with the confirmation on my phone but as he got out of the car he realised it was for our 2019 booking. We really couldn’t find this year’s confirmation but luckily I had seen the payment on the credit card statement a few days before so I didn’t panic as I knew it was booked. Even more luckily the guy was able to find the booking on the system. We were all done in a few minutes and headed in to the elevators.

We went up to level three and checked in at the Bloc hotel which took literally a few seconds. The lady was friendly and efficient and Freya was happy that there was a pot of chocolate hearts on the counter for guests. She took two pretending that one was for her sister who can’t eat stuff like that now she’s vegan.

Our room was located on floor eight so we headed up in the lift. We had stayed here once before in 2018 when we’d booked two rooms: a king for Seren and I and a bunk bed room for Mat and Freya. We’d got a good deal and paid about £200 for the two rooms. This year I’d decided to book just one family room with a king bed and bunk bed to save money. It was £134.10 booked via Expedia with probably 6% cashback with Quidco. Booking just one room meant we had half the total space we’d had last time and I’m not sure why I hadn’t really realised that. Maybe because it was a ‘family room’ with an extra bed I expected more space. But it was basically the same room as I’d had with Seren in 2018 except the large counter area down one side of the room which had been so handy to store our suitcases on last time was now a bunk bed. So there was nowhere to store our three cases. The room:



It was also at this point that I realised I had brought my California (August 2020) planning notebook rather than my Florida planning notebook which I was also going to use to write my trippie notes in. Useful. So instead I would need to write the notes on my phone. This has definitely sped up the process of getting the report written as my ‘notes’ are basically the report (I don’t do bullet points). It also meant we had to rely on email confirmations and text reminders for our restaurant bookings during the week and use the Universal website for park hours (which had changed anyway but we’ll get to that.) Not a problem at all.

Bunk beds:





For now I got out the packing cubes we would need for tonight (pyjamas etc) and our change of clothes for tomorrow which were also in a packing cube together, as well as our wash-bags so we wouldn’t have to rummage when we got back later. Once I’d done that, the plan was to just go straight back out to Giraffe which is just to the left of the hotel and worry about how to store the cases later. We were expecting the terminal to be busy like it had been the year before but it was really quiet in Giraffe.





I ordered a Bramble Garden which was gin, apple juice, raspberry and soda as far as I can remember. When it came it literally tasted of soda. It was disgusting. Mat is my ‘drink sampler’ when I don’t think my drinks are right and he agreed, he said there was no gin in it. He told the guy that and he took it back. They brought me a new one and I could taste the alcohol but it was still pretty sour. Mat had a whiskey cooler and Seren had a pineapple punch smoothie. Freya had a pineapple juice which Seren drank.





To eat Mat had the spicy rice bowl with tofu. He got a green salad on the side. Freya had fish fingers, chips and beans from the kids’ menu. Seren wanted the flatbread without cheese but it’s already prepared (i.e. a frozen pizza) so they couldn’t do it. Instead she just had fries. I had jackfruit curry with a side of healthy greens (kale spinach broccoli.) Unfortunately I was a bit out of practice and forgot to photograph the food until it was half eaten so imagine this but more of it:



Mat's spicy rice bowl:



My curry:





The curry was disappointing. It was mostly loads of plain rice, quite a bit of plain jackfruit and a tiny bit of sauce. It was also a much smaller portion than Mat’s. I had proper food envy and wished I had ordered what Mat had. Freya had the kids’ chocolate brownie, Seren had the vegan apple crumble with vegan ice cream which was really good. She had said she would share with Mat and I but we both got a tiny taste and then she scoffed the lot. Although to be fair she hadn't had a main meal.





We had a good time chilling out, being excited about the holiday and taking photos with Snapchat filters. There were Valentine's filters which were fun:

















Continued below...

[moosha]

...continued

I think we were excited:





We’d had good meals at Giraffe at Gatwick in 2018 and 2019 so it was a shame that today was so disappointing. Might look for an alternative next time as it was definitely the worst meal of the trip (thank goodness.)

I do like the walls in here (definitely nicer than the food) :



When we left the restaurant we went downstairs and got some bits from Boots (I needed some nail base/topcoat) and some snacks and drinks from M&S. We got a canned cocktail for Mat and I because we’re classy like that (whisky and ginger for him, gin and diet tonic for me), some water and some more Colin The Caterpillar sweets as I’d left them in the car and we wanted some from the drive across from Tampa to Orlando the following day. We also got a big bag of salt and vinegar crisps for the three normal people in the family who like crisps and some dried apricots for Seren.

There were quite a few people walking about in the terminal with masks on to try and protect against Coronavirus which was a bit .

The plan now was to go to the Hampton by Hilton bar because we quite like it in there.





We took the train to the North Terminal and it was really quiet over there. The bar was also really quiet thankfully; we’ve been there before when it’s been really busy. Hampton was plan A, if it had been really busy we would have tried one of the other hotel bars which would have been more expensive I expect and it’s quite chill at the Hampton so we were glad we didn’t have to try somewhere new. Mat had two vodka and tonics, I had two gin and tonics and we all got tap waters.



I think Seren was tired:





We had brought some music trivia cards from home and we played that adults against children. It was really fun. Freya and I scoffed the crisps while we played and drank. Are these not just the best crisps in the world?:





We got the train back and took some family lift selfies:



Hanging out in our spacious room:





Everyone got ready for bed. We managed to store the smallest suitcase under the bed but the other two were piled up in front of Seren’s face by the bunk bed as there was really nowhere else to put them. So she was kind of hiding behind the cases:



It was quite funny being in such a small space all together really. The girls got into bed and were asleep at 11. Mat drank both cocktails as I didn’t want mine because it tasted of chemicals, I think because it was diet tonic so artificial sweeteners. I got into bed and started notes but fell asleep within a few minutes.

[Tinkermom]

Lovely if not busy Pre travel day, wow that hotel room is cosy but looks like fun!

[moosha]

Originally Posted by Tinkermom

Lovely if not busy Pre travel day, wow that hotel room is cosy but looks like fun!

See more...

Yep it’s definitely cosy Probably better suited to two people with less luggage but yeah it was fun! Thanks for reading and commenting

[mick]

A good pre travel day your room does look cosy

Joan

[Palm trees]

Sounds like a busy start but much more relaxed and fun as your day went on. I'm looking forwards to reading more of your report.

[sheluk]

I can sense the excitement in your writing (once the packing stress was over - HOW can you leave it to the day you leave I’d be having kittens )

Shame your meal wasn’t up to scratch, glad to hear there’s lots of great eats to come x

[DadToThree]

A busy day! That is a very snug hotel room

Looking forward to the rest of the trip report

[NewtoOrlando]

I was watching a vlog yesterday and I think they were on the same flight as you as were both moaning about the fire extinguisher situation haha. Tampa is such a nice airport to fly into. Sapphire falls looks like such a lovely hotel!

[Fuellady]

Such a busy day with the early start. I'm amazed you managed to stay up until after 11pm! Stressful start in the morning with school runs and packing etc., but it seems to have come together nicely after a while. Long run to the airport, but it seems you expected that anyway. Your hotel room looks nice, but it does seem a little snug for 4 . Not so great with the food at Giraffe, and slightly disappointing with the drinks too.