Rob & Lisa's There & Back Again - Pre Travel Day September 2015

[babybear11]

4th September 2015

Index
Pre Travel Day

Hello dibbers, so we have been back about 38 weeks now and I think it’s about time I get on with this, our very first trip report.
We both had an awesome time and met a lovely couple, who you all know and who is the person who inspired me to write this trip report, and also gave me some pointers on how not to write it and has been constantly moaning about getting it started.

Although my excuse is that we have both been busy with work since we came back.

So without further ado, here we go.

So this morning I was up at 5:45am, I had a lot of cleaning to do and some last minute bits to finish off, luckily I had the day off work. Lisa was not so lucky as she had a full day of work to get through, she however did not get up till 6:50am, I made her a coffee and she was ready to go by
7:30am, although I had to practically force her out the door.

Just before Lisa got in the car I noticed that the dust caps were missing, remembering that I had filled up and put air in the tires the night before, and put the caps on the air pump unit and left them (Oh, how we laughed). So Lisa bless her, on her way to work popped into the garage and got some more, although not before asking if anyone had handed any in, although no one had, so she begrudgingly paid about 50p for some more, well we are from Yorkshire!

With Lisa gone, I could now relax, oh no wait she had left me a long list of things to do and even color coded it for me.

During the mass exodus of cleaning, I went outside to feed the cat, but noticed her in the corner shaking, so I brought her in for a while to keep warm and have a little snuggle.
I was getting really excited about the holiday and had Orlando Sky Radio playing most of the morning.

Feeling rebellious, I deviated from the cleaning rota a few times, for example I had lunch at 1pm.
At 3.30 I was all done with the cleaning, the fridge was set in holiday mode and all electronics had been unplugged. Lisa arrived back from work at 3:45pm a whole hour early. She parked the car in the back garden where we both played Tetris with the luggage.

With everything checked, locked, turned off and stroked we left at 4:45pm but not before doing the obituary selfie of the countdown calendar.

We had decided we would stop off at the York Outlets for our dinner on the way to Manchester airport, mainly because we knew where it was and that it had both a Subway and Starbucks. We got to the outlet at around 5:45pm and I went in to get food while Lisa stayed with the car to keep an eye on our luggage.

We ate our food in the car, I had the 6” steak & cheese with a Frappuccino while Lisa had the 6” turkey club and a coffee. The food was good and a nice change from the rabbit food that we had been eating for the past year. So feeling 3 stone heavier we get back on the motorway and headed to Manchester, I think it was about 6.20pm at this point.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, Lisa was fairly quiet only piping up occasionally to help me with my driving, which of course I thanked her for.

We pulled up outside the Radisson Blue at 7.45pm with no clue where to park. Lisa got out and asked someone and we were told to take the car round the back, so we decided we would unload all the luggage and Lisa would stop with it, whilst I parked the car. Once back we made our way up to the reception desk and checked in, we decided to upgrade to a business suite to treat ourselves which was an extra £50, which isn’t that bad I thought as it came with the use of the business lounge until 9pm for free drinks and canapés and a free buffet breakfast, which we would need for the full day ahead.

We had to fill in a form for our car and when it asked for our Reg we both looked at each other but couldn’t remember the last 3 letters. (It’s a year old), we both decided to sort it out later as we wanted to get to Thomas Cook Sundown priority check in to check in our hold luggage.

Terminal 3 was easy to find and about a 10 minute walk from the Radisson, when we got there the check in queue was almost empty, in fact there was only one other couple in front of us. The bloke took our passports, asked us a few questions weighed our hold bags which were well under weight, but didn’t bother weighing our carryon, which I though was strange. While he was tapping on the computer we did notice a plastic carrier bag in the middle of the floor unattended but we decided not to say anything, should of really but didn’t want the airport to close for a week, while it gets investigated. In all check in only took us about 10 minutes so quick and easy.

By this time, we were getting a bit hungry so we walked / ran/skipped back to the Radisson to the business lounge to sample their food and drink before it closed at 9pm. As we got into the lift to take us up to the business floor a Radisson worker was just getting in, and when he asked us what floor we told him business, so he asked again and we repeated business, he did not seem to believe us and glanced at our room keys and said oh okay, (yeah we are on holiday and treated ourselves get over it).

Anyway we made it back in time and it wasn’t closing for another 45 mins, but there was no food, well I lie there where peanuts and fruit, but nothing else. So upgrading isn’t looking good at the moment.

We both had a virgin Bacardi and coke and sat and had a chat about our exciting adventure ahead. We decided not to stay long as we had a long day tomorrow so we headed back to the room before we remembered we had to sort the car parking situation out, so we both headed back to reception where I ran to the car to take a picture of the car reg, ran back and carried on filling in the paperwork, then it asked us what our millage was (wish I read the form fully beforehand). So I had to run back to the car and take another picture, paperwork finally completed we handed it in along with our keys.

Went back to the room to get settled in for the night we both had a shower, which was like standing under a leaky tap it was so rubbish.

We got into bed and watched big brother USA on Lisa’s iPad, after we tried to go to sleep, however we both found we could not sleep as we were excited about tomorrow, so Lisa read on her 1000 watt kindle (Wizzo knows only too well what I mean by that).

Step count brought to you by FitBit


Thank you all for reading, and I hope you stick with us….

[Happyhaunt1000]

I would normally say 'Great start'... but colour coded cleaning lists, nuts and fruit and no proper food in the lounge... it all sounds like a shaky start, but i know it gets better.

Glad to see youve finally made a start on getting this posted. I know how daunting it can be writing/editing/posting your first TR. I look forward to reading more.

[babybear11]

Originally Posted by Happyhaunt1000

I would normally say 'Great start'... but colour coded cleaning lists, nuts and fruit and no proper food in the lounge... it all sounds like a shaky start, but i know it gets better.

Glad to see youve finally made a start on getting this posted. I know how daunting it can be writing/editing/posting your first TR. I look forward to reading more.

See more...

Hi Happyhaunt1000
Thanks for reading, it is very daunting writing a trip report and I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I like writing it.

Yeah, the colour chart worked a treat and the lack of food in the lounge did annoy us, but we didn't let it get to us...