The Adventures of Jane Hat ~ WBTA 2018 | Complete

Amunet

DIS Veteran
Joined
May 31, 2011
It is finally TRIP REPORT TIME!!
My goal is to help those planning for their own Westbound Transatlantic sailing in the future. There's not that much information out there, so I will be as open as I possibly can be.
PLEASE feel free to post questions regarding previous updates if you need something clarified or would like more information.

The planning that went into all of this is here: A Trip of Firsts PTR

WARNING: There will be lots of photos during this report.

Now then, shall we get started?

Brief Introductions

Rich and Kristal
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As you can see, this is from our last cruise, but it was just such a nice photo of the two of us!
We have been a couple for 3 years and have had 1 previous Disney Cruise together.​
Him: Works as an Automotive Technician. Loves cars, sailing and me :)
Me: Working on Master's Degree at the University of Chicago. Loves Disney, travel (and the planning!) and culture.

Oh, you wanted another cute photo of us? Okay ...
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In 2017 at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party in Disney World.
Can you guess who we are?

As I said, we just adore Disney ...
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... I converted him :D

It just makes sense for us to do Disney cruises as well! I never wrote a Trip Report for our previous cruise, so I hope this one turns out well :)

Now, I must introduce the Jane in 'Jane Hat', for, she is the inspiration for the title:
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Jane is on the left, I am on the right.
She is my best friend and MADE the hat that you will see through this trip.

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This is when she first sent it to me. I first thought of this trip! We made an effort to take a photo of us in this hat every day.

Information


The Who: Rich & Me
The Where: 3 Days London, England & 11 Nights on the Disney Magic
The When: September 5th - 20th (whole trip)
The Why: Our 3rd dating Anniversary
 
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Joining in! I was considering doing a Transatlantic for my honeymoon, but they didn't do enough European ports so we decided not to. But I'm thinking when I have a baby to do one so I can't wait to read about yours.
 
All photos are uploaded onto my computer and sorted by date but now I'm sorting out the duplicates and other not needed photos. I hope to update with Day 1 this weekend.

Opinions Needed
Would you like one Jane Hat photo to open each day posting or put them in order along with the rest of the photos?
I'm good either way :)


Joining in! I was considering doing a Transatlantic for my honeymoon, but they didn't do enough European ports so we decided not to. But I'm thinking when I have a baby to do one so I can't wait to read about yours.
:welcome:
Oh wonderful! I hope this helps you out. I'm planning on sharing receipts to help people budget, but we didn't have a baby :o
Maybe a British Isles cruise would be a better bet for you? I know some people did a B2B with the Isles cruise and Transatlantic.

Following...
:welcome:
Glad you are :)
 


Would you like one Jane Hat photo to open each day posting or put them in order along with the rest of the photos?
I'm good either way :)
I like when the photos go in order of what is happening.

:welcome:
Oh wonderful! I hope this helps you out. I'm planning on sharing receipts to help people budget, but we didn't have a baby :o
Maybe a British Isles cruise would be a better bet for you? I know some people did a B2B with the Isles cruise and Transatlantic.
Well the baby is a ways off lol. I'm hoping I'll be pregnant when I sail on the hawaii sailing so we have a bit of time. We are actually doing a British Isles cruise for the honeymoon. Originally had Disney booked, but we switched the dates to May so we are now going on Princess.
 
Travel Day
Sept. 5th​

Just like the start of any Disney trip, we didn’t sleep much the night before but a rare phenomenon still occurred; we got up on the first alarm at 5:30am! A rare even that only happens on vacation days ;)

We had planned it so that our fridge/freezer was completely empty and so our breakfast was oatmeal with some brown sugar, we just had to wash the bowls and put them away before leaving. We also did a deep clean a few days before today so our apartment would be nice and clean when we get back.


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Our 3 checked bags and 4 carry-ons!


At 6:55am, our Lyft driver had arrived.

