The Trip to the USA Part One

Dan and Nen on the Train to London

Ok so the great adventure begins!  Leg one of our epic adventure (well by our standards given that we’ve barely left home for the past couple of years) started out with a trip to London on the great British railway system.  


As is our usual experience this trip was smooth, on schedule, comfortable and issue free.  We had one change in Doncaster and arrived in a rainy, dull Kings Cross station on the afternoon of 30^th December.  


Daniel was so excited to see the Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal football club, a team he doesn’t even support but none the less, he was more excited by the sight of it at this stage than he was about the trip to the USA.  

Emirates Stadium

A tip about rail travel in the UK, there is a window where pre-booked internet purchased tickets are incredibly cheap keep checking about 8-10 weeks before travel for when the ultra low price window opens and mind for it slamming shut pretty quickly too,  get in through that window and you are laughing.  Our tickets for two adults and one child cost us the grand sum of £19 from Grimsby to Kings Cross. I do also have a Friends and Family Railcard which for around £25 gets you whopping discounts on standard fares, I think it’s 30% off per adult and more for a child.  GET YOURS HERE Pre-booking also has the advantage of reserving you seats which is pretty useful particularly when you can reserve exact seats, front facing/rear facing/table seats/near toilets/near luggage racks etc.  Train travel in the UK is ultra pleasant, can cost less than petrol and be far less stressful than driving and far quicker, you just need to do it right. BUY TICKETS HERE

At Kings Cross

Kings Cross has changed a bit since I was last there, which wasn’t so long ago, but the preparations for the London Olympics in 2012 are evident all around as the infrastructure gets a make over.  I guess some people are against spending billions of pounds in times of austerity but the renovations to dated facilities in London are overdue and wouldn’t have happened any other way so from that point of view the investment has to be seen positively.  The price of a one day off peak travel card for unlimited travel on the underground network has seen hikes since my last visit, we paid just shy of £20 for two adults and a child, no concessions for students. This is really worth it if you are travelling all around London all day sightseeing or whatever, but when it’s the best option for a couple of short hops then it seems a bit costly especially when your tickets down to London cost less. Oh well it’s a great network, super efficient and as we were to come to appreciate, super well sign posted and providing lots of orienteering information.

Not happy on the Tube

Not happy

So I shepherded the kids onto the underground, having decided to take Daniel for a look at Wembley Stadium before we headed to Terminal 5 at Heathrow to pick up our dollars and to check into our airport hotel for the night. Now, forgive me but I was once the master of the underground but things have changed, there have been alterations to the system, I’m getting older, we were all tired and the prices, I’ve already covered the prices right?   So we got lost but only as lost as is possible on the London Underground, it’s a case of all roads lead to Rome really and so we were not without direction for long.

Happy, Wembley Stadium through the mist in the background

Wembley was pretty dull and pouring with good old English winter rain, it was freezing and we didn’t hang around long before heading to Terminal 5.  What a treat lay in store. The terminal is mighty impressive, Nnenna likened it to a huge space station and Daniel thought the transport was amazing, fully automated driverless underground shuttles which are spotless and super-efficient.  Glass elevators transport you from one level to another, lots of shops and eateries land side, all in all just a really impressive place with the teething problems clearly ironed out. It was a good move to familiarise ourselves with the terminal ahead of flying out of it the next day. We knew exactly where we needed to be and what we had to do.  We’d checked in ahead using the British Airways on line check in and seat allocation system which opened 24 hours before departure time. It actually opened a little ahead of this time and allowed us to choose our seats at no extra cost and print out our boarding passes. We elected to save our passes and print them later at the hotel.

AT T 5

So after picking up our dollars with a fantastic exchange rate which gave us real value for money we headed to find a taxi to take us to our hotel. We’d booked a cheap £15 family room at the Terminal 5 Travelodge and after booking I read some reviews on trip advisor.  Travel tip alert… never read reviews on trip advisor AFTER you’ve booked they scare you and make you change your mind and sometimes (as we’ll see later) changing your mind is not the best thing.  Bear in mind that Trip Advisor reviews are written by a mix of people who have different expectations from hotels, restaurants and attraction and who have different ideas about what is good value for money and what is good service. A lot of the time people write reviews only when they   wish to complain and not when they have had a good experience so this can skew data and also don’t forget that it is the opinion of an individual and what one person may find boring or expensive another might find exciting and excellent value for money. 

Basic Family Room, serviceable, comfy £15 a night!!

So we arrived at the Terminal 5 Travelodge after a longer than I’d have liked wait for a taxi recommended by Travelodge on their website and it cost £13.50 for the three of us with our hand luggage to the Terminal 5 Travelodge. This hotel is not close by the terminal and it is difficult to access other than by taxi or shuttle which costs £4.50 per person each way so as in our case where there were three of us it was just as cheap to get a taxi.  Of course if you are driving life is much easier but still don’t expect the hotel to be right by the terminal as it isn’t.  We were assured that a taxi from the hotel to the terminal costs £11.00 due to the route being shorter.  I must say that the taxi was very nice, a luxury class Mercedes and the driver was smart and very friendly and helpful.

The Travelodge itself cannot be faulted.  You like it when you get what you pay for and you like it even more when you get more than you paid for. The check in was swift and pleasant, the staff were friendly and helpful; the room was spotlessly clean, comfortable and quiet.  We had tea and coffee making facilities, a wall mounted flat screen TV, bathroom with bath tub, towels included (no toiletries as is the norm with Travelodge but there were vending machines if you wished to purchase travel sized toiletries such as toothpaste and the like).  There was no noise, we didn’t even hear a plane and didn’t hear any other guests.  I wouldn’t have minded if we did, this is an airport hotel I’d expect people to be staying there who are flying or arriving at the airport at unsociable hours and who are likely to be checking in or out throughout the night, excited people going on holidays or arriving for holidays often make a little bit of noise because they are happy and you can’t knock people being happy just because you chose a cheap hotel for the same reasons they did.  My kids are normally very quiet but I even had to remind them to keep their voices down later on at night but they were excited and as I say it’s to be expected.

