The 12 Days of Easter - Complete

[jemima2]

Exciting! i am loving food trippies and always wonder if anyone ( particularly here in the uk notice you taking pics of the food! ) all for our enjoyment! Hope you guys had safe travel day x

[theCMG]

Yes here safely thanks dismam and jemima, it was a very long gruelling travel day in the end but here now

[Jedi Princess]

Great pre-travel day.
Hope your travel day wasn't too bad.
Have a fabulous holiday. 😃

[jemima2]

Oh no why gruelling travel day?! ( get the long bit!) x

[theCMG]

Originally Posted by Jedi Princess

Great pre-travel day.
Hope your travel day wasn't too bad.
Have a fabulous holiday. 😃

See more...

Originally Posted by jemima2

Oh no why gruelling travel day?! ( get the long bit!) x

See more...

it was nothing too bad. More like a succession of minor things building up over the course of a long day - DD forgot something which we had to get brought over, smallish delay on flight, thought we could get into the lounge but couldn't, hassle getting the right room when we arrived etc. yo know how a very long day can magnify any of these things into a drama DW and I both like to be in charge so travel days are lively at the best of times.

Had a great first day at Universal with DD and will try to post something up later

[theCMG]

Breakfast at the Premier Inn, Gatwick

Slightly disappointing start to the day with a text that the flight was delayed 90 minutes. Never mind! Breakfast was the buffet at the North Terminal Premier Inn. Decent enough hotel and lots of breakfast choice, we didn't see Lenny Henry.

DD assembled a mini cooked breakfast and took an Apple juice and a yoghurt. She got to the plate before I did but I've hopefully edited out the worst of the damage (and started the food pic training).



DW was on healthier form - bacon with mushrooms, poached eggs, toast and orange juice followed by some fruit salad. Aesthetically only one winner here:




Me cooked breakfast, large espresso and a yoghurt - start as you mean to go on. No pic of this as made the cardinal sin of starting before taking the picture, basically 2x what DD had, including 2 sausages - more on these later. I'm the only one travelling cattle later so who knows when the next edible food will arrive.

For some reason many of the staff in the restaurant were youngsters wearing onesies which was a little weird. The breakfast itself was all pretty good apart from insanely sweet baked beans (which DD of course liked). A comprehensive breakfast spread with all the usuals and the cooked stuff all pretty fresh due to high turnover. DW's poached eggs were cooked to order taking @10 minutes. I got my last dose of HP sauce with breakfast before switching to the Elf-like portions of syrup (the Will Ferrell one not Legolas or Dobby) required with breakfast in Florida.

Next meals will be on the plane

[theCMG]

Lunch - BA world traveller

Having survived through normal lunchtime with some beef McCoys (the ones I'd refused last night) and diet coke it was time for a late lunch on the plane. Lunch options were Thai beef curry, veg tortellini or bangers and mash... Feeling the need to avoid dangerously high sausage levels after having them at dinner yesterday I figured I'd take a chance on the curry. Drinks wise it was a Bacardi and diet coke, not the manliest of choices, first in the section to choose (panicked!) when there was no real rum available and I didn't trust BA on the red wine.

DW and DD at this stage were living it up in premium economy so no photos here. They had paid me a brief royal visit while the in flight entertainment crashed and laughed at the fact the aircon had been dripping on my arm during takeoff. The things I do for my family

I entertained myself in the meantime by watching the end of the excellent Nightcrawler. This was a second attempt having run out of time watching it at the end of a recent flight (don't you hate it when you're trying to fit in the end of a film and they keep stopping it for announcements - I still don't know what happened at the end of Terminator 3! Anyway Nightcrawler was great, Jake Gyllenhaal superbly sinister.

Then the food showed up. Thai beef curry:



I've heard that Thai cooking uses 5 core flavours - salt, sweet, sour, hot and fish). I'm not sure this had any of them that said it tasted better than it looks and they even managed non crunchy rice which was a nice surprise on a plane. The bread roll was ok and the side salad of pasta, minted pea and feta could have used some dressing or different ingredients

The dessert was a millionaire shortcake in a pot. Now I love this in a cake, in a pot the concept feels flawed. This was ok, had the main elements if a little more mousse-like. Here's a taster:



Finished lunch with a cup of tea, driving at the other end.


Afternoon Snack - BA World Traveller

Chicken pesto sandwich and a mini Kit Kat came round. The boredom made me eat it



Not much pesto but ok sandwich and filled a gap created by seemingly being on a holiday eating pattern already. Had a cup of tea too.

Post flight I caught up with DD and DW who had been on more interesting sounding but less well documented options.

[theCMG]

Dinner for One at Sassagoula Floateorks

After a delayed landing and scenic route from the airport to Port Orleans as night fell we eventually made it to the French Quarter around 9. One of those draining travel days with no major disasters but lots of little irritants. We managed to get our Garden Grocer order dropped to the room (nice service), plus lots of water - not pictured:



I was still hungry lol and managed to see off a portion of chicken parm (chicken escalope in marinara sauce on spaghetti with a soft breadstick), water from the Sassagoula food court at POFQ and a blueberry muffin. I'd like to say I burnt off a load running around with suitcases but the step counter is only claiming 7600 which is poor, the change in time zone has thrown it a bit.



Chicken parmigiana was good, nice soft chicken on basic spaghetti pomodoro as I'd more normally call it,. This is classic US Italian comfort food, smaller portion than I was expecting but about right in all honesty. DD was eating a banana in the room as it was a little late for her but she'd have loved this. DW was not feeling great from the long day so also passed.

That ends a very long and calorific day. Tomorrow is the first of the 12 days proper and will feature Universal Studios.

[dismamx2]

All great, thanks for the update. Hope you are having a fantastic time

I presume you got Garden Grocer? Did you get it delivered to your room or delivered before you arrived and left with bell services? I'm thinking of ordering a few things but unsure which to do.

[Dancin]

Great report, looking forward to the rest. Hope you have a fantastic time

We are also looking into doing a Garden Grocer order as we will be at POFQ without a car and wanting a few things especially water. How long in advance did you do your order?

Sarah