Tip - As of this post, Lyft allows you to schedule your pick-ups a week in advance. We took advantage of this service

As Richard was carrying the luggage out to the car, I had realized that I misplaced our ‘vacation keys’ (a small keyring with just the house key and garage key). I kind of what panicking … but they were on the floor, right in front of my face! Picked those up and tucked them in my pocket for the time being. THEN my mole skin on my foot was coming off. I got new athletic shoes last year and I’m still breaking them in, so I have to put mole skin+medical tape on certain spots of my foot to make sure I don’t get blisters (yeah, they’re nasty, I have a photo if you REALLY want to see what they looked like after a few days of healing).

So, on top of losing the keys momentarily, I had to find medical tape, cut mole skin and put it all on my foot … while hopping on one foot because we don’t wear shoes in the house but I still had one shoe on. Yeah. Not my shining moment.

Okay, so NOW we are all in the car, the driver was nice and we left him a nice tip. We got to the airport about 2 hours early so we just kind of waited around. I really like Terminal 2 of MSP airport.

Going through the security, we were stopped and had to have our bags inspected because we had lots of food snacks and MSP security wanted those taken out (we were never notified of this prior). Also, I had packed a small jewelry box and the TSA there has never seen that before, so they had to have it be taken out to be inspected. Wasn’t a big deal, just kind of amusing to me.


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On Southwest airlines, our first flight out!


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Rich wanted a photo of me … I’m still not quite awake lol
I don’t do mornings!


The flight from MSP (Minneapolis/St. Paul) to MDW (Chicago) was pretty uneventful, with the exception that they didn’t serve drinks/snacks because of inventory problems. Really, not a big deal since it was about an hour long.

When in MDW, we knew our stop would be pretty long (about 4 hours) so we found a place near the gate and just kind of camped out. I full laid out on the floor (out of the way of walking traffic) and kind of napped/rested. I have rather bad anxiety and I definitely had to take my as-needed pill a couple times this day to keep it at bay. With all the people and noise around waiting for our next flight, it really started to freak me out so laying down in a safe place (next to Rich’s feet) with earplugs and a sleep mask on, really helped.

Then, the flight was an hour delayed. Yeah, more stress but, thankfully, my anxiety pill was working so it didn’t freak me out like it would without. So, we handled it in stride but was worried about the time we had once getting to New York because we were transferring airports. They said that they pulled an aircraft from the hanger and it was coming to get us, so they changed the departure time back to ‘On Time’. Well, yeah, no. People lined up for departure time but there was still no plane. Seriously, standing there for 1 hour was not pleasant. You see, Rich wanted to queue up early because this was his first international travel and was antsy, so he felt better standing there … doing nothing. I was on my pill, so I was pretty relaxed about it but it was still a bit annoying to be standing for an hour when there was no plane at the gate.

WELL the plane showed up and we were able to board (yay). Then we waited for another 30ish minutes because the pilot waited for some luggage that was late to load. NO idea why it was late considering the flight was delayed anyways … alas …

The flight to LGA (LaGuardia, New York) was uneventful and had some nice snacks and drinks. We ended up arriving in New York at 6:30pm instead of the scheduled 5:55pm. So the tailwind was, thankfully, good to us. We did wait a while for our bags, they weren’t last, but definitely not first. All of our bags made it that first leg, which let me breath a (small) sigh of relief.


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Flying into LGA


Our next leg was to get from LGA to JFK (John F. Kennedy Airport, New York), which we ended up having to walk ALL the way to the end of the terminal, then walk some more to the new parking garage. I do have to say, they organized the App Based Transportation quite well. They had signs marking where to go and clear signs where to be picked up.

We, again used Lyft and got someone right away. I think it was quite literally a minute (he was already in the garage!). A nice fellow from the Philippines, his family has immigrated and he loves how the U.S. doesn’t just throw people into jail willy-nilly, unlike his country (these were a paraphrasing of his words).

