Day -1 Pre-Travel Day
Friday 14th October
The adventure begins…
Current mood:
So here we are, the first-kind-of-almost day of the holiday EEEEEEE! Excitement levels were at an all time high and we couldn’t believe the day was actually here! For the week leading up to this day we had been super busy getting everything organised and it had all kind of gone in a blur, Friday came scarily fast! Ben had finished work on the Thursday but I was working from home Friday morning. He was originally gonna work Fri morning but then his car died the Thursday before - yep, totally died, great timing huh! So he kind of had to take the full day off cause he couldn’t get to work, but it worked out well and was nice to have him home as you’ll see later!
The day before had been my last proper day at work and a few of my lovely colleagues had decorated my desk
I was also chuffed to be presented with a card, bottle of bub and some dollars from all my workmates
Got home from work to find Benj had the same from his work! We felt so lucky and loved
So on the Friday we woke up pretty early, I set up camp in the lounge with my laptop by 8am to do my work, and Benj pottered about packing and doing last minute jobs I asked him to haha! He mainly had to clean the flat so that was his morning! At about 12 I finally finished my content plan, emailed it over to my colleague and said BYE! We then tried to check in online for our flight. If you saw my previous post in Chat we had soooooo many issues with LastMinute, the biggest was them changing our 3 hour connection to 27. Ummmm no. They were crazy unhelpful and we eventually went to Virgin direct who said we had to call Delta, did that, and after a very frustrating call they rebooked us onto a whole new flight via Atlanta. Soooo, when it came to do our online check in, I couldn’t have been less surprised that it didn’t work. No combination of names and booking refs did.
Ben called Lastminute and explained the issue which again fell on deaf ears. Ben called Virgin who said LM had put us down for 2 different sectors and it was something only LM could change. Ggrrrrrrrr. We called LM back, demanded they change it, they said they would and to wait 20 mins. 20 mins came and went and we still couldn’t log in! Ben called Virgin aGAIN who must have taken pity on us as they just changed it. So we checked in yay! Unfortunately the flight saga doesn’t end here haha, watch this space!
We ate a quick lunch and then got ready and packed up all our final bits. At 3pm our friends Kat and Sean arrived, YAY! Ben used to work with Sean and we’ve known him for about 6 years, and when he met Kat a couple of years ago we just fell in love with her too
They were so so so excited for the wedding - Kat had been to Florida a few times but Sean never had and after all our excited talking and planning over the last year he was so ready! I couldn’t believe they were here and it was finally happening, it felt so surreal! We were all running around the flat grabbing last second bits, Kat and Sean popped to Co Op to buy something they’d forgotten haha it was chaos!
At 3.20 the buzzer buzzed - the taxi was early eeeekkkkk! We gathered up everything and did a final check of the flat. We then had to say an emotional goodbye to our little furry princess
I felt so sad cause I was gonna miss her so much, and bad to be leaving her for so long! Bad kitty parents! I knew she’d be okay though, Ben’s Auntie was coming twice a day to feed her and play with her for 2 weeks, then the third week our best man was moving in to look after her
So she’d be okay. But it was horrible saying bye to her!
We took a little pic of me with my dress box
We then all bundled outside to greet the taxi driver - I’d booked the taxi about 6 months earlier and it was £120 between the 4 of us I think so pretty good, as we had a lot of luggage! The journey was about an hour and 20 minutes and it absolutely flew by as we were all chattering so excitedly! I remember feeling so happy and excited, I’ll never forget that car journey
Selfies were taken!
We pulled up to the Sheraton Skyline Heathrow hotel and OMG it was posh! As you know me and Benj have only ever stayed at Travelodges before our holidays haha but Kat and Sean kindly paid for our overnight stay here as a wedding present! Yay! I’m afraid I don’t have many pics of the hotel as we had so much luggage to cart around I didn’t have a spare hand haha! But it was mega classy and we felt very lucky to be staying here! Kat checked us all in and we piled into the lift to go up to our rooms, which were next to each other! Handy! The room was so so so lovely
We said bye to the guys and arranged to Whatsapp when we were ready
Me and Benj chilled on the bed for a bit, I painted my nails and we did the standard reading of the room service menus etc! We both changed and freshened up a bit, and at about 6pm the guys came in for champagne! Chilled in the sink as ever haha, classy! We all toasted the start of our holiday and enjoyed our bub while chatting about the coming days
Me in my natural habitat
At about 7 we headed downstairs to find a bar cause we’d finished the champagne hahah! We found a gorgeous poolside bar that felt like a tropical island! It was amazing! We each had a cocktail even though I had a minor freak out as they were £11 each haha, but Ben told me to shhh cause we were getting married and we deserved them
Love him!
We sat at the bar and chatted to the guys working which was super fun even though I spilled my drink everywhere at one point, oops! We got nuts and crisps too which was awesome cause we were all famished! At 8pm we paid the bill and headed to the Sports Bar for dinner. We got a cute table for 4 and ordered another round of cocktails….
I have to say, the food was so good here! Really yum! Although I was in such an fantastic mood and a few drinks in so I’m not sure I could have thought any food was bad! I got the lasagna, it was incredible!
Benj got the veggie burger with an exciting addition of cajun pineapple!
Kat got a pizza with mushroom and pineapple
I don’t seem to have a photo of what Sean had!
but he had a burger!
Me and Benj also shared chips!
We had a really lovely meal and it was so special to share it with our buddies. We finished up about 10 and said our goodbyes - we were getting up at 4am and Kat and Sean’s flight was even earlier than ours eekkk! We took lift selfies
And said an emotional goodbye - the next time we saw them would be in WALT DISNEY WORLD! Me and Benj got ready for bed and set our alarm for 4.10...tomorrow the adventure would really begin!