One week trip at two weeks notice - pre-travel and travel day

[The A team]

24th/25th May – Pre travel and travel

It was work as normal today for me and Dave and the girls still had no idea that we were going on holiday. I was extremely excited and just hoping that my parents would not let anything slip, we’d had to tell them as they were looking after the dog for the first half of our trip.

Amelia was still a little bothered that I wouldn’t let her go on a school trip to Hay on Wye tomorrow (Friday) but managed to justify it again and she reluctantly accepted it. Side note – her whole year were eligible to try for a place but there are only 15 places for the 300 or so in her year so it wasn’t as if everyone except here were going.

Typically, my morning in work was quiet, but the afternoon I had clients booked in, many of who needed urgent work before I could leave. Dave also had a busy afternoon with interview feedback that he had to give / support those successful and not. We both managed to get out of work on time and I waited in the car around the corner from home for Dave to get closer so we could tell the girls together. We had to get in quick as Amelia was waiting to go to her dance lesson, which she was going to have to miss.

So once Dave was through the door (barely) I sat the girls down and told them that in 1.5hrs we were leaving for Bristol and then flying to Orlando in the morning! To say they were surprised and happy was an understatement. Amelia in particular was very emotional and kept bursting in to tears she was so overwhelmed, Niamh kept saying she couldn’t believe it and how hot she felt! I did record it, but understandably Amelia doesn’t want it online, but it is lovely to look back on.

As this was a surprise trip, there was very little packing that I had done, I had sectioned out the clothes I thought they’d want to take but the good weather meant that some we still in the drier from a last minute late night wash / dry.

This was how I’d planned what I thought they would take, I then had to put it away, photos meant at least I had a chance of grabbing the right stuff in a rush!

We were all packed and ready to leave around 7:20, just 2 hrs after telling the girls.

The journey to Bristol was simple and straight forward, we arrived at silver parking and had no trouble parking up. There was a shuttle bus waiting and it left as soon as we were boarded with just us on it. It was a quick trip to the terminal where we then had a short walk to the hotel. We were all checked in easily and soon settled into the room, by around 9:00. We watched TV, girls FaceTimed friends and then settled down to bed around 10/1030.

The girls went to sleep fairly quickly, Dave used his phone for a while longer and I lay still hoping to sleep. I wasn’t feeling too well for the first half of the night, too much excitement probably but I slept eventually.

We woke around 5:30 and despite trying to sleep a little more, this didn’t happen so we put the TV on at 6 and began slowly getting ready. Amelia suffers with nerves and feeling sick before we left the room, but as she gets older she is able to understand that this is just excitement and nothing to worry about so is better able to cope with it.

We left the room at 7:40 (flight was due to take off at 10:20). There was only a short wait to check in / bag drop, while we waited we were ‘chatted’ to by a man from security, he asked loads of questions in a very chatty way, where were we staying, what were we planning to do and directed questions at each of the children too, asking them about school and what they were looking forward to. When he was done, he put some stickers on our passports so I’m guessing this is now a standard thing. It didn’t hold us up at all as he did all this while we were in the queue for checking in and he was very friendly with it.

We had booked the fast track security (it was £3 each ish) so not too much so we thought we’d give it a go. It was really quick, whether this saved us much time I don’t know, it didn’t look that busy at the normal queue. Anyway, we were through by 8:05 with plenty of time before boarding, the gate was due to be announced at 9:30. We took our time wandering through duty free, visited Claire’s, got drinks etc. No one was particularly hungry due to early start and generally being slightly nervous / excited so we just ate the snacks I’d packed (brioche, cereal bars etc).

Our gate was announced roughly on time and was gate 15, this was a long walk away but we had plenty of time, we were boarded and seated by 10:05 on Mr Patmore.

I was sat next to Niamh with Dave and Amelia sat together in the row in front. Me and Niamh watched The Greatest Showman and Peter Pan (in sync with each other as insisted on by Niamh), we played some cards and then I watched The Shape of Water in stops and starts while Niamh read and played on the in flight entertainment.

We landed around 2:10 (US time, 7:10 UK time) we were through security by 2:30 but as we still had food left from the plane we declared this and had to wait for customs in a separate area. This seemed to take ages, they took Dave off to get the cases while we waited in this separate area then they put all our bags through a scanner and let us go. Although the wait felt ages it wasn’t really much longer than it would have been just waiting for luggage and we actually had seats so maybe it was a good idea to have food left over!

We were leaving the car park after collecting our car (we’d booked a Intermediate SUV and got a Chevrolet Equinox) which had around 4000 miles on it. Dave really liked driving this.

