Return to Florida our way - 3rd – 17th December 2021 Day 1 Travel Day

[Chilli-pepper]

Travel Day – Friday 3rd December

Pre Trip Report

Pre Travel day

Day 2

Up and awake at our usual time of around 5am – this is the time we generally get up for work at home and it seems impossible to get out of the habit and we naturally wake around this time, even on a weekend.

Our flight was 11:15am and OH wanted to be at the airport dropping off the car by 7:45 latest. OH, finds travel day very stressful and is always on blinkered full steam ahead mode taking no prisoners on the way – woe betide anyone that gets in his way. Me? well, I get the worst motion sickness flying so combat this by taking double the amount of Dramamine you are meant to and generally walk around in a bemused fog.

Due to this full steam ahead no stopping stance and OH need to get to the airport and checked in, the last thing I was going to do was ask if he wanted a detour to next door for breakfast (included in the stay) so I said nothing. I am not a breakfast person anyway and guessed that he wasn’t bothered at this point.

All checked out from the Staybridge and on our way to meet at greet, (would defiantly recommend and stay here again) directions in hand we climbed the floors in the car park to the correct level, the circular carpark ramp was doing nothing good for my motion sickness.

We waved goodbye to the car and hoped we would see it again. On his last trip before the pandemic Paco got back from Hong Kong, I was at work so he text me he had landed and was off to collect the car, he then text me again about 30 mins later to say he went to pick up his car from meet and greet and they informed him they had crashed it on bringing it back (6-month-old Lexus Hybrid) sadly the car was a write off, so fingers crossed this car has a safe return.

Despite the loss of car thankfully no one involved was hurt which is the main thing – a car is a lump of metal and replaceable – people are not. Meet and Greet gave OH a lift home – not sure what car they were using for this so apologies to anyone who may have had a lot more miles on their car than they anticipated when returning from holiday, as it might well have been the car that took OH home

We were travelling premium economy and as we entered departures there was Virgin staff milling around pre-checking all your documents before you were able to chick in, they put a sticker on your passport once cleared and you go straight onto to bag drop for final check in. For PE and Upper this was very swift an efficient, no complaints there, but I could see long queues for economy check in.

OH does not like to linger (stress levels again) se we head straight through security, again this was relatively straight forward, queuing, but constantly moving with no real no hold ups or issues there, then OH visibly relaxes and can think about breakfast.

Not a massive amount of choice post security so we settled with Spuntino

OH went for Scrambled eggs on sourdough toast £7.75, orange Juice £3.10 and black coffee – this was free with breakfast. He was not over keen as the eggs were a bit too soft and under cooked for his liking. It was also at this point he suddenly remembered about the inclusion of breakfast with our room

I wasn’t particularly hungry but knew I needed something as I won’t eat on the plane so I went for Almond Croissant £3.10 and an orange juice £3.10

Total £17.05 (before tip)

We spent time having a quick look at the shops before making our way to the departure lounge ready for boarding. We were on Golden Girl

Being PE we were boarded quite soon and able to make the most being able to sit on the plane longer than everyone else! I had an orange juice and OH has some fizzy stuff – prosecco, I think? The orange juice was vile - not sure if it was the juice or what the glasses had been washed in but it tasted like I had been given a glass of TCP. Anyway, as soon as he had taken the photo for the drinks all hell broke loose and next minute the orange juice and fizzy stuff when flying across OH and all over him, no idea how it all happened it was one of those slow motion moments when you can see everything unfolding but cant do anything to stop it. Naturally I could only laugh as he tried to clean up – cabin crew came along with copious amounts of paper towels but OH was still left with a look that says he has wet himself – he never did get to taste the drink and didn’t let me forget it. He did take it all in his stride though, and living with me for the past 35 yrs he has no choice but to do so, although I swear I heard him quietly asking one of the cabin crew if it was too late to have me offloaded.

You get an amenity pack with a couple of disposable face masks, sanitising wipe and sachet of hand gel to use throughout the flight, as they recommended you change your mask every 4 hrs.

All ready to go and with the usual announcements added now with the reminders for the rules on face masks on board and throughout immigration in the US, nothing too heavy just a reminder. Flight pushed out of gate 17 at 11:18 - clearly the pilot though we would want the full deluxe tour of Heathrow before we left, and we taxied for the next 24 mins until accelerating for take-off at 11:42.

