Grad Trip to the UK--Day 1

Day 1

Sunday, July 21

Our flight was at night and so we made sure to eat before we left for the airport although they fed us dinner on the plane. First class is really the way to go when it is an 8 hour flight over the Atlantic from Dallas/Ft Worth to Heathrow London.

 Our seats swiveled and they reclined back flat for a bed and also a foot rest and lumbar support. We were given slippers, pjs if you wanted them, and a little zippered pouch with toothpaste, floss, and toothbrush. Also your own tv screen that offered a choice of many movies and tv shows to watch, including new release movies! We were glad to have our own snacks although the food was good, it was odd items that we were not used to. There were several appetizers, a soup, and salad and then a few different entrees to choose from. Alot of 'little food'.

Of course pillow and blankets were supplied. I had my own cozy soft socks.

It was a really nice flight and the flight attendants were really nice and attentive. Real linen and silverware...wine....all part of it and they also gave you earbuds to keep too and offered Bose headsets to borrow. Although again, I had my own and mine were noise cancelling so I had to take them off to talk to the flight attendants and to hear them.

One good note, if they offer you something on the plane in first class, just say yes. Be careful when you turn down food especially because you may not want one particular item item but it came with everything else so when you said no, that meant to it all! Besides, don't be afraid to try something new and never know if your taste buds have changed.

***Special Note***
Remember as you leave your phone at home, make sure to bring a watch so you can know what the time is.

Grad Trip to the UK--Itinerary

 Before I go off on a trip, I like to sit down and run thru the trip in my mind and write it down on paper and try to think about every little thing I would use, wear, or what we will be doing so I can try to be sure that I don't forget to take anything. This trip in particular, I really wanted to be sure that it went off without a hitch. So this is my itinerary that I had set down to be sure I had it all.

UK trip

21 days: 

Things to do before trip: (this got erased here as I wrote everything on my notes here on the iPad and then erased it as I completed whatever task or errand I had to do before we left.)

Itinerary:

Sunday-July 21: leave Dallas at 9:20 pm.

Airport--1 suitcase each, one carry-on:

Gogo pillow, passports, old pound money, itinerary and reservations, iPad, iPod, Druid journal, pen, rechargers for iPad, iPod, ID, snacks, business/calling cards, wear sneakers, comfortable but nice clothes

Monday--July 22: arrive in London, get luggage, go thru customs, get taxi to take us to hotel, relax, get something to eat, try to hook up to wifi and email Lloyd and Trey and Facebook that we made it there. Get pound cash withdraw for tomorrow. Call tours to confirm.

Tuesday--July 23: morning 2 hour tour Harry Potter, take reservations, iPad and camera, passport and ID and money and cc,  have fun! Afternoon: relax and/or go exploring, take more money out of bank, can wear sandals

See about getting some Euros. If back in time, go to Highgate Cemetery, Go to bed early!!

Wednesday--July 24: Get to Euston train station for Paris all day tour via taxi, take reservations, iPad, camera, passport and ID, money and cc, ( pounds for taxi and euros for Paris), wear sandals, taxi back to hotel, get to bed early!!

Thursday--July 25: Go 1-2 blocks south to other hotel for EARLY morning pickup for Stonehenge and Bath tour. Take reservations, camera, iPad, passports, ID, money and cc, wear sneakers for all the walking, take money out of ATM

Friday--July 26: Pack and check out of hotel and get to train station for train to Dublin, take money and reservations, ID, can wear sandals, taxi to Temple Bar hotel, relax for night, go to bed early!!

Saturday--July 27: Taxi to train station for all day trip to Aran islands, take reservations, iPad, camera, money, passports, ID, wear sneakers

Sunday--July 28:  Relax in Dublin, shop on Grafton St, see library at Trinity college, wear sneakers or sandals, go to bed early!!

Monday--July 29: Check out of Temple Bar hotel and taxi to train station to train up to Belfast, taxi to fancy hotel, relax and explore, can wear sandals or sneakers, take reservations and money, cc and passport etc,  go to bed early!!

