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Old 15 Jun 19, 04:55 PM  
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anji
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Road Trip round New England in the Spring, not the Fall! Day 1 - Travel Day

Day 1 – Travel Day

13th May – the day we GO! Our flight to Boston wasn’t until 4.10pm with Norwegian from Gatwick so we had plenty of time with no need for the usual overnight stay.

This worked out well as friends had invited us round for breakfast at 8.30am and the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones! Not your usual start to a holiday but had to be done and we were all open mouthed at Dany’s dragon-fire exploits! She kindly did full English after the show and we left there about 10.30am for the journey up to Gatwick.

The journey up was uneventful traffic-wise (I have a dread of being stuck for hours and missing a flight). This time we were using I Love Meet & Greet. They had come out best price and also seemed highly recommended, so gave them a go. I called when we were 10 minutes away and a lovely man was there waiting for us when we arrived at the South Terminal drop off area. Couldn’t have been easier and I hoped the return would be the same!

We went to check in at the Norwegian kiosk and my boarding pass wouldn’t print out, only Will’s. Last time this happened it was because we hadn’t updated his ESTA to match his new passport (THAT was a panic!) but I knew mine was ok. Turned out I had been randomly selected for security checking at every opportunity! We checked in at the desk and dropped off the cases and headed for security with my boarding pass in my hot little hand.

Security wasn’t busy at all and we were soon through – not before I had the full pat down etc. We had our traditional Starbucks and browse around before settling down for a bit of reading. This was when Will then realised he’d left his reading glasses in the car, so a quick trip to Boots ensued and glasses were bought for £18. Turned out he loves them more than his usual prescription and expensive ones!

We had priority boarding for the flight – no idea how as I’m positive I didn’t pay for it – and were called onto the plane in very good time. I was called aside again for extra questioning. We ended up taking off at 4.35pm in our pristine, new Dreamliner. A beautiful plane and I loved the window dimming feature (little things!...). I had chicken with mash and veg and Will had the beef – both ok – and we were later served a snack of roll and cake before landing. The inflight entertainment was good and the touch screen excellent. Not such a huge choice as BA or Virgin but up to date. I watched Can You Ever Forgive Me (good film and a true story) as I’d seen a lot of the newer ones already and don’t like films on planes that really need to be on big screens! Also a documentary about the Olympic National Park in Washington State, Modern Family and the sky map (which was amazing in its features), read my book and looked out at the ice over Canada. The sunshine here turned to cloud as we got nearer and we knew we were in for 2 days of cold and rain.

We landed at 6.10pm local time in Boston. Unfortunately, we landed seemingly at the same time as another plane from Japan and the lines were massive – both for the scanning and for the nice man at the desk. This took an hour to get through. We headed for baggage reclaim and saw one of our cases and grabbed it. They were still loading the bags on, so we’d have had to wait a long time anyway. Sadly the other case was one of the last out!

By this time it was getting dark and also raining. We headed to the bus transfer to the car rental and arrived quickly at the Budget desk. Very impressed – friendly, helpful and no upselling and sent off to our spot in the parking garage. We had booked a small SUV but ended up with a big Dodge Journey. First thing we had to do was put down the 3rd row of seats to get the baggage in!

I’d downloaded the map to our hotel in Danvers (about 20 miles north) offline on Google. Google decided to take us a different way to the straightforward route I’d envisaged! I took us through the tunnels and we were in them for ages. We ended up just following it as it was dark and pouring now. Will doesn’t normally do the night driving but I always to major navigation and it was quite an interesting drive! Half an hour later we arrived at the Best Western Plus North Shore and breathed a sigh of relief.

Easy check in and the kind receptionist said our room was well away from the big group of school kids who arrived just after us by coach! We grabbed some of the free cookies and headed to our room. The room was huge with two very big and comfortable beds. We ate the cookies and our some of our stash from home after deciding not to go out again in the rain!

We lasted until 10pm (3am UK time) and then hit the pillows – long day! Sorry no photos today so I’ll leave you with a photo of Pepper, our cat who was residing from the evening before in her cat hotel for the duration. Was really odd at home without her.