Panorama of dining area, pleasant, clean, nothing special

We had dinner in the restaurant, we weren’t going to as we’d heard such bad things but it was a pleasant environment, the staff again were faultless, the menu was basic kind of pub grub and tasted like decent pub grub and we stayed for dessert. We enjoyed the music, the holiday atmosphere which was already in the air and just the chance to relax before we began our holiday proper. 

Bathroom, clean, hot water, towels all you need really

The only downside was that we used the internet which was only a couple of pounds but when we needed to print out our boarding passes, using the printer was a bit convoluted in that we had to email the documents one by one to the printer which then printed them one by one when you enter a code and then they had to be paid for one by one by debit card with meant three transactions of £3 each. Now this was extortionate by anyone’s standards as printing 3 one page boarding passes wound up costing me £9 plus the charge for using the internet.  Wi-Fi is advertised as being available in this hotel but it is only available in the range of the ground floor, we were on 3^rd floor and it didn’t reach that far, maybe it reached first and second but certainly not third.  Just another note on the printing charges, it’s £3 for up to 10 pages or for each print job, I could have saved money had I had the facility to make the three boarding pass PDF documents one three page document, that way it would have cost me £3.  My advice would be don’t use this service if you can avoid it.

There are lots of vending machines with drinks, ice creams and snacks including healthier options and as I said earlier travel sized toiletries. The hotel felt like a safe and comfortable place to be and our taxi arrived on time as booked the next morning to take us to the airport for £11 as were had been informed.  We did start to get into the habit of tipping though so paid a little more for both taxis.

We figured that for £15 for our clean comfortable room we did well.  To have facilities to make tea and coffee 4 times probably saved us that amount in buying them downstairs or at airport prices so we see it that we got teas and coffees with complimentary hotel room for 4 rather than a hotel room with complimentary teas and coffees, when you look at things that way you are always going to be onto a winner and really cannot complain.

Checkout of the hotel was smooth and simple and we were on our way to Terminal 5 once more ready to take to the skies.

At T 5

Terminal 5 is a pleasant experience, all staff we encountered was helpful, everything was well sign posted, online check in and printing of boarding passes made everything so much simpler and we arrived about 90 minutes or so before departure.  There is a range of shops landside including W H Smiths and Boots should you need to pick up any last minute toiletries or snacks or reading materials. Security was quick and efficient with lots of staff working even though it was New Year’s Eve and the queues moved swiftly.  Usual applied in that liquids including make-up held in hand baggage had to be no more than 100mls and had to be taken out and put into a clear plastic bag issued by the airport staff, hand luggage had to meet certain size restrictions and at security coats, belts and electrical items as well as metal coins etc. had to be placed into plastic trays and if you were wearing boots or high heeled shoes these also had to go into the trays which went through the x ray  machines while the person (Us) went through the metal detector.  None of us set it off but this wasn’t to be the norm for the rest of the trip.

Staff were ultra-friendly throughout the airport, wishing us a happy new year and smiling and the atmosphere was very upbeat and pleasant.

Once airside we had breakfast at Giraffes.  It was a good breakfast, the kids had breakfast buns which were rather larger than expected and if anything can be criticised it was that my cranberry juice was rather warm and could have benefited from some ice which I’m sure they would have provided had I asked.  The staff at Giraffes were second to none, polite, upbeat, helpful and happy, service was fast and yet it didn’t feel like we were being rushed nor did it feel like a fast food joint.  The food was good, hot and tasty, the seating comfortable and a lovely view of the landing and take-off runways just topped it all off. 

Unusually for me we left the journey to the boarding gate to the eleventh hour not realising what a long trek it was however we used the transit shuttle which was fun, clean, 21^st century, slick technology. Daniel loved it. When we got to the back of the queue we were waved forward by a BA staff member who told us to pass through priority boarding as we were a family group, this was a nice touch and welcome after our mad dash to the gate.  

Immaculate T5 Transit System

We boarded the plane and were shown to our seats. Very comfortable, plenty of leg room, recliners, retractable arm rests, seat back personal TV with movies, music, TV programmes and in flight information. We had pillows and head sets and tooth brushes and blankets and it was really comfortable. Daniel loved tracing our journey through the sky on the TV and Nnenna watched several films.

Daniel kept reminding me how high we were and how
fast we were travelling throughout the journey

Take off was smooth and I busied myself talking to my neighbour to take my mind off it and had perhaps the most settled take off experience of my life.  The plane was full and spirits were largely very high with a few eager to start celebrating New Year’s Eve before they got to New York taking advantage of the complimentary drinks throughout the flight and some tried to coerce partners into joining the mile high club much to Nnenna and Daniel’s distaste.  I chatted the whole flight to a Scots guy called John and it made the flight pass very quickly, we had a good laugh and a few drinks together and joined each other at the back for a stretch of the legs throughout the flight.  During the flight we were well cared for by excellent cabin crew with a good lunch, snacks and drinks throughout and we landed on schedule at JFK airport in New York.

In flight entertainer

First pic in NYC outside T7 at JFK

I was so proud of myself for mastering my phobia of flying once again and living my promise of taking the kids to the USA, it was quite emotional when we touched down for these reasons as well as relief that the flight was over. We had a tiny bit of light turbulence on the approach to New York but other than that it was a comfortable, fun and uneventful flight. British Airways staff and services throughout the experience can not be faulted so well done to them.