Expressions and experiences - London / UK / Paris COMPLETED About This Page:

[chezp]

“Expressions and experiences”

Dates: Saturday 3 – Friday 9 May
Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (35) and DH Mark (43), along with Sue and DH Steve
Itinerary:
Saturday 3 – Monday 5 May in London, staying at the Royal Garden Hotel
Tuesday 6 – Friday 9 May in Maidstone, staying at our house
Tuesday 6 May visiting Windsor and Eton for the day
Wednesday 7 May visiting Paris for the day
Thursday 8 May showing them the best our county (state) Kent has to offer, including Leeds Castle and the white cliffs of Dover
Friday 9 May visiting Stonehenge and Bath
Resorts: Royal Garden Hotel while we’re in London and our house for the rest of the week
Meets: The week is one huge long meet with Sue and Steve!
Celebration:
Sue and Steve are coming to visit us!

Pre-trip report:

Let me start off by saying that I had no idea what to name this trip report. The name only really came to me after the trip was over. Why “expressions and experiences”? Because it seemed to sum up our time with Sue and Steve – it was full of both things, as you’ll see as we move through the trip report.

I guess it’s probably fair to say that this trip is pretty much down to us. If you’ve ever met us, you’ll know that we always sell the UK – and especially London – as a great place to come and visit. Well, heck our argument is that we usually have to travel thousands of miles to meet up with fellow PassPorters and it’s nice to see them returning the favour one day. That’s really how this trip started out, with a very similar conversation between ourselves and Sue and Steve. I think that could’ve been back as far as 2005 maybe and they told us that they’d love to come over one day. The conversation moved on and we thought no more of it.

Fast forward to our October 2006 trip, and knowing they were interested in maybe visiting one day, we got them a book about the place. Now I clearly remember Steve sitting down in a chair by the window and not hearing a peep out of him for the next few minutes, so I knew that he was taking it all in and was obviously fascinated by what he was reading. I also seem to recall him saying at that point “Sue, we are going to have to go over and visit them”.

We had various e-mails going to and forth and 2008 was mentioned for a visit. It was eventually narrowed down to early May of that year and I was able to persuade them to get perhaps slightly longer off work than they’d originally envisaged, telling them that really anything under a week wasn’t enough to see everything.

I don’t recall at what point they actually booked their stay, I do know it was well after June 2007, because that was the point at which the flights were released and I know I did some gentle persuading about possibly making a booking. I was more worried that the price of the flights would rocket up, which sadly they did for our October trip, with our flights setting us back an extra £150 when we booked them in January of this year, compared to a year earlier. Ouch!

Their dates were confirmed, they would be flying in on a flight that left Philadelphia on Thursday 1 May, arriving the next morning, as is the case with all flights heading from America to the UK. We would then go up to meet them in London on the Saturday morning. We would all stay in London at the Royal Garden Hotel in London, using our DVC points until Monday, after which time we’d head back to our house for the rest of the week. We’re dropping them back at the Heathrow Airport Marriott on the night of Friday 9 May, ready for their flight back home the following morning.

Then the planning began. I think it’s safe to say that Sue and Steve pretty much left it to me – all I needed from them was some direction on the things they just had to see while they were over here and I went from there. The plans for the various days came together fairly easily, as I tried to plan reasonably easy days before and after our day trip to Paris, as I knew that would be a long day for us. We all got ourselves London Passes, as I knew this would pay for themselves easily and we bought the tickets for the Eurostar to Paris, while Sue and Steve got the tickets to see the Lion King on the Saturday night. That’s pretty much all we needed and we were set. All that was left was to count down to their arrival...

Next: “fancy seeing you guys here!”

[BritDisFan]

Great start, can't wait to read all about it.

[Colexis Mom]

Great start

[RobDVC]

Great beginning!

[JaimeandChad]

Great start!!

[tndisneyfam]

Great start! Can't wait for more!

[Lemap760]

Great start. Glad you're able to show your Passporter friends around.

[lauren-roxy]

Great start!!!

[karmic]

Great start! I have been looking for this report

[mcc0313]

Great start Cheryl...can't wait to hear more.