Need to take the photo to get the number plate otherwise I’d never find it in the car park.

We did intend to stop at Super Target on the way to the hotel, but as we reached the 192 having hit quite a bit of traffic, the girls were both needing the toilet, we were all feeling pretty tired too. We decided to just head to the hotel and pick up food for tonight there and use the resort shop for the essentials and visit a supermarket on the way back from the parks tomorrow.

I’d forgotten to print off an exact address for the hotel and our satnav hadn’t been updated in 13 months (I’d remembered to charge it, just not to update the maps) but we had a vague idea from what we’d looked at maps at home and luckily with The Grove being new, there were signs from the 192 anyway so we made it without any problems. Check in was easy and we were given room 1345 (Building 1, floor 3). Parking was inside, each building and floor has it’s own indoor parking in the multi-storey car park which is in the centre of the hotel, this means you park really close to your room – perfect when you have suitcases / shopping.

We entered the room around 6. It was lovely, really spacious. Our bed was massive, as were the bathrooms.

We were overlooking the front of the hotel (we had booked a courtyard view) and the fountain outside the main entrance, which you could hear in the night, I kept thinking it was raining when it was just the fountain!

There is also mesh covering the front of the balcony, great for keeping bugs out, rubbish for photos.

Quick review of the hotel – we found there to be little space to store food in the cupboards, they were all full of kitchen stuff, and some of the useful things – like cereal bowls – were really high in the cupboards which was annoying (they are in the cupboard above the microwave in the pic), we left these on the surface rather than putting away and squished things up in the cupboards to make a bit of space. We don’t really cook on holiday, it is mostly sandwiches and snacks so we were OK with this, but if you do like to cook properly this would be more of an issue.

We also found the seating in the lounge a bit small for when the 4 of us wanted to relax together, normally one of us would end up at the dining table or on the bed in our room with the door open, but it was really only a small issue.

While we were there, they only had around 150 of the rooms open and let as it is so new, they are expecting 900 to be occupied by the summer. This had both advantages and disadvantages. It meant that there was always loads of space at the pools and so we could always find longer anytime in the shade or sun, whichever we wanted at the time. It also meant that it was quiet around the resort so it lacked a bit of atmosphere and also that the food in the café type area looked like it had been there a while and not too appetising. I’m sure this will be very different when the resort is busier.

Anyway, back to arrival night. Dave and the girls went for a stroll around the resort and picked up some pizza for tea as well as some water and snacks for breakfast while I started unpacking. Once we had eaten, we were all feeling a little tired so played a few games of cards and headed for bed. The girls managed until 830 ish, and me and Dave were not far behind them.

[clochette]

Two weeks notice? Are you mad? I can't believe you packed in 2 hours - it takes me about 2 months, lol!

Great start, looking forward to reading more.

[mick]

Great travel day well done for keeping it a surprise


Joan

[Goldia]

How exciting, you're off on a fab adventure. I hope you had a great time and I can't wait to read all about it.

[Cinderella]

Great surprise!

[slow.jo]

What an exciting and unexpected couple of days for the girls!
Great start, looking forward to more.
Jo x

[Zomax25]

Wow, what a fab trip! I am so jealous of the quick plan. Thanks for sharing.

[Excitedx4]

Fab start! The hotel looks fab! Looking forward to more!

[The A team]

Originally Posted by clochette

Two weeks notice? Are you mad? I can't believe you packed in 2 hours - it takes me about 2 months, lol!

It usually takes me that long, I even impressed myself!

Great start, looking forward to reading more.

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Thank you

Originally Posted by mick

Great travel day well done for keeping it a surprise

Joan

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I'm glad I only had to keep it for 2 weeks, much longer and I would have broken

Originally Posted by Goldia

How exciting, you're off on a fab adventure. I hope you had a great time and I can't wait to read all about it.

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We really did have fun, feels so long ago now though

Originally Posted by Cinderella

Great surprise!

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It really was.

Originally Posted by slow.jo

What an exciting and unexpected couple of days for the girls!
Great start, looking forward to more.
Jo x

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Thank you, they still couldn't believe it when we arrived they were still so overwhelmed!

Originally Posted by Zomax25

Wow, what a fab trip! I am so jealous of the quick plan. Thanks for sharing.

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It was actually really nice (if a little stressful) to be such a short countdown

Originally Posted by Excitedx4

Fab start! The hotel looks fab! Looking forward to more!

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Yes, overall we were happy with it, especially for what we paid.

[collybird]

What an amazing surprise, the girls will be talking about it for years to come.