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Old 3 Jan 20, 05:45 PM  
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juliab
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The 260 Mile West Coast Wander - August 2019 - Day 1- Adventure is out there!

Sunday 4th August

INDEX

We had an early start this morning the alarm was set for 6am so not too early actually. I was awake at 5am so I got up and had a nice cup of tea before everyone else woke up.

It had been raining really heavy during the night but it had now stopped and the morning was lovely sunny.

I then heard Scott moving around, we both changed ready for the travel day.

Scott got all the cases and bags downstairs then we got the kids up. Didn’t take much to get them up and out of their beds they were super keen to get to Manchester airport.

It felt really strange not loading the car up with the cases as this time we were getting a taxi to the airport. We hadn’t been able to get a reasonable price for parking which kind of threw us a bit as we’ve always found the prices to be reasonable. A taxi was the better option and it also meant we wouldn’t have to do the drive back home ourselves after a long flight.

The taxi arrived a little early but by the time we’d loaded everything on and had got ourselves sorted it was 7am and we were on our way to Manchester.

Our driver was really nice and talked a fair bit. We drove a different route to our usual and we headed over the snake pass a road I hadn’t been on for many years. Our driver asked if anyone wanted to sit up front with him as from experience he told us that sitting there you’d feel less sick from all the twists and turns! I opted to sit in the front even though I’d taken my travel sickness tablets I didn’t want to take the chance!

Thankfully we were all ok and soon enough we were pulling up to Manchester airport terminal 3.

It was really quiet there both inside and out which was nice, no hustle and bustle to start to day off.


No queue at check in either we were straight to a desk and all sorted with boarding passes in hand within 5 minutes.

Next was the security which thankfully was very quiet too so it didn’t take long to get through that either. So far so good!
Our bellies were starting to rumble a little now so we headed to the Lion & Antelope to fill them up with some breakfast. Of course it is customary to have a pint at the airport no matter what time in the morning it is! A little too early for me though.






The food was all good and we all felt suitably stuffed. We had a bit of a wait before our gate number came up but as we’d arrived at the airport 3 hours early. Still at least it meant we had a lovely relaxed start to the day.

Before we knew it though it was time for boarding but once we were on the plane we had to wait for some late comers – a group of 100 Japanese tourists. The steward said it was easier to wait for them all rather than take all their bags off!

Eventually they all came, had no rush in them, and we were running 30 minutes late. We took off at 12.15 and we were soon landing at Heathrow 40 minutes later.


Followed the purple route again like last year and we caught the bus over to terminal 3, all straight forward.

Security was a breeze again, I got stopped for an extra search and my liquid bag was tested too. We were soon sat in the departure lounge though and as we had a bit of time to spare we had a look around the shops.

Hayden and I bought a book each, Poppy and Jamie bought some magazines and we stocked up on some bottles of water and juices.


The time passed really quickly, our gate number came up and we proceeded to gate number 1.

At this point Jamie was chosen for an extra security check, I went with him. All done we had a short wait until our boarding number was called we were the last ones.

Settled ourselves down and we eventually took off for Las Vegas an hour later but I was just thankful for us to be leaving what with all the BA cancellations that were happening over the next couple of days.




Came round with a drink first then some food. Poppy had a child’s meal which was very good I kind of wished I could’ve had one!




The lights were turned down and we all watched various films and programs, I kept nodding off but I didn’t actually sleep.

We had an ice cream later in the flight and then another meal was served some kind of pasty. Poppy wasn’t hungry she was given another kids meal which again looked really good. We had our drinks though and nibbled on some of the food.




The flight went really well and honestly it didn’t feel like 10 hours. This had been our longest flight.
First look!

Thankfully we were near to the front of the plane so we were off quickly. Just two booths were open in Immigration but luckily because we were near the front we only had a 15 minute wait.

Went to get our bags next, the display told us to wait at a particular number which we did for some time, along with a lot of other passengers. Then a woman off our flight came over to tell us that the bags were on a completely different belt! Thank goodness she told us otherwise we’d have stood there for ages!


Once done we went outside to the bus stop and wow this was our first taste of the desert heat! It was like someone had just opened the oven door and we’d been blasted with the heat from it. It was unreal 40 degrees at that time of night.

The bus came and there was a lady on there that helped store the luggage safely away for everyone. The journey took 10 minutes and we got a glimpse of the strip which was very exciting for us all.
When we arrived at the Avis desk we couldn’t see our name on the preferred board? When we asked at the desk the lady told us we needed to go down to the garage and it would be all sorted there so off we went!

It looked really empty there didn’t seem to be a great deal of cars down there. Anyway when we eventually got to talk to someone at the kiosk she pointed to a car outside, an Impala, and told us that was our car! I wouldn’t have minded but we’d paid for a standard SUV which was a group higher than a full size, thought this was a very cheeky offer!

After a while she realised we were being short changed but said they didn’t have any other cars available. We couldn’t believe it! Other people came in and they somehow managed to find them their correct car!

After some time a car was offered to us, not entirely sure of the make but on my word it was a monster of a car and way too big for our needs. It was a Yukon XL if I remember rightly! I wasn’t happy at all but after being up for 26 hours I just wanted to get to our hotel so we just took it. I asked if we could pop back in the morning to see if some other car had come in through the night and they said we’d be most welcome to come back and have a look.

So we loaded the beast up and then we were on our way to our first hotel of this trip. Thankfully we found our hotel, Hampton Inn Tropicana, very easily it was just a short 10 minute drive from the airport.

Once we checked in we literally just threw ourselves onto the beds and went to sleep as we’d up nearly 26 hours!



We’d made it here to Las Vegas, we couldn’t believe we’d actually arrived.

Steps - 14,796

Thanks for reading

Edited at 06:20 PM.
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Old 3 Jan 20, 07:48 PM  
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danisleigh
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Nice and smooth travel day! I think we may be on the same flight as you to Vegas this august, it’s 16.40 from Heathrow with BA. We are also getting a taxi there and back, it’s costing £290 from the midlands but we couldn’t find any cheap parking deals and as we booked a late flight we saved money not having an airport hotel so we decided to go for it rather than driving back jet lagged. Looking forward to the next instalment!
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Old 3 Jan 20, 07:49 PM  
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Manyin
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Love your trip reports looking forward to reading along.
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Old 3 Jan 20, 09:28 PM  
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Sounds like a smooth travel day. Look forward to reading more!
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Old 4 Jan 20, 11:57 AM  
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The A team
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Good, but very long, travel day. Looking forward to reading the rest.
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Old 4 Jan 20, 01:50 PM  
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Finally got around to reading your travel day, yikes snake pass I hate that place.
Looking forward to reading about your adventures.

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Old 4 Jan 20, 09:58 PM  
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Sounds like a smooth travel day Julia. Gosh I hate snakes pass- used to have to drive it all the time as a student in a car that could barely hack it, my exhaust fell off on one trip 🤣

What was your connection time In Heathrow - it sounds like quite a good one.

Glad it all went to plan, bar the car of course.

Can’t wait to read about the rest! X
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Old 4 Jan 20, 10:40 PM  
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Looking forward to this... I'll be making lots of notes for our trip out west so throw in plenty of detail please
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Old 4 Jan 20, 11:22 PM  
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Pretty smooth travel day. Following along.
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Old 5 Jan 20, 10:19 AM  
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Great start Julia, looking forward to reading along.
A great travel day!
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