(and so glad that you love giving tips on England as my DD wants to visit there for her graduation trip - we have two years but I know it is never to early to get started )

[chezp]

Saturday 3 May – part one: “fancy seeing you guys here!”

We were up at 5.30, our usual time that the alarm goes off in the week, but today it was a much happier reason to be up so early – we had to head up to London to meet Sue and Steve. We were out of the house by 7.40 and the drive up was fine with no hold-ups. We were at the Royal Garden Hotel, where we would be staying for the next couple of nights, in just over an hour and as soon as we walked in, we could tell this was one of London’s top hotels. Everything about it just felt glamorous and so it would prove to be, as you’ll find out in later instalments…



When we got inside, who’s the first person we should see, but Steve? We went up to him and surprised him and his first words? “Well, fancy seeing you guys here!” – fancy that! He took us up to their room to surprise Sue. We hung round the corner, while he knocked on the door and yelled “room service”. Her face was a picture when she saw us – nearly as good as Steve’s a few moments earlier. Hugs exchanged, we went inside and as soon as we saw their room, we knew that if ours was half as nice, we’d be happy. If only we’d known!

We had a few little gifts for them – some photos of London landmarks that we’d got framed for them, including Buckingham Palace:



They also had a gift for us – a photobook of our December trip with them and I did a double take when I saw it, as we’d done exactly the same thing for them and it was waiting for them back at our house! Boy, talk about great minds thinking alike!

We went back downstairs and took the car over to the Park Lane car park, where it would live for the next couple of nights. The car park itself was fine, but let’s just say there were some interesting aromas as we walked back to the main road. The road is right by Hyde Park…



… and then down Park Lane itself, which is one of the most expensive roads in London:



We were heading for a bus stop, so we could get a bus over to Westminster, but unfortunately it’s been a long time since I travelled around London without an Oyster card. That’s a card that you use to swipe in and out on all public transport in London and it deducts the correct fare. You can add extra money to it at shops and underground stations all around the capital and, if you go into London regularly as we do, it’s really the only way to travel, especially as a single cash fare on the underground if £4, while a single fare on an Oyster card is something like £1.50 – quite a big difference.

Anyway, I just assumed that you could still buy tickets when you board the bus, as that’s what you used to be able to do, but apparently not. Obviously they don’t hold cash on board buses any longer, as we discovered when we boarded. I swiped in my Oyster card fine and then realised the problem as I asked for two single tickets – we had to buy them at the ticket machine a little further down the road. We went to try and do it in time for us to get on the bus, but it just took too long and the bus took off before we had both tickets, leaving us with a 10 minute wait for the next one. It was just the start of our transportation troubles this vacation. At least Steve found some material for the DVD with this episode:



Finally we caught a bus and got off by Westminster City Hall. I didn’t realise, but Sue and Steve hadn’t had breakfast this morning (you will see what a big mistake that was in due course..), so when I popped into a newsagent to get a paper and some chocolate, while Mark got some money out, I could almost see their eyes light up. OK, food is the next order of the day then… Fortunately we found a café just a few doors down and they got some food and we sat outside eating it. Already it was warm out there and promised to be a good day. In fact, the weather forecast promised a good few days, but we’d have to see how that turned out.

We walked down the rest of the road and found Westminster Abbey:



We didn’t really have time to stop and admire it, as we were booked on the London Eye and needed to get there, so we walked on, passing the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben as we did.


See who’s filming again?!


The line for the London Eye was really short and we were in the capsule well before 11am, the time that we had booked for, so that’s good going. It’s certainly a lot better than we were expecting in terms of crowds, considering it was the Saturday of a three day holiday weekend.

Next: “look, it’s the Changing of the Guard ceremony!”

[DyanKJ130]

Just catching up, Cheryl!! Sounds like the 4 of you are already having a wonderful time! And, it's good to see one-eyed Steve doing the usual! Can't wait to hear more

Great shot!

[lauren-roxy]

How exciting to get to see Steve and Sue!!! Looks like a great time already!! Great photos!!

[Colexis Mom]

Great pictures and update Cheryl!!

[NanaTink]

Ah, there he is! That's the Steve I've met! more, please, Cheryl!