I appreciate the need to change from the 747’s to the newer and more eco-friendly twin engines but it does make for a longer flight. The flight was uneventful thankfully with only one ‘seatbelt light’ coming on for turbulence but in all honesty by the time people had sat down and put their seatbelts on the sign was off again, perhaps the pilot did this for a bit of light relief and to ease his boredom! The seat belt sign must have been on for about 3 mins.

I would say everyone (in our cabin) were compliant with masks, there we no dramas about it, there was a couple sat across the aisle from us that did push the nursing of their drinks to the limit, but nothing was said. There was one young girl in our cabin maybe about 6 or 7 (not very good with ages) and she seemed to mange the mask wearing well without any problems.

The first drinks round came, I had a Coke (full fat none of this sugar free crap ) and OH had a diet coke (none of this full sugar crap )

The main meal came and went - OH love him, had strict instructions to take photos of everything, I by this time was plugged into my my Harry Potter audio book and zonked out by the Dramamine and slept for the majority of the flight only moving when I was prodded by OH to make sure I was still breathing, therefore I didn’t eat anything through the flight so could only report on what OH ate.

Starter was Feta, pea and herb frittata with Olive tapenade and sundried tomato.

He went for the main of Spicey jerk chicken, rice and beans with sweetcorn chilli salsa – he said it was OK as far as plane food goes, in fairness he would have gone for the pork, but they were being exceptionally slow at serving on our side with the other side being served well before us hence the lack of choice.

Desert was New York Cheesecake

randomly there was also a pot of a salted caramel & chocolate ganache pot (Oh not sure why they got this as well, maybe some leftovers?

and then cheese and biscuits

He also had a bottle of wine

I am sad to report, gone are the fab lollies or twistee lollies and in are a duo pack of chocolate digestives! What on earth is that all about, not impressed with the change.

I think there were plenty of drinks and snacks up at the galley where you could go and help yourself from if you wanted to – neither of us bothered with this.

Cabin crew came round with more drinks offering water or orange squash until it was time for ‘high tea’

This was an Emmental, tomato and baby spinach rye roll, with scone, jam, clotted cream, and his usual black coffee.

Again, nothing for me but OH said this was fine.

We landed at 16:34 local time got to the gate and parked at 16:47- usual scrambling to get off and arrived at an empty immigration hall, straight through immigration and onto wait for the baggage. Announcements on aircraft did recommend you have all COVID documents ready and to hand in case of random check, we didn’t get asked for any COVID related documents and were just the usual where are you staying, how long, how much cash have you brought etc.

Bags picked up by 17:10 - would have been a bit earlier but for some reason my case came on the priority carousel very quickly but Paco had a wait for his to come out on the other one no idea 🤷 why, maybe a random check but there was nothing in the case indicating this as is normal on the way beck with TSA.

Straight to pick up the Visitor Toll Pass thanks to Mick for instructions, 👍 easy to find and there were a couple of staff on hand to explain the process as required. Then on to the Alamo garage and selected our pickup truck and off to the villa.

After the usual once over the villa – yep, just as we remembered, we then chucked the cases in the bedroom and off to Publix at Berry Town Centre to try, (on several Dibber recommendations) their hot chicken and pick up first night/morning essentials. We decided on a bag of 12 chicken tenders, cheesy garlic Texas toast, sweet potato tater tots, coleslaw, a couple of dips and some drinks, beer, soft drinks OJ, milk coffee, cinnamon raisin bread for breakfast and some ice cream (OH is a sucker for ice cream) and sacks etc. Receipt below for prices, not sure we got a great deal for some 80 odd dollars

Due to our body clock time rather than actual time, we manged to eat a small fraction of the food, in the end I could only eat one tender – they were huge and realised we would be eating them for the whole of the holiday so I froze some of them and would save for another day.

Not sure what happened to OH meal photo but basically the same as mine but he also has coleslaw.

We lasted until about 10pm and crashed.

[saratogajan]

Glad to see someone else has a stressy husband till he gets to the departure lounge. I thought I was the only one. Enjoying your trip report thanks

[Goldia]

Seems like this was a smooth travel day, I bet it felt good to be back! Well done for lasting until 10pm.

[Holiday time]

Sounds like a great travel day. I am like your husband and always find it stressful.

