Liveish dining report (COMPLETE) - Foody with a chance of souvenirs

[4holibobs]

Originally Posted by eleele

Oooh, exciting to have a daily plan! I’m desperate to book our next trip so I can start the park/food/shopping plans

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Oh exciting! I get so much pleasure and excitement from the planning stages of a Disney trip… I tell DH it makes it even better value for money! 😂

Originally Posted by WIGGYSMUM

Your plans sound great , Debs trip reports were the best !
Looking forward to your report

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Yes I loved her trip reports… alllll the shopping too! Thanks so much 😊

[4holibobs]

To say I’ve been a nervous wreck the last few weeks about testing for this trip is an understatement… but here we are with a pre-travel day post!

I was awake at 2am this morning, then 4am before eventually getting up at 5.30am.

Our docHQ test was booked for 7.40am so we decided to eat beforehand so I could head straight into work after we had finished with the test and filling in all the BA forms, for a couple or hours.

DH made us a bacon sandwich on some fresh bread if bought from Tesco yesterday… it hit the spot and got the doggies noses sniffing 😂

Our tests were nagative (yay!) and as others have reported, weren’t very strict - we didn’t need to give a reference number from the kit so it could have easily been swapped out for a negative one.

Not quite believing we were actually going to Florida, I headed into work to finish off one last project so I could put it out of my mind whilst away.

I worked from 8.30am until 11.45am, and when we got home dropped the doggies off at their sitters. They ran straight in without even a look back at us!

We got home, packed up the car and were on the road for 1pm.

I’m not sure whether it’s the stress of work, testing and just not sleeping well recently but I felt absolutely shattered on the journey down to Gatwick, so at 2.50pm we stopped at the services for something to eat and drink hoping it would perk me up for the rest of the journey.

We both chose subway, 6 inch sandwiches on white bread (only white and tiger available). I had chicken, red onion, pepper and pickle with sweet onion sauce and DH had been with the same salad and sauce plus tomato. We both had them toasted with cheese. No receipt but they came to £9.50 for both.

Not quite satisfied with just the sandwich, DH picked up a latte from Starbucks (£4), I had a lucozade (told you I needed energy), a feast, and a Crunchie and DH had a boost. I also got some mints for the car. Total £9 ish.

We arrived at Gatwick at 5.35pm parking in short stay South in order to do bag drop for our 11am flight tomorrow. All very straight forward. We are travelling premium and had pre booked our seats, but the gentleman checking us in said the exit row was available if we wanted to swap to give us more room. We asked him if he wanted to see our completed documents, tests etc - he just shook his head no!

Having dropped the bags off we headed to Premier Inn Crawley to check in and freshen up. We called TGI Fridays 5 minutes away and booked a table for 7.30pm.

A nice straightforward drive to a leisure complex with cinema, bowling and lots of eateries, although the car park was packed!

We headed into TGI Fridays where there was one person serving behind the bar, one cleaning tables and no one else to be seen. There were around 10 tables full but none of them had food… after waiting for 5 minutes in the foyer and no one coming over to us we decided to leave and head to Wagamama.

We were seated quickly near the open kitchen. I ordered a large tropical juice and DH ordered a large power juice (spinach, apple, ginger).

We also ordered beef steamed buns, chicken gyoza, chicken yakitori to share, katsu curry for DH and a chicken teriyaki bowl for me.

We know the food comes out when prepared at Wagamama, but the service was VERY slow tonight and I waited an age for my main meal. We weren’t in any particular rush, but sat on high stools which weren’t very comfy.
However, the food was delicious as always.

DH ordered a pint to go with his main meal, again this took ages to come and only after he had chased it.

Apologies I had mixed mine before I remembered to take a photo 🤦🏻

As mentioned above, the food itself couldn’t be faulted, it was tasty, and hot - but the service was slow - obviously not enough staff on duty for the amount of customers.

The bill came to £59.45.

We’re now back in the room and DH is watching the England vs Germany match whilst I type up this report.

We have set our alarms for 6.15am tomorrow, with the aim of being showered and out of the room by 7am, at the airport and parked for 7.30am and in the duty free for some shopping before the lounge at 8am.

It still hasn’t really sunk in that we are travelling to Florida tomorrow. Think I had not let myself get excited in case we tested positive - probably much like everyone else on The Dibb, and now we are here on pre-travel day!

Anyway, enough rambling - I’ll see you tomorrow for travel day!

[Lizzim]

Great start and hopefully we’ll be chasing after you in a few days (fingers and toes crossed)!

[WIGGYSMUM]

Yay can’t believe it’s time for your report !
Our son said the same about his test on Saturday before his Sunday flight last week , I’m really hoping they will be disappearing soon
I love a little service stop off if we don’t fly from our local airport 😊
TGIs really isn’t as good as it used to be and we wouldn’t even dream of going to one in the USA 🇺🇸 But your Wagamamas looked good
My hubby is sitting watching the football too , well it’s almost finished
Can’t wait for travel day !
Emma x

[Loobylou_82]

Following along. We like Wagamama, love Katsu chicken. Have a good night's sleep and safe flight in the morning. Looking forward to your first food report stateside.

[pho3nix]

Following along and looking forward to your report! I hope you have a safe and enjoyable journey - you're going tk Disney!

[Sparksy72]

How fantastic for your negative tests! I think your Wagamama’s food looked delicious, it is one of our favourites. Have a brilliant time and I am looking forward to following along. 😁

[Goldia]

Phew. You're going to Florida! Hurrah. I hope everything goes smoothly today and that you have an amazing time.

[Cha cha]

I can’t believe today’s the day. You finally got here after all the stress of testing etc.
I’m on the same flight as you when we go in a couple of weeks.
Hope you enjoy your duty free shopping & breakfast in the lounge & have a good flight to Orlando.
You must be so excited! 😄

[darbs]

Happy travel day!