Tuesday--July 30: Hotel pickup for Giant's Causeway and rope bridge tour, bring reservations, ID, cc and money, camera and iPad, wear sneakers,

Wednesday--July 31st: my birthday!! Check out of hotel and taxi to airport to fly to Glasgow. Take reservations, passport, cc, money. Can wear sandals. Meet Billy and Jan at airport--- relax

Thursday---August 1: Relax

Friday--August 2: Relax 

Saturday---August 3: Off to Callanish Standing Stones on isle of Lewis, take passport, ID, cc, money, camera and iPad, can wear sneakers probably

Sunday--August 4: Relax

Monday--August 5: Possible bus to Inverness and b&b overnight stay.

Tuesday--August 6: Catch coach tour to Orkney isles, wear sneakers, take camera, iPad, money, passport, ID

Wednesday--August 7: Return via bus to Fort William

Thursday--August 8: Relax

Friday--August 9: Leave for train for overnight train trip to London, say goodbye, pack all

Saturday--August 10: Arrive in London and taxi to hotel at Heathrow airport, relax

Sunday--August 11: Relax, possible tour, repack for trip home, can wear sandals or sneakers if touring

Monday--August 12: Taxi or shuttle to airport, fly home to Dallas, can wear sandals

Graduation Trip to the UK---Part 1--Setup

I had been planning this trip for the better part of over 2 years now, a graduation trip for my daughter, Madalyn. She was given a choice between money or a trip to anywhere she wanted to go in the world, and she chose the trip and she chose the UK.

The places that she wanted to go to and see and do were:
Stand on the inside of Stonehenge
Shop in Bath
Shop on Grafton Street in Dublin
See the Giant's Causeway
Walk across the Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge
Visit with our friend Billy in the Highlands of Scotland

This would be my 4th time going over there and her 2nd as the last time she was in the UK, she was 3 years old, some 16 years ago. We had stayed with Billy when he lived in Mallaig and we were in the UK when Princess Diana had died, we were just down the road from Balmoral, where the Prince and the sons were staying.
Now, returning back again, we were there when the baby was born who would have been Princess Diana's first grandchild! We had landed and got to the hotel just as they announced on the tv that Kate had had the baby. Although they had not named him yet, I had guessed they would name him George. For some reason, I just thought after seeing the distant past relatives of their's scrolling past on the tv, George stuck out to me. They would call him Georgie boy for short and I thought yea, King George. Wouldn't that be amazing?! :)

Anyway, back to the trip! I love to plan for trips! The planning is almost as much fun as going on the trip itself! After having done a coach tour for 2 weeks, I knew this trip, I would have to put it together on my own as the places Madz wanted to go to, were not all a part of just one tour. I also wanted to avoid driving as much as I could and completely if I could help it. I can drive over there, just would rather sit and relax and not have to worry about the car nor petrol nor any of that.

I figured this should be a good 3 week trip to really get to see everything and set it all up properly. I also wanted to add in a few places that she had not thought of and one (Paris), I wanted to make a surprise for her.

So here is what got added in:

Harry Potter tour--2.5 hour black cab taxi tour
Day trip to Paris---2 course champagne brunch atop the Eiffel Tower, cruise along the Seine and into the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa
Stop at Lacock in England for breakfast--part of the Stonehenge/Bath tour
Train across Ireland and then fly over to the Aran Islands
Tour to the Isle of Lewis to see the Callanish Standing Stones
Tour to the Orkneys to see the Ring of Brodgar and Skara Brae
Tour through Highgate cemetery
And last minute, I tossed in a Jack the Ripper tour.