Thanks for posting the publix receipt. This is really useful for budgeting. It is shocking that 12 chicken tenders were $21 😳

[ClaireNJ]

Originally Posted by Chilli-pepper

Travel Day – Friday 3rd December

Pre Trip Report

Pre Travel day

Day 2

Up and awake at our usual time of around 5am – this is the time we generally get up for work at home and it seems impossible to get out of the habit and we naturally wake around this time, even on a weekend.

Our flight was 11:15am and OH wanted to be at the airport dropping off the car by 7:45 latest. OH, finds travel day very stressful and is always on blinkered full steam ahead mode taking no prisoners on the way – woe betide anyone that gets in his way. Me? well, I get the worst motion sickness flying so combat this by taking double the amount of Dramamine you are meant to and generally walk around in a bemused fog.

Due to this full steam ahead no stopping stance and OH need to get to the airport and checked in, the last thing I was going to do was ask if he wanted a detour to next door for breakfast (included in the stay) so I said nothing. I am not a breakfast person anyway and guessed that he wasn’t bothered at this point.

All checked out from the Staybridge and on our way to meet at greet, (would defiantly recommend and stay here again) directions in hand we climbed the floors in the car park to the correct level, the circular carpark ramp was doing nothing good for my motion sickness.

We waved goodbye to the car and hoped we would see it again. On his last trip before the pandemic Paco got back from Hong Kong, I was at work so he text me he had landed and was off to collect the car, he then text me again about 30 mins later to say he went to pick up his car from meet and greet and they informed him they had crashed it on bringing it back (6-month-old Lexus Hybrid) sadly the car was a write off, so fingers crossed this car has a safe return.

Despite the loss of car thankfully no one involved was hurt which is the main thing – a car is a lump of metal and replaceable – people are not. Meet and Greet gave OH a lift home – not sure what car they were using for this so apologies to anyone who may have had a lot more miles on their car than they anticipated when returning from holiday, as it might well have been the car that took OH home

We were travelling premium economy and as we entered departures there was Virgin staff milling around pre-checking all your documents before you were able to chick in, they put a sticker on your passport once cleared and you go straight onto to bag drop for final check in. For PE and Upper this was very swift an efficient, no complaints there, but I could see long queues for economy check in.

OH does not like to linger (stress levels again) se we head straight through security, again this was relatively straight forward, queuing, but constantly moving with no real no hold ups or issues there, then OH visibly relaxes and can think about breakfast.

Not a massive amount of choice post security so we settled with Spuntino

OH went for Scrambled eggs on sourdough toast £7.75, orange Juice £3.10 and black coffee – this was free with breakfast. He was not over keen as the eggs were a bit too soft and under cooked for his liking. It was also at this point he suddenly remembered about the inclusion of breakfast with our room

I wasn’t particularly hungry but knew I needed something as I won’t eat on the plane so I went for Almond Croissant £3.10 and an orange juice £3.10

Total £17.05 (before tip)

We spent time having a quick look at the shops before making our way to the departure lounge ready for boarding. We were on Golden Girl

Being PE we were boarded quite soon and able to make the most being able to sit on the plane longer than everyone else! I had an orange juice and OH has some fizzy stuff – prosecco, I think? The orange juice was vile - not sure if it was the juice or what the glasses had been washed in but it tasted like I had been given a glass of TCP. Anyway, as soon as he had taken the photo for the drinks all hell broke loose and next minute the orange juice and fizzy stuff when flying across OH and all over him, no idea how it all happened it was one of those slow motion moments when you can see everything unfolding but cant do anything to stop it. Naturally I could only laugh as he tried to clean up – cabin crew came along with copious amounts of paper towels but OH was still left with a look that says he has wet himself – he never did get to taste the drink and didn’t let me forget it. He did take it all in his stride though, and living with me for the past 35 yrs he has no choice but to do so, although I swear I heard him quietly asking one of the cabin crew if it was too late to have me offloaded.

You get an amenity pack with a couple of disposable face masks, sanitising wipe and sachet of hand gel to use throughout the flight, as they recommended you change your mask every 4 hrs.

All ready to go and with the usual announcements added now with the reminders for the rules on face masks on board and throughout immigration in the US, nothing too heavy just a reminder. Flight pushed out of gate 17 at 11:18 - clearly the pilot though we would want the full deluxe tour of Heathrow before we left, and we taxied for the next 24 mins until accelerating for take-off at 11:42.