We made it to JFK Terminal 1 at 8pm, which was exactly our check-in window for Norwegian Airlines. Our heaviest piece of luggage was 19.6kg (43.2lbs), which is .4kg away from their total weight limit :o

We had purchased the ‘Premium’ service, which was like a low-key First/Business class but gave us some perks we most definitely enjoyed. Richard is the reason we splurged on Premium Class because he’s 6’4” (195cm) and most definitely needed the leg room. Also, we are allowed 4 checked bags for free, which works with Southwest’s free baggage limits and those bags were needed for such a long flight. The seats reclined pretty far and had a leg rest as well :)

However, there was a perk we were NOT anticipating: First Class line for security, ie: quick! Oh my gosh, this was amazing. We walked quickly past the long line and had a small line near the scanners. There were a lot of Hasidic Jew gentlemen flying this day and a few of them were allowed in front of us to catch their flights. I was okay with this since we still had plenty of time before our 11pm flight.

After security, we headed straight to the Alitalia Lounge, which was a perk of our Premium ticket. We ate and rested a bit on a couch for a while. Richard happened to find a spot next to a chatty couple. I kind of … just … ignored them. Was tired and still had my anxiety pills. They were very nice though and I think they understood I was just tired.


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Blurry photo of the lounge as you walk in. We sat on the couch just being that wall with the TV on it.


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Coffee/snacks


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Drinks, Alcoholic?


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Soda, Water and Sandwiches


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More snacks & Wine/Liquor service


All of those snacks/drinks were complimentary within the lounge. I forget the sandwiches we got but they were good. I do remember having a snack pack of oreos, goldfish crackers, and water. Rich had 2 sandwiches, a coke, oreos and a glass of wine.


::MinnieMo JANE HAT ALERT ::MinnieMo
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Taken in the Lounge with our plane in the background



We hung out in the lounge for about 2ish hours. I was quite tired by this time and when they announced a flight to London, I didn’t think it was ours because I didn’t realize the time because my iPad was still on Central Time (New York is an hour later).

The Lounge was right next to our gate so we just marched right up and boarded (another perk for Premium, first boarding).


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Rich is REALLY excited now, his first international flight!
Look at how nice those seats are.



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That’s the plush blanket they give and my leg sticking out to the seats in front of us to show the leg room (I’m 5’6”).


The service from the flight attendants was amazing. Lol, he got a little frustrated (in the most polite way) that I kept trying to ‘do his job’ by cleaning up a bit and handing him the glass. I’m just not used to people doting on me with service. I’ve flown international Business and Global First before but they were job perks (I worked at a major airline) so it was their job service but nothing extra (which is totally fine). So this was quite different for me. Richard was just basking in it and kind of geeking out over the whole experience.
Also included were headphones/earbuds.

When doing research for this airline, I read some scary things, thankfully our flight went okay, but I also read a report that was written a few months prior that Norwegian Premium didn’t have a choice in meal for dinner. I cannot eat mammal meat (pork, beef, lamb, etc.) and I get quite sick if I eat any, no matter how small. I didn’t want to take a chance so I pre-ordered the vegetarian meal. By ordering a special meal, I got served food first.


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This is the box, everyone got this type of box


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The main dish on the right is Pasta with marinara sauce and cheese and cooked veggies.
On the left is a ‘salad’; Lettuce with 3 slices of tomato on top.
The sad round thing was my ‘dessert’. A rice cake.


Seriously, a rice cake? I’m obviously not vegan because I had cheese on my dish, sooo … why couldn’t I have a normal side salad and dessert? It was really odd. I didn’t complain though because it’s not like they could fix it right away, they were serving other people. It wasn’t that important. But, seriously? I mean … a rice cake. Plain. Just … my tired mind found it ridiculous. Now, it’s just kind of funny lol.


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This is Rich’s dish. It was the Beef dish with potatoes and asparagus in a creamy sauce.
The side salad (immediate left) was greens with feta cheese and balsamic.
Far left is the dessert of Cheese and dried apricot. Top is a roll.


As you can see, the regular one is quite tasty looking! Much more effort involved. I was a bit sad because it did turn out there were other options (Beef, Chicken and Fish). Though, I got served food first, so I was able to eat it first and then go to sleep.
Side note, that little bottle in the above photo is freakishly adorable (it was the dressing) and we kept it! lol.