The Setup:

The first thing to worry about is the air fare and reservations. Flying across the Atlantic Ocean, fondly called 'the pond', is really not that expensive when you plan and schedule it way ahead of time.
As this was her graduation trip, I wanted to really spoil her rotten and fly First Class but of course, that is just crazy, silly money to toss away.
However! her father travels a lot for his job and he saved for about 2 years for enough frequent flyer points to fly us both over first class for free! And when I say free, yes, the tickets were free, we only had to pay taxes. Oh man! Those taxes were about how much a flight would have cost us to fly a domestic flight if we paid in full! So yup, the cost for that was: $598.60 total for two people. I booked and paid for it in October 2012 for the July departure date.
We chose American Airlines, since we had the points with them, and also chose them and not British Airways as it would actually cost more in taxes than American Airlines. Funny that, as I would have thought it the other way around but no, American Airlines was the cheaper one.

The tours were next to set up and I was able to make a lot of them with Premium Tours and I'll have a link off to the side for them. Those I could set up fairly early, however a lot of the other tours and the train travel, I had to wait as they do not open up those dates we were to travel until it was much closer. So every now and then, I would check to see if the dates were released so that I could make the reservation and pay for the tour. This made it so that the paying for each tour would be staggered out for me as only one or two would be available each month or few weeks and so it made the costs very affordable in that way rather than paying for the entire trip all at once.

The trains were last to get reserved only because they were the last to open up for reservations. I had gotten the hotels fairly early on and most just reserved the amount they were to charge on the card and not actually charge tho' I would have rathered they just charged it but that was ok.

One thing to take note of here is that when you look at a calendar for the UK tours, you have to be careful to take note what day it is you are booking because their week starts with Monday, not Sunday so their calendars were off. I almost made a mistake because of that.

Now to set this up, I pulled out a map and a calendar and marked what day we were to do what and tracked what we would need to do to make that happen, what hotel, or would we need a taxi or train to get there? How close was the hotel to the train station? All these questions and locations had to get mapped out strategically to make the transitions be as smooth and easy as possible.

I almost set up an account with a taxi company for I knew I would probably be using them a lot but I felt that might be too expensive and most of the places I was choosing seemed to be in relative close proximity to each other and at times, we might walk, take the train or take the underground (the London subway kind of system). What I should have done was to have gotten a season travel pass on the underground as we ended up using that quite often as it was the cheapest way to get around London and if you are not in a hurry and don't mind the frequent stops, it is very convenient.

So nearly all tours and travel and hotels were paid for before the actual trip! That was really great! All we would have to spend our money on then was food and fun basically! How grand that is!

Now for what to pack?

21 days, actually was 23 days away when I recounted it. We wanted to travel as light as we could so we took half the tops and figured to wear them twice and then a few pants, shorts, skirts and just wear some of those a few times. As for shoes, we are lucky in that we have about the same size foot so we could share the two pair of sandals we took and then we wore our own sneakers. Brought socks of course, bras...etc. We would share the shampoo, cream rinse, soap, and other assorted toiletries and then we took our own makeup.

Camera and rechargers, headphones, iPod, and I picked up an iPad too so she would be able to Skype with her boyfriend and I could keep in touch with her dad who was covering for me at work and I could answer questions and of course to post pics along the way on Facebook. (If you would like my Facebook, feel free to look me up at: ghostpeeker@hotmail.com and add me. Tons of pics there!)
We also brought an umbrella for each of us as I knew it got rainy at times in the UK. Brought all the reservations and credit cards we would use and had used for the reservations.

She had a backpack and I had a carryon luggage as well as a purse that could hold the iPad and I had a smaller purse/wallet. Billy's address in case customs was a pain.
A light, thin jacket/sweater type of thing, two of those.

We left our cell phones at home for they would not be of much use without an international plan and I thought that the iPad would cover us as to keep in touch with family and friends.

This was an overnight flight, so we would be sleeping on the plane. We made sure we ate before we left that evening.

Picked up some snacks for the plane and during the trip.

That is all I can think of for setup, if more comes to mind, I'll edit and add it in here. :)

I took notes each day on my iPad and I will share these here of our journey as well as pics!
Blog posts to come!!