Anthem Adventures with Andy - Day 0 Pre Travel Day

[Melanie R]

Welcome to my third and sadly final cruise trippie for this year!

I appreciate I have been very lucky to have 3 cruises so close together, but they have made for a very lovely way to reintroduce cruising back into my life, and even though they have had very similar itineraries, they have all been very different trips for different reasons!

This is the only trip of the 3 where I travelled with someone – for those who have read my previous trippies, you will be aware that on my first cruise, thanks to some cocktail inspired swiping on a dating app, I managed to match with a guy who lives in Belfast (Andy) and on my second cruise 4 weeks later, following daily messages and calls we had our first date while the ship docked in Belfast!

Fast forward to my third cruise, and I invited him to join me for what was to be our third date!

We have had a weekend together where he flew over to Lancashire, and following the cruise we have several more weekends planned to take us up to the new year!

This is Andy

he is now fully aware of my Dibb addiction and knows the trippie is being written so I’m now happy to post pics 😂

So on to my trippie – starting with my now traditional hair appointment the day before I travel.
In what I’m sure will be a huge surprise to some (not!) the red of my hair is not actually my natural colour, and takes the dedication of Lauren my hairdresser to make sure I don’t ever go on holiday with any of the random grey hairs I have on show. My appointments typically last for 2 – 2.5 hours and so I had no issues booking this one for 10:15am on the morning I was due to start my travels – my plans for today would take me to Manchester Airport to meet up with Andy and my train wasn’t due to leave Lancaster until 2:30, Lancaster is only a 15 minute drive from home so I had plenty of time right? I’d even left the actual packing to be done on my return from the hairdresser (everything was washed and ready to pack in my defence!) – what could possibly go wrong!

I parked up in the carpark in Morecambe at around 10:05 and paid for 3 hours’ worth of parking – the parking attendants in the area are extremely dedicated and take no prisoners – if you are even a few minutes late you should not be surprised to see a parking ticket on your car, so I felt happy that 3 hours would cover me as the salon was literally across the road from the carpark, so hadn’t got far to walk.

I headed in and was booked in and asked to take a seat in reception where they brought me a latte – I was still sitting in reception 30 minutes later when they finally came over and seated me in the salon. Lauren was lovely and chatty as ever as she applied the colour, and had soon finished and left me seated for the colour to take – and left me for ages!

At this point I was starting to worry slightly as I knew I still had to pack, and also knew the carpark warriors would be out in force – the driving rain on the seafront has never deterred them in the past!

Eventually, I was taken over to the sink area to have my hair washed and was soon sitting back in the salon for Lauren to cut my hair and blow dry – I was anxiously watching the time and decided if it got past 1pm I would have to put another hour on the parking app, but I was just about finished by 1 and rushed to pay and head back to my car.

It was only10 minute drive from home and I had arranged for my dad to drive me to the station, and was due to leave at 1:45 so to say I was in a hurry was putting it mildly! I was soon home, dashed upstairs to finish my packing and made up some sandwiches for the journey as I hadn’t yet eaten today and was getting hungry 😊

I was all packed and ready to leave on the dot at 1:45, but my dad was running a little late due to issues getting my mum in the car in the wheelchair. I was anxiously clock watching all the way to the station – the clock in my dad’s car hasn’t shown the right time since last March when the clocks changed, so I knew it was an hour out, but as I watched the minutes ticking past showing 15 minutes past, then 20 minutes past I knew I was going to have to rush to catch the train!

He dropped me off at 25 past and I dashed into the station and across the bridge to Platform 4 hoping I would be in time 😱

I arrived on the platform and looked up at the board to check if the train was on time when I realised it was still only 18 minutes past 2 and I had 12 minutes before the train was actually due! I hadn’t realised the clock in the car was that wrong 🤦

I took a seat for a few minutes to catch my breath and take in the “start of holiday” feeling – I also had a few minutes to wonder what exactly the workmen on the opposite platform were actually doing

my train arrived and I was soon on-board. It was a busy train, but I had treated myself to an upgrade to first class and this carriage was almost empty!

The upgrade cost was £2 and included a drink and a snack along with the empty carriage, so thought it was money well spent 😂

I arrived at Manchester Airport around 4pm and called the shuttle to take me to the hotel where we were staying for the evening. Andy’s flight wasn’t due in until much later, but I had wanted to avoid the rush hour travel so had arrived early.

I checked into the hotel (Clayton) and headed up to the room, taking the obligatory picture of the carpet and room door as I went.

I always take pics of the door of any hotel I stay in these days, as I travel regularly and have a habit of forgetting my room number (for some reason I do this a lot at Premier Inns!) but I have no idea why I do carpet pictures!

