A magical time on board the magic: Travel Day

[bambikate]

The intro and index can be found here

Travel Day
Thursday 23 September 2021
Travelling to London Tilbury and staying at Premier Inn

After the girls finished school and we finished work, we left our house, which was just after 4pm. We had already packed off the cat and dog to the pet sitter, packed our bags, got outfits out, filled up the fuel and the tyres in the car and turned everything off at home so as soon as we all finished with work and school we could go.

On our way!



A few miles in we hit our first hurdle, the sat nav was saying 4 hours (so 4 hours plus a break until we got there). The traffic in the neighbouring town to us was horrendous and it was at a total gridlock. We decided that rather than sit in it we would take a big detour so we were at least moving. The detour got us on the motorway within about 15 minutes, so I’m pretty sure we made the right decision.

The rest of the journey was fine, it felt really exciting to be driving to London on our way to some Disney fun.

We stopped at Starbucks en route. For drinks Andy had a venti latte with an extra shot, I had a PSL, Izzy had a cookies and cream Frappuccino and Immy had a water. For snacks Andy and I shared a lime and coconut cake and a s’mores brownie and the girls shared a chocolate chunk cookie, an Oreo brownie and a bag of kettle chips.













We continued our journey feeling sated (for now) with an eclectic mix of Disney music, hip hop, R&B, rock, pop, ballads and show tunes. Anything went really!

As it began to get dark we saw a beautiful orange sunset followed by the most brilliant bright orange moon, which we now know to be the Harvest Moon. My pictures look rubbish but it honestly looked ten times bigger and brighter in real life.






We stopped for a brief loo break and to stretch our legs about halfway and as we got to the end of the journey near Tilbury.

It was now totally dark and we were feeling a bit weary. Our sat nav said we were 3 minutes away but the turning it suggested made no sense so we used our instincts and then changed our minds and then took the wrong turning… we ended up on a motorway with no exits for miles so unfortunately added another 20 minutes onto our journey.

We eventually found the correct turning and saw the long awaited for glowing crescent moon of the Premier Inn sign. We made it!

We found a parking spot and rolled our luggage in to the lobby. It was now 9:38pm way later than we had planned to get there and we were all famished.

In hindsight, we should’ve just got a McDonalds en route but I booked it a number of weeks before and had already booked the meal deal to include dinner and breakfast as we tend to enjoy the premier inn dinners.

We checked in at reception at which point we were reminded by the greeting we got that we were now near London and people aren’t as friendly as down in little old Devon!

We told the lady we had a meal deal and she said we’d need to get our orders in by 10 as that’s when the kitchen closed.

After a pretty quick check in, our room number was written on a scrap of paper and wrapped around our keycard as they’d run out of key card folders. We quickly went down to our room which was on the ground floor to dump our bags and run to the restaurant.

As we got to the restaurant we waited to be seated as instructed by the sign. Someone eventually strolled over, I asked her if we could have a table and she looked at me turned around grabbed menus and walked away, she then turned to face us gesturing at the table and I realised that meant “yes of course, right this way! Here is your table!”

We sat down and ordered straight away as we’d already read the PDF menu in the car. Immy ordered first “can I have a pepperoni pizza please with….” “We haven’t got any pizzas.” Our server said. I could see the heartbreak in Immy’s eyes but she covered it well and opted for a cheeseburger and chips instead.

I mean, we had unlimited access to Pinocchios Pizzeria in less than 24 hours so it didn’t really matter. We all went for the cheeseburger option, I had a pinot and Andy had a pint of lager the girls had waters.





The tables had been painted brown and were really sticky (I think it was the chemicals of the cleaner reacting with the paint rather than being dirty (I hope!)) but it was still a bit off putting. There was one or two other tables of people in the restaurant but we were the only ones still eating.

Our drinks arrived and a few minutes later our burgers and chips too. To be fair the food was pretty good and better than we expected when we first walked in!





We weren’t massively hungry for dessert and as it had now passed 10pm we double checked if we could even order dessert. Our server confirmed we couldn’t as the kitchen was now closed.

Andy mentioned to them that we had the meal deal which included dessert and he asked if we could have another drink each instead of having dessert as the kitchen was closed to which they happily obliged. The girls and I had diet cokes and Andy had a glass of wine. We paid up (for the kids burgers only as kids meals aren’t included in the offer) and took our drinks back to our room.

On the way back we grabbed 4 chocolate bars from the vending machine and had these in our room. Izzy, Andy and I chose Snickers and Immy chose Malteasers.



Our room was on the ground floor and smelt a little musty but was OK. It wasn’t the best Premier Inn I’ve stayed at and I probably wouldn’t choose this one again but the other Tilbury one was sold out.

We sat in bed with our drinks and chocolate and watched some rubbish TV. We weren’t bothered about getting an early night as we didn’t have to get to the Port until lunchtime. We got ready for bed, got our morning outfits out and hit the hay.

Unfortunately, they only gave us one pillow each (including the spares) so we folded them over to try and get a bit of extra height. Andy managed to drift off almost instantly (as he always does) but the girls and I took a little longer - possibly the caffeine, possibly the bright TV just before bed, possibly the lack of pillows, possibly EXCITEMENT! Probably a combination of the four. (Side note - diet coke and TV just before bed isn’t the norm in our house by the way but we were on HOLIDAY! )

Next day: We embark the Disney Magic! I promise it's much more exciting and there are a lot more pictures than today's report!

[Lizzim]

A shame about the slightly stressful travel but you got there

I found our hotels on our trip were not quite up to the normal standards - I think they have definitely taken a hit with the whole covid effect… hopefully the industry bounces back.

[Briar Rose]

Yay! I've loved all your other trip reports in planning our first Florida trip so I'm happy to see another! As daft as it sounds, I think I like them because your daughters always sound so lovely and well behaved, its not stressful to read! Hope you had a great trip, can't wait to read more x

[Hmr89]

Love your trip reports! Your girls look so grown up now!

Sounds like a stressful time catching covid before going away but hopefully you all had a magical time once onboard

[Florida1972]

Lovely to read this, really enjoy your trip reports. Looking forward to reading all about your adventures 🙂

[bambikate]

Originally Posted by Lizzim

A shame about the slightly stressful travel but you got there

I found our hotels on our trip were not quite up to the normal standards - I think they have definitely taken a hit with the whole covid effect… hopefully the industry bounces back.

See more...

Thank you so much! I think it will - we stayed at a Premier Inn near Alton Towers a few weeks ago and the staff were brilliant and it was generally a lovely hotel so think it was just this one that wasn't great.

[bambikate]

Originally Posted by Florida1972

Lovely to read this, really enjoy your trip reports. Looking forward to reading all about your adventures 🙂

See more...

Ahh thank you so much - hope you enjoy it!

[bambikate]

Originally Posted by Briar Rose

Yay! I've loved all your other trip reports in planning our first Florida trip so I'm happy to see another! As daft as it sounds, I think I like them because your daughters always sound so lovely and well behaved, its not stressful to read! Hope you had a great trip, can't wait to read more x

See more...

Ahh thank you so much!

Aww haha - they definitely aren't always well behaved but overall they're pretty goo

Thank you hope you like it! x

[bambikate]

Originally Posted by Hmr89

Love your trip reports! Your girls look so grown up now!

Sounds like a stressful time catching covid before going away but hopefully you all had a magical time once onboard

See more...

Ahh thank you so much! Yeah they've changed so much recently!

We had a great time, thank you.

Hope you enjoy the report!