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Seattle to San Francisco
Road Trip Florida 2017
New England Road Trip 2019
Florida Road Trip 2022
Canada/Pacific NW Road Trip 2022
Cyprus Chill week May 2023
Road Trip California & Arizona 2023

Edited at 05:00 PM.
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Old 15 Jun 19, 05:28 PM  
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jocat
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A smooth travel day and a great start to your trippie.

I always get pulled for the extra security too - it always makes me a bit panicky when I can’t check in online. I’ve just had a new ESTA though so am hoping I’ll avoid it in the future.
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Old 16 Jun 19, 05:55 AM  
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Melbatb
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Glad the travel day went smoothly. Immigration at Boston seems so hit and miss. DH and the two kids took over an hour last year. I arrived on the same flight two days later and it only took 10 minutes!
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2016 Quebec - Kuala Lumpar - New York City 2017 Dubai - Eurocamps France - Ontario and Quebec - So-Cal 2018 Montreal - Bangkok - New England 2019 Argentina - Quebec City - Hong Kong - 2020 Switzerland 2022 Arizona - Costa Med Cruise - Oslo 2023 Hong Kong - Gothenburg
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Old 16 Jun 19, 05:20 PM  
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Libby
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I'm enjoying your report. Can't say I'm envious of a dark drive in the rain, I hope the weather brightens up for you.
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Old 16 Jun 19, 08:16 PM  
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anji
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Originally Posted by Libby View Post
I'm enjoying your report. Can't say I'm envious of a dark drive in the rain, I hope the weather brightens up for you.
Thank you! Good weather coming
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Seattle to San Francisco
Road Trip Florida 2017
New England Road Trip 2019
Florida Road Trip 2022
Canada/Pacific NW Road Trip 2022
Cyprus Chill week May 2023
Road Trip California & Arizona 2023
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Old 16 Jun 19, 08:53 PM  
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disney owl
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long travel day
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Old 8 Jul 19, 07:22 AM  
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WileyCoyote
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Hurrah you made it. Looks like we have the checks to look forward to as our reservation with Norwegian already says no online check in . Deep joy !
Glad the flight went ok . Hope the rain buzzes off .
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Old 8 Jul 19, 08:14 AM  
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katiebaz
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A good start although the drive in the dark and rain didn’t sound fun! Look forward to reading along
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Old 31 Mar 20, 10:06 PM  
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collybird
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Hi Anji!

We have something of a road trip around the North East planned for this year so I thought I’d find out how you got on. I am very impressed you managed without a sat nav, for the first time ever I’ve included one in our car hire booking. How did you find the driving? I am very nervous about us driving somewhere less used to tourists than Florida, and also the fact we’ll be in much more built up areas than we are used to.
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Old 1 Apr 20, 12:25 PM  
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anji
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Originally Posted by collybird View Post
Hi Anji!

We have something of a road trip around the North East planned for this year so I thought I’d find out how you got on. I am very impressed you managed without a sat nav, for the first time ever I’ve included one in our car hire booking. How did you find the driving? I am very nervous about us driving somewhere less used to tourists than Florida, and also the fact we’ll be in much more built up areas than we are used to.
Hi! We've used Google Maps on my phone for a few years now and find it 98% fine. Just download the maps over wifi and then store them. You can then use them when you're not online, so it doesn't use your data up. I was trying to do it each evening when we had wifi as the area was so vast - I did have an epic fail when I forgot one day! I then just looked at the map and worked out where we were and had to go by the moving dot!

The only hairy time was coming out of Boston airport in the dark and rain, but once we got on the right road we were fine and the rest of the trip was a breeze. New England has surprisingly little traffic apart from around Boston. We often drove for miles without seeing another car.

We didn't use the car in Boston and returned it to the airport before checking into our Boston hotel for the last few days. You don't need a car there to get around and parking is expensive!

Enjoy the rest of the trip report and ask any questions!
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Index to all trip reports here https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho...3#post15913083
Seattle to San Francisco
Road Trip Florida 2017
New England Road Trip 2019
Florida Road Trip 2022
Canada/Pacific NW Road Trip 2022
Cyprus Chill week May 2023
Road Trip California & Arizona 2023
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