I ended up eating the beefsteak tomatoes from my salad like cookies, but left one to cut up and mix in. I was offered a roll with dinner but I didn’t have butter, so I had to ask for butter (Rich’s dinner box came with butter). After the flight attendant got the butter, I ended up dropping my fork and had to ask for another one. I felt so bad, one request right after another while they were serving other people. Eugh. Rich says that his food was okay, not bad but not great either. I ended up not eating my ‘dessert’ :p

As mentioned above, I took my night meds and fell asleep right after food service. Rich let me put my empty box on his tray while I went to sleep. I slept pretty much the whole time, until breakfast service. Of COURSE I will wake up for food :D I slept for about 4.5 hours and Rich slept for 2.


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My vegetarian breakfast: Small tomato and cheese sandwich, yoghurt, assortment of fruit (strawberry, blackberry, grapes, honeydew, cantaloup, and orange) and a granola bar.


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Rich’s Breakfast: Meats (turkey slices, cured meat), hard boiled egg, greens, tomato, swiss cheese, pepper, roll with strawberry jelly & butter. We forget what the thing in the left corner is. We want to say more cheese.


The breakfast was quite good for me. I was pleasantly surprised. Rich says his meal wasn’t quite to his tastes (he’s not used to European meals). It wasn’t bad but wasn’t great, he says. I ended up crumbling the granola bar into my yoghurt and popped some grapes in there. Sooooo good.
Shortly after breakfast, we ended up landing into LGW (London Gatwick).


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We’re here!


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Rich is really excited to be landing in his first European country



With that … it’s onto Day 2 of our trip ... in the next update ;)



Pricing

Southwest Airlines Roundtrip MSP-LGA for 2: $526
Southwest Airlines Earlybird Check-In for all flights: $60
Norwegian Premium Class JFK-LGW for 2: $1,199.80
Lyft
Home to MSP, Basic: $17.71
LGA to JFK, Basic: $34.45
iTravelInsured SE Coverage (Trip Insurance): $248



-- Back to Navigation --
 
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The main dish on the right is Pasta with marinara sauce and cheese and cooked veggies.
On the left is a ‘salad’; Lettuce with 3 slices of tomato on top.
The sad round thing was my ‘dessert’. A rice cake.
I can't believe they'd think a rice cake would be acceptable for a dessert. I feel like unless it's sweet it doesn't count.

I've heard good things about flying Norwegian, they are pretty cheap compared to most airlines flying to Europe. We looked into going on them, but I don't think they fly every day of the week or just not to where we were going because I couldn't find any flights.

That's great you were able to sleep some. I never seem to be able to sleep on planes, probably because I'm terrified of flying. When I go in May I'm going to try really hard to sleep so I won't be jetlagged, but I'm doubting it'll happen.
 
I can't believe they'd think a rice cake would be acceptable for a dessert. I feel like unless it's sweet it doesn't count.

I've heard good things about flying Norwegian, they are pretty cheap compared to most airlines flying to Europe. We looked into going on them, but I don't think they fly every day of the week or just not to where we were going because I couldn't find any flights.

That's great you were able to sleep some. I never seem to be able to sleep on planes, probably because I'm terrified of flying. When I go in May I'm going to try really hard to sleep so I won't be jetlagged, but I'm doubting it'll happen.
I totally agree. I get caramel flavored rice cakes, so I'd call that dessert, but it was just straight plain.
Correct with Norwegian, they only fly between certain cities during certain months/days. JFK-LGW is a popular route so they have it every day, but middle of the week (like our flight, left on a Wednesday), they only have one flight a day instead of 2 or 3.

I have prescription sleep medication, so that helps. I use daily to not sleep on planes much either prior. Have you tried taking melatonin? It is a natural thing our bodies produce so maybe it would help you get rest on the plane? It's in the vitamin aisle if you wish to try.

Patiently waiting for Day 2 :-)
Thank you for being patient :) I have days 2-3 sorted, I just need a block of time to write the narration. Hopefully this weekend!
 
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P.S. Our Halloween decor & food (chicken buffalo dip & cupcakes). I had to grab the other Disney decor too, JUST in case my friends and family didn't think I was serious about Disney ;)
We spent the evening doing a craft and watching Halloweentown, Halloweentown II, & Hocus Pocus.

Anyone reading have Halloween photos they'd like to share?
 