I have a Whatsapp group chat with the other 2 Glowtini Girls (Anna & Rachel) and it is something of a tradition that we post a carpet pic from any hotel we happen to be staying in, but how and why it started is anyone’s guess 😂

Anna commented on this one that it had hidden Mickey’s in the pattern – you can take the girls out of Disney, but you can’t take Disney out of the girls 🥰

It had been a long week at work leading up to this trip and combined with my rushed start to the day, I lay on the bed intending to read, but before long I had fallen fast asleep! I woke a couple of hours later, and headed to the shower to freshen up and to try to wake myself up a little – I then realised it was Tuesday so switched the tv on to watch Bake Off 😊

Once this had finished, I read the message from Andy to let me know his flight had taken off and so I headed over to the Terminal on the shuttle to meet his flight.

It landed right on time, but there was a delay in them being allowed off for some reason, so I picked up a coffee and sat down to wait.

Before too long, they were off the plane and we were back on the shuttle heading over to the hotel – it was getting late by now (around 11) and we had an early start the following day as our train to Southampton left at 7:04 so we headed straight up to the room to head to bed – where we realised the distinct lack of pillows!

I kicked myself for not noticing earlier that there were only 2 pillows in the room, and both of us like 2 – after a search convinced us there was no “hidden” extra pillows in the cupboards, we discussed calling to request extra, but decided for 1 night we would make do – big mistake!

It took both of us ages to get comfy enough to sleep and it was well past midnight when we settled thanks to Pillowgate!

Alarms were set for 5:30am as we both tried to get some sleep ahead of the long train journey to the ship and the start of a new Anthem Adventure! 😊

[margyloveswdw]

Oooh, how exciting!

Looking forward to reading all about it

I too noticed the Mickey's in the carpet

[Disney_time]

A great start, apart from the train anxiety. I would have been totally panicing! But your hair would have been gorgeous, so what's the worry!

I am also a big fan of hotel corridor carpets as they are often so unusual and use colours you wouldn't see anywhere other than a hotel corridor. Looking forward to reading the rest of the tripping. ;-)

[ILoveDaveLamb]

Hello, Andy! Great catch, Mel. He has lovely eyes.

I too noticed the hidden Mickeys.

I feel your pain on the parking front. We have been stung twice this past couple of weeks. (Not my fault either time, obvs. Who sells tickets for over 2 hours and then puts in the small print you can’t park for more than 2 hours? Daylight robbery. Sorry, bit triggered there.)

Anyway, hurrah for budget airlines and future planning. I did all of my courting via service buses and it is no different!

Bargain first class train!

Looking forward to reading all about your cruise.x

[Melanie R]

Originally Posted by margyloveswdw

Oooh, how exciting!

Looking forward to reading all about it

I too noticed the Mickey's in the carpet

See more...

I noticed too - I thought it was just me until Anna commented 🤣

Originally Posted by Disney_time

A great start, apart from the train anxiety. I would have been totally panicing! But your hair would have been gorgeous, so what's the worry!

I am also a big fan of hotel corridor carpets as they are often so unusual and use colours you wouldn't see anywhere other than a hotel corridor. Looking forward to reading the rest of the tripping. ;-)

See more...

I don’t know why I stressed so much - I had an open ticket and could have caught a later train 🤣

Originally Posted by ILoveDaveLamb

Hello, Andy! Great catch, Mel. He has lovely eyes.

I too noticed the hidden Mickeys.

I feel your pain on the parking front. We have been stung twice this past couple of weeks. (Not my fault either time, obvs. Who sells tickets for over 2 hours and then puts in the small print you can’t park for more than 2 hours? Daylight robbery. Sorry, bit triggered there.)

Anyway, hurrah for budget airlines and future planning. I did all of my courting via service buses and it is no different!

Bargain first class train!

Looking forward to reading all about your cruise.x

See more...

Thank you 😊 I already have flights booked to go over in November and for New Year - as you say, thank goodness for bargain airlines, and it’s under an hour to get there so can totally be manageable 🤣🤣

[dismamx2]

Exciting start I could feel the stress of your (slight) delays. Delighted to hear of your future plans with Andy, wishing you all the best and can't wait to read about the cruise.

[Lizzim]

Can’t wait for the rest of this!

[Melanie R]

Originally Posted by dismamx2

Exciting start I could feel the stress of your (slight) delays. Delighted to hear of your future plans with Andy, wishing you all the best and can't wait to read about the cruise.

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I don’t know why I was so stressed - there were loads of trains that day 😂

Originally Posted by Lizzim

Can’t wait for the rest of this!

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Thank you - next day should be done tomorrow 😊

[P&S]

Excited to read along and Andy looks very nice

[Monolith]

Brilliant.

Is the Clayton any good? Hopefully staying on 3rd dec