I appreciate the need to change from the 747’s to the newer and more eco-friendly twin engines but it does make for a longer flight. The flight was uneventful thankfully with only one ‘seatbelt light’ coming on for turbulence but in all honesty by the time people had sat down and put their seatbelts on the sign was off again, perhaps the pilot did this for a bit of light relief and to ease his boredom! The seat belt sign must have been on for about 3 mins.

I would say everyone (in our cabin) were compliant with masks, there we no dramas about it, there was a couple sat across the aisle from us that did push the nursing of their drinks to the limit, but nothing was said. There was one young girl in our cabin maybe about 6 or 7 (not very good with ages) and she seemed to mange the mask wearing well without any problems.

The first drinks round came, I had a Coke (full fat none of this sugar free crap ) and OH had a diet coke (none of this full sugar crap )

The main meal came and went - OH love him, had strict instructions to take photos of everything, I by this time was plugged into my my Harry Potter audio book and zonked out by the Dramamine and slept for the majority of the flight only moving when I was prodded by OH to make sure I was still breathing, therefore I didn’t eat anything through the flight so could only report on what OH ate.

Starter was Feta, pea and herb frittata with Olive tapenade and sundried tomato.

He went for the main of Spicey jerk chicken, rice and beans with sweetcorn chilli salsa – he said it was OK as far as plane food goes, in fairness he would have gone for the pork, but they were being exceptionally slow at serving on our side with the other side being served well before us hence the lack of choice.

Desert was New York Cheesecake

randomly there was also a pot of a salted caramel & chocolate ganache pot (Oh not sure why they got this as well, maybe some leftovers?

and then cheese and biscuits

He also had a bottle of wine

I am sad to report, gone are the fab lollies or twistee lollies and in are a duo pack of chocolate digestives! What on earth is that all about, not impressed with the change.

I think there were plenty of drinks and snacks up at the galley where you could go and help yourself from if you wanted to – neither of us bothered with this.

Cabin crew came round with more drinks offering water or orange squash until it was time for ‘high tea’

This was an Emmental, tomato and baby spinach rye roll, with scone, jam, clotted cream, and his usual black coffee.

Again, nothing for me but OH said this was fine.

We landed at 16:34 local time got to the gate and parked at 16:47- usual scrambling to get off and arrived at an empty immigration hall, straight through immigration and onto wait for the baggage. Announcements on aircraft did recommend you have all COVID documents ready and to hand in case of random check, we didn’t get asked for any COVID related documents and were just the usual where are you staying, how long, how much cash have you brought etc.

Bags picked up by 17:10 - would have been a bit earlier but for some reason my case came on the priority carousel very quickly but Paco had a wait for his to come out on the other one no idea 🤷 why, maybe a random check but there was nothing in the case indicating this as is normal on the way beck with TSA.

Straight to pick up the Visitor Toll Pass thanks to Mick for instructions, 👍 easy to find and there were a couple of staff on hand to explain the process as required. Then on to the Alamo garage and selected our pickup truck and off to the villa.

After the usual once over the villa – yep, just as we remembered, we then chucked the cases in the bedroom and off to Publix at Berry Town Centre to try, (on several Dibber recommendations) their hot chicken and pick up first night/morning essentials. We decided on a bag of 12 chicken tenders, cheesy garlic Texas toast, sweet potato tater tots, coleslaw, a couple of dips and some drinks, beer, soft drinks OJ, milk coffee, cinnamon raisin bread for breakfast and some ice cream (OH is a sucker for ice cream) and sacks etc. Receipt below for prices, not sure we got a great deal for some 80 odd dollars

Due to our body clock time rather than actual time, we manged to eat a small fraction of the food, in the end I could only eat one tender – they were huge and realised we would be eating them for the whole of the holiday so I froze some of them and would save for another day.

Not sure what happened to OH meal photo but basically the same as mine but he also has coleslaw.

We lasted until about 10pm and crashed.

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Glad you got there ok & flight was good
I absolutely love Hawaiian Punch 😋😋

[Fuellady]

Good travel day. I'm stressy at the airport too, until I'm through security so totally understand your husband's need to just get there and get that done.

We always start our trip with a visit to Publix for chicken tenders too - they are delicious. Love Hawaiian Punch too.

[mick]

Great travel day

Mick went over to side A to pick up the VTP while I sat near the Christmas tree. We then went down to garage B to pick our Alamo car.

Joan

[RachelM]

Great travel day.

[Twinkle-Dolphin]

Good travel day