New England Road Trip - Day 1 Travel & Plymouth

[Libby]

New England Road Trip – Day 1 Travel & Plymouth
Friday 10th August

Travellers – Me (56)
DH (56)
DD (24)

Thursday sped by with a mixture of nerves and excitement. I was already off work as I work in a school so the packing was mostly left to me. Bt the evening the cases were in the hall all very under weight but the hand luggage was bursting at the seams with things we either needed on the flight or didn’t want to be parted with just in case our checked luggage went missing.

I had done the online check in earlier in the day and was relieved that our paid for seats were available but had a bit of a problem printing them. (I was only a little miffed when DH came in and simply switched the printer off and back on again and all worked fine – why didn’t I try that?)

Just to add to the excitement of the evening DD (24) decided to microwave some popcorn but left it popping to visit the bathroom. The first we knew about it was the smoke detector going off and the kitchen filling with brown smoke. Luckily no fire but the smell was awful.

The alarm was set for 6am but we didn’t sleep very well and were awake long before then which gave us plenty of time for a cup of tea before the taxi arrived at 7am. By 7.25 we were at terminal 5 at Heathrow wondering what to do until bag drop opened at 8.15. (I was convinced that bag drop would open 4 hours before the flight, but not this time.)

Once we could check in the self service bag drop worked well. Our cases weighed 10,12 and 15kg (probably a good thing as DD has a long shopping list this year.)

Security was very quick and I was just feeling smug about not setting off any alarms when DH pointed out that my hand luggage had been side tracked for extra checks. It took 20 minutes for a human to check my bag on screen – she couldn’t see anything that looked suspicious so took my almost empty liquids bag away for extra analysis. Nothing was found to be wrong but at least we were near the Harry Potter shop so DD could browse while she waited for us.

As we head off downstairs to find breakfast I bumped into a friend from work who was on her way to Scotland. We didn’t know that we were both travelling on the same day.

We had breakfast at Weatherspoons and were very impressed with it especially as they do breakfasts in different sizes.

After a quick look around the shops we headed off to the C gates via the little train. There’s not much once you get to terminal C so we were glad we had eaten. As we were travelling on an Airbus 380 there were lots of passengers milling around.

We were in the last group to board the plane and made our way to the exit row seats. My only disappointment of the seat selection was that it looked as though we would be near toilets but they weren’t available to us as a curtain and rope kept them for the Club World passengers. It turned out to be a good thing as plenty of toilets at back of plane and no one queuing in our leg room space.
(The plane doesn’t feel big once you are inside. I didn’t look upstairs as we had wanted 3 seats together and there is a 2-4-2 configuration up there.)

The flight was good, food OK and entertainment choices very good. We were given customs forms to fill in for each family. We exited the plane very quickly as there were 2 exit ramps.

We weren’t sure which immigration queue to get into at Boston but decided on the “New Passports” line as DD had had a new passport since her last US visit.

Immigration was fairly quick. We spent the 20 minutes wait chatting to a French lady in the queue. The official we saw was polite but not particularly friendly.

Our luggage came on 2 different carrousels but we managed to find it all. Our carefully filled in customs form was never collected.

Once outside it was easy to find the bus to the car hire garage. A recorded announcement on the bus warned us there are no cash tolls in Massachusetts and we would need to get a toll pass from the car rental firm. We did buy the break down cover too – it was about $7 a day – something we would never consider at WDW but we would be driving a long way over the next 10 days and it seemed a good price for the peace of mind it would give us.

We had booked GPS and the lady at the counter tried to get us to upgrade to car with inbuilt GPS but they were much bigger than we wanted. So with a Garmin GPS in hand we made our way up the escalator to the Alamo area. (All the car hire firms seem to be at the same multi-story car park.)

We were ready to tip the garage attendant but he just pointed to a row of 3 cars and told us to make our choice – no help whatsoever. DH wanted to have the Ford Fusion as the US Fusion is very similar to the Mondeo he drives at home. When we got closer we discovered that it was a petrol/electric hybrid so a lot of the boot space was taken up with the battery etc. We were checking to see if the luggage fitted before deciding which car to take when another family came along and drove off in one of the cars. Luckily our luggage fitted so we stuck with the Fusion.

We left the airport at about 3.45 and headed south to Plymouth. We’re used to the M25 but the drive out of Boston was very busy through the tunnel and we were glad when we were further away from Boston and the traffic began to thin.

We arrived at the Best Western Cold Spring at 5.15. We were about a mile from the centre of Plymouth so quite walkable. After a quick check in we decided to head into town. I had read somewhere that on the first 4 Fridays in August the locals have a little parade in honour of the Mayflower pilgrims. The participants are chosen to represent the ages and gender of the people who landed.

As we arrived at the rock (more a large pebble as so much has eroded or been chipped off it over the years) we could hear drums and very soon saw the parade. We could have followed it but we were very tired now so we just stopped and watched it pass us – a nice start to our holiday in New England.

After this we headed back to the hotel and drove to a nearby McDonalds for grilled chicken sandwiches. Then it was back to the hotel where we tried to stay awake for as long as possible but we all gave in at 9pm and were soon asleep.

[anji]

Been looking forward to reading this report! Great first day xx

[MichelleS]

We have been looking forward to reading your trip report,good travel day

[Melbatb]

Ahh - we saw the tail end of this when we were in Plymouth the following week!

We were underwhelmed with the rock!

[gtown]

Great start. How does the toll pass work? Do you pay in advance or when returning the car?

[Libby]

We paid for the pass when we picked up the car but had to leave credit card details and expect the tolls to show up on our next cc bill.

[mouli1]

we were shocked by the size of plimouth rock , expected it to be much bigger , as you say more of a large pebble

[jocat]

Not a panic at all with the smoke alarm then! Glad it all turned out ok.

Sounds like a smooth travel day. The parade now makes sense of the photos in Mel’s trip report.

[Ridersmom]

We have Thanksgiving in Plymouth (my second son and his family live at the Tidmarsh Wildlife Sanctuary where his wife is director), Last year my 3 year old grandson was very, very unimpressed with Plymouth Rock. I remember the good old days when you could do up to the rock. The cage and position of the cage really does not do it any good, other than keeping hands off.

[klr15]

Really good read! I’d love to do a New England road trip one day!