I totally agree. I get caramel flavored rice cakes, so I'd call that dessert, but it was just straight plain.
Correct with Norwegian, they only fly between certain cities during certain months/days. JFK-LGW is a popular route so they have it every day, but middle of the week (like our flight, left on a Wednesday), they only have one flight a day instead of 2 or 3.

I have prescription sleep medication, so that helps. I use daily to not sleep on planes much either prior. Have you tried taking melatonin? It is a natural thing our bodies produce so maybe it would help you get rest on the plane? It's in the vitamin aisle if you wish to try.


Thank you for being patient :) I have days 2-3 sorted, I just need a block of time to write the narration. Hopefully this weekend!
I am impressed by how great the report looks so far! I would be afraid to even attempt such a task:eek:
 
London
Sep. 6th​


We arrived on time around 11am into London Gatwick Airport. The deplaning was pretty normal, I don’t think anything fully stood out, most of the passengers were probably a bit groggy anyways.

What DID stand out was passport control, it was freakishly long ...


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THIS is the line. Signs say Non EU Passports



At the time the above image was taken, we had already been in line for a little bit. We were one of the first to get off the plane because of premium class and yet it STILL was backed up into a hall, then that hall turned to the left and there was a HUGE single file line, which, towards the end, passed this window that looked down into the passport control area. Many people tried to go down the EU Only passport ramp but were promptly turned away.

The kicker with this? We could have avoided this with Premium Gatwick Passport Control which is only £7 per person. It has an exclusive lane that you can just pass through and limited to 50 passengers per hour. This can be purchased no matter what airline or class ticket you have.

Well, we didn’t get this option because Gatwick is usually pretty mellow BUT today was excessive, there were agents that just couldn’t believe how packed it got. So, while we didn’t get the express service, a few other families that were going on the same cruise did.

The line ended up taking about an hour but it really didn’t feel that long because we were moving at a decent pace (it was that freaking long!). We didn’t have a problem getting through once we saw the agent, I don’t think we even had to show our confirmations for the hotel/cruise but we had them ready just in case.

After going through Passport Control, the baggage area was right there. We just went up to our carousel and saw that it wasn’t moving BUT many bags were pulled off and already put in a line next it. We found ours pretty easily and picked them up, nothing was missing. Then, onwards to Customs!

This one was slightly eventful because we still had snacks in our backpack that we packed for the full day of travel on the planes, one of these snacks being meat sticks. Meat products are not allowed into the country, HOWEVER, we did go through declarations for it and told them that is was fully sealed but are willing to surrender if need be. They allowed us to go through with the snacks (which really was helpful later) and said that this was an exception and not to do it again.

We truly forgot it was there and just remembered when we were racking our brains to figure out if we had to declare anything. There was no intention of disregarding rules.

When traveling, please review customs information (this is a good reference for the UK: VisitLondon.com). I knew this rule, I think my brain just didn’t function for a bit.

Anywho, after that, we were on to the train! We had booked tickets on Thameslink prior to leaving the US, so we just had to pick up our tickets. Well … easier said then done …


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The station was packed



The train station is connected to the airport, so we just had to go down a hall or two and voila, chaos! Of course this makes sense because of the massive lines to get through passport control (customs was crazy fast). We were a bit overwhelmed and confused. I was still on my night meds, which make me groggy. We were theoretically suppose to just go up to a kiosk and get the ticket out but the instructions were not too clear, so we waited in line to talk to a teller. We showed them our receipt and they just printed up the tickets.


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It didn’t take us long to find our train



Though, it was pretty entertaining trying to get through the turnstile with our luggage. Thankfully we went through the wheelchair accessible one, but it was still amusing since we didn’t have our full wits about us.

I should say that I didn’t have my full wits and I’m used to this chaos since I’ve flown into London 2 times before (into Heathrow though), but Richard was just looking around and soaking everything in. It doesn’t help he has ADD so his head was pretty much doing 360º turns lol

The train was already right there, so we just hopped on and ended up stacking our luggage and taking the WHOLE area behind the seats dedicated for luggage.

