He woke 4 times. Fell out of bed once. On one occasion he was eerily standing next to me at the bed at 2am calling Daaaadi. Daaaadi.
Not too bad for his first night in a big boy bed with no bed rails!
7.30am and that was it. In true Bagpuss fashion when Max wakes up, all his friends wake up!!
Breakfast was an event free and standard affair. Although Max did at one time think he saw Gandad, but of course it wasn’t.
After check out it was a short walk from the hotel lobby to the British Airways Check in. If you ever have to stay in a hotel the night before the flight, and don’t want all the aggro with shuttle buses or taxis from the hotel to the airport, we would highly recommend a hotel attached to the airport.
To have breakfast and minutes later be checking in, is brilliant, particularly if you have kids and a smidgen more luggage than usual!!
Breezed through check in, got rid of our bags even though one was overweight. The lady warned us but let it go, which was nice.
It was then off to the dreaded security to no doubt remove shoes, belts, pants and iPads. As we rolled up to the dreaded line, we were directed to the ‘Family Lane’. Great idea. No one there, we were through in minutes and only had to remove shoes and belts!
It was then that we smelt it. Either last nights veg had caught up with Suzanne or Max’s bum needed seeing to.
Thankfully for all of us it was Max’s bum! After a quick change we decided to track down the family area, which allowed Max to have a bit of fun in a soft play area. This was another great idea, as it gave us a respite from having to chase him around the terminal and it burnt off a bit of excess energy for him.
By this time it was 11.30 so we decided to get a snack and a drink before our flight opened at 12.15. Funny Ravioli thingy’s and pork cracklings with apple sauce.
Soon, it was 12.15 and we headed off to the gate to drop off the buggy and get ready for the flight.
This too, was a breeze. Straight up to the desk, passports checked and on we went, first on the plane with a couple of other families.
We got Max settled and in the middle seat of an empty flight. Now beginning to regret paying £114 to pre select our seats when we could have sat anywhere! Never mind.
The minutes ticked away, which turned into hours, and after about 3 hours a tired Max was on a knife end. One side was meltdown, the other side was sleep. He tettered towards the meltdown but only briefly, and after a few failed attempts trying to get him to nap we left him and he fell asleep sitting up!!
We lay him down, and as I type this on the plane still, 2 hours 15 minutes later he is still flat out!! Woohoo!!
Back tracking slightly I wasn’t impressed with the BA food. Chicken curry or vegetable lasagne!! Nope. Neither thanks. Suzanne liked hers. Max tried some and pulled all sorts of funny faces when trying chicken curry and minted cous cous! We shared the rolls and the puddings.
He got a bit restless as the flight came to an end, but eventually we landed.
Then the fun started. Unlike last years trip into NY, when we disembarked there was no buggy. Great. Everyone had to stand in line for up to 2 hours with knackered kids that had been on the go for more than 12 hours.
Eventually we got to border patrol. Not a person but a computer. Passports scanned, fingerprints taken and photo taken. On completion, planned or not, Max turned round and bowed to the queue behind us!!
We then joined another queue for a human to check what we’d just done.
We then made it through and grabbed a trolley and our bags from baggage claim.
We then joined another queue to hand over everything we had just had printed by the computer and the human.
We then made it through customs, and then had to check our baggage back in because we couldn’t take it all up the escalator (no lift) in one trip!
We went up the escalator and joined another queue waiting to for the train to take us to the terminal.
It was then through the terminal to baggage claim 2 to claim our baggage again for the second time in an hour.
Then it was off to the car hire place.
We resisted the urge to upgrade our car and headed across the street to pick up our compact SUV. It was anything but compact and the guy handing out the keys had upgraded us for free!!!
The car is huge but is going to be fun to drive. We made it to the hotel after a quick supplies stop at a Walgreens.
More photos of the hotel and the car to follow!