In our defense …the area wasn’t that big …

Our ticket says it was a printed at 1:26pm, so between obtaining the ticket and the train taking off, it was probably about 10-15 minutes.


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Rich would like to make it known that the litter in this photo is NOT from him


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The train. You can see a piece of our luggage to the right. It’s that blue thing.
The barrier is actually clear and the blue is the suitcase



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We wanted a snack, so we dug one out of our backpack!
These are so good …



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Getting closer to London


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London Bridge



We got off in St. Pancras/Kings Cross. It was quite amusing getting out of the ticket gates this time because they tried to eat Rich lol. One rolling suitcase was in front of him and one he was pulling behind him and he had on a backpack. The gate closed on the backpack and the back luggage pieces while the front suitcase was already through! It was pretty dang funny. Luckily there was an irate lady that had amassed quite a few station personnel and one of them saw the pickle Rich got in so they made the gate open again for him to get through. She also found it amusing, by the look on her face, and so did I. Goodness, I wish I was able to take a photo! Alas, I was hauling luggage as well and could not get to it.

We went right across the street from the station to our Bed & Breakfast; The Alhambra Hotel. Funny side note, I’ve actually been to the real Alhambra.
I have stayed in this area of London prior, it’s a great hub for what we were planning on doing. The rates here are also pretty low. The rooms are QUITE small but we truly do not mind. Even though Rich is tall, he likes to bunch up when sleeping.

The pictures of the outside of Alhambra are not mine, but sourced from tripadvisor
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Looking down the street. The clock tower is St. Pancras Station


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There are a lot of hotels/hostels/B&Bs on this street (Argyle Street)


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Pretty unassuming entrance. Inside was nice and staff was amazing.



We were assigned room 17 in building 22, which was across the street from the building the lobby is in. We were in the bottom basement area and it was pretty quiet. Being that these buildings are old, and possibly historical, houses, there are no lifts in them. The staircases were very narrow and we had a few doors to go through … it was just quite amusing with all of our luggage.


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The narrow stairway down to our room



One of the drawbacks about the budget hotels are that is that they don’t have A/C (old buildings, not retrofitted) BUT we found a fan in the little closet and we plugged that in right away while we unpacked. We did have an ensuite (toilet, shower & sink in the room, no sharing), which was our biggest requirement other then price. Granted, it was pretty dang tiny. I’m used to the tiny because I have traveled, literally, around the world but it was a bit of a shock to Rich.
The small bathroom allowed me to shave my legs pretty easily while we kind of puttered around. We were getting ready to go back out and explore London! Well, a small part of it.

Our primary method of getting around the city was using the underground/tube, which we ordered our Oyster Travel card prior to arriving. This is a rechargeable card for getting around the city and is a reduced price for those coming in from out of the country.


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We went to Harrods!



Specifically, the food halls of Harrods. I remember going on my last trip and it was just amazing. The layout has definitely changed and I’m not a huge fan of it BUT it works, I suppose …
We wandered through the different halls that were split into sections. They weren’t halls that you traverse through to get from one room or another but they were rooms themselves.
These rooms were themed to what they held, like Pastries/Sweets, Meat Hall, Deli Hall, etc.
Rich’s only goal was to get tea that has the Harrods’ logo on it. I shared the same goal but also wanted some food to eat since we haven’t eaten since the plane … or those cookies on the train, which I don’t count as filling.


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Some mini cakes in the pastry display


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More mini cakes


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I found a unicorn cake!



We found the tea area and took quite a bit looking for our ‘perfect tea’. We almost went with “Blend 49”, which was a type of black tea, BUT then we found kind of a souvenir tea pack of 4 tins that were themed to each season (Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring).
Spring: Herbal Infusion of green tea, ginger root, cardamom pods, lemon myrtle, lemon verbena and marigold flowers.

Summer: Fruit and Herbal Infusion of apple, hibiscus, reship, beetroot, sweet blackberry leaves, strawberry pieces, blackberries, raspberries, and safflower petals.

Autumn: Fruit and Herbal Infusion of rooibos, cocoa husk, ginger root, apple place, cinnamon pieces, macadamia, brittle, roasted almond, hazelnut, sunflower petals and safflower petals.

Winter: Fruit and Herbal Infusion of rooibos, hibiscus, cardamom pods, raisins, orange peel, cinnamon pieces, apple, clove buds, cardamom seeds, ginger and cornflower petals

Each tin is also colored and artistry themed to each season. There will be a photo later in the report of this :)

I also wanted to get preserves but we couldn’t agree on which one to get, so we ended up getting British Cotswold Honey. We love honey. The take-away sandwich we got was chopped chicken with avocado on sourdough bread. We also ended up getting a little Patisserie set to go:


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Miniature versions of (starting bottom left): Millefeuille, Victoria Sponge, Tropical Choux, Harrods Chocolate Bar and a Lemon Meringue Tart.



We ended up sitting on a bench just outside of the building so Rich could eat half of the sandwich. It was a pretty long one and was quite filling. Poor guy, he had been so distracted with the experiences that he didn’t realize he was so hungry. I wasn’t really hungry at the time so he saved the rest of the sandwich for me and we headed across the street to take more photos.


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::MinnieMo JANE HAT ALERT ::MinnieMo
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After the little photoshoot, we ended up going to a place where, you really couldn’t blame us for going ..


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We had to!


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Soldier Donald is a little blurry


I was on the hunt for THIS tote bag …
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I saw it on a facebook group about 3 months prior to this trip and I knew I HAD to get it!



There were quite a few items on sale at this store and we ended up getting a Mickey Hand Holder that you put on the stove to set the utensil you’re using for cooking something and the tote bag. We also found out that the coin currency I had (from previous trips) was no longer current tender! They would not accept it, so we had to break a larger bill. They told us we can exchange the old tender for new tender at a bank though, so we weren’t too concerned.

We got back on the tube and got off at Euston Station, which is a few blocks from St. Pancras/Kings Cross because I thought I saw a small grocery on the street when looking it up on google maps.
I was wrong. Terribly wrong.
After the busy day with not much sleep, we were quite tired and my feet hurt (fashion over function today) but we needed to get more food to have for the evening. We ended up going to a store in St. Pancras and got some dessert (forgot we had some, even though we were still carrying the bag) and a few chicken wraps (Piri Piri for Rich and Fajita for me).

Once in the room, we kind of collapsed on the bed, ate food while watching T.V., set the alarm for 8am and fell asleep around 9:30pm.
Up to this point, we had gone 33 hours without sleeping in a bed!



Day Three in the next update! :flower1:


Pricing
The USD prices next to the British Pound prices are what we ended up paying after conversion rates.

• Pre-Ordered Foreign Currency (British Pound, Euro & Canadian Dollar): $676.31
Canadian Dollar ($60 CAD) - $48.85
Euro (€50) - $60.50
Great British Pound (£420) - $566.96
Thameslink Tickets for 2: £21.40 ($28.50)
Alhambra Hotel (booked through Hotels.com), Standard Double Ensuite room for 3 nights:
$618.32
Travel Oyster Card for 2 w/£20 credit each & shipping: £54.49 ($74.09)
• Harrods: £53
Season Tea Set - £20
Chicken Sandwich - £6
Cotswold Honey - £9
Mini Patisserie Set - £18
Disney Store: £8.59
Mickey Spoon Rest - £5.59
Tote Bag - £3

Didn’t get the grocery stop but I estimate it was about £12


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I am impressed by how great the report looks so far! I would be afraid to even attempt such a task:eek:
Awe, thank you so much :flower3:
It is quite a task ... and the next two days have the most photos :scared: For me, it's uploading the photos to the third party site before being able to link them, THAT is the biggest task for me. I've sorted them on my computer up to departure day, but I still have quite a bit more to sort through before uploading to the third party and facebook.
I appreciate you noticing the hard work, thank you :flower3:
 
Thanks for the the Gatwick premium passport tip, I am sure we will want to take advantage of anything that will save us time once off the plane.
 
Thanks for the the Gatwick premium passport tip, I am sure we will want to take advantage of anything that will save us time once off the plane.
You're welcome :) It would be most helpful if you ran into any kind of line that we did
 

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