MelissaH

I'm finally caught up from our 11 day trip and can pass along our adventures from our family trip to England and Wales!

We took only $200 in travellers checks (for emergencies) and 3 credit cards, plus our ATM/Debit card. We didn't exchange any $$ before we left, but waited for an ATM there near our hotel.

We purchased the Great British Heritage Pass as a special deal - 7 days for the price of 4 - before leaving.

The weather was pretty good for this time of year. We only had 3 days of real rainy, windy and bone chilling cold which we thought was good for this time period.

Day 1 - Wednesday
We drove 4 hrs to pickup my step-daughters (ages 14 and 15) and then another hour back to DFW. (For those who followed the "school absences" thread, the one daughter did get to go and so far no repercusions!)

We had a 5 PM AA non-stop flight from DFW to LGW.

Each child had a checked bag and my husband and I had one together. The girls each had a back pack and we had 19 inch carry on. LESSON #1 - although I'd told the girls to pack as light as possible, one brought her ENTIRE CD collection. She soon regretted having to carry that extra weight.

DAY #2 - Thursday
We arrived at 7:45 AM. We got off the plane and walked & walked & walked. It seemed like forever before we got to passport control. The girls remarked that the British just say what the mean as they pointed out the "Toilets" sign instead of "restrooms". No problems with luggage - it all arrived.

We made our way toward the Gatwick Express. We got into line for the only open window. Others were getting in line behind us. Suddenly, this lady stepped up and got between the four of us and set her back down. I asked her what she was doing and she replied waiting in line. My husband politely explained that she was in the middle of the line, not the end and everyone would appreciate her going to the end. She then tried to say her bag was heavy and she was just "waiting" for the line to catch up (as it continued to grow). We refused to allow her to get in front of us as did several others. Luckily for her, another window opened and she went to that line! We got our roundtrip GW Express tickets and headed out.

LESSON #2 - ASK which platform your train leaves from. We didn't and hauled our luggage down 2 flights of stairs only to find that it wasn't the Express and had to go back up and down again to the correct platform.

Due to maintenance, the GW Express was off schedule and took about 45 minutes to reach Victoria Station.

LESSON #3 - ASK your hotel in advance for specific directions. I had the address and several maps of London, but there were some side streets that would have cut our walk in half!

We stayed at Windermere Hotel on Warwick Way about a 7 minute brisk walk from Victoria Station. Winderemere is a small hotel/bed and breakfast. We had a family room (2 double beds) for 107 lbs a night and it included full, made to order, English breakfast.

We liked the hotel and the staff. Very clean, although a little worn inside, but the rooms are smaller than I expected. The room did include a safe, tea and coffee. If you want really FANCY, this isn't the place. If you want a homey, friendly place for a decent value, it's here. The only thing we didn't like was the walk to the nearest tube. Take heed first timers - chose lodging close to a tube/bus stop! I should have listened, but I thought 5-7 min wouldn't matter. But it does when you are walking ALL day, several days in a row.

We arrived at the hotel at 9:45 AM. I had told the hotel that we had an early arrival and luckily our room was ready. We had planned to stay awake all day. But after lugging the luggage, etc., I could tell the lack of sleep was making everyone quite grumpy. So we decided to take a 2 hr nap.

We arose at noon and showered/changed clothes and off we went. The hotel staff had cautioned us strongly against going to or near Parliament/Westminister Abbey or Buckingham due to the thousands of protesters set to began at 3:15 PM. (Pres. Bush was in town). So we set off to find an ATM and grab a bite to eat as we re-thought out intinerary. (had planned to visit the above, but didn't know about Bush's visit until a few days before we left.)

We decided to go to Kensington Palace (for Diana's dress collection)by taking a double decker bus. Now that was an experience from the top of the bus narrowly missing bicycle riders, pedestrians and the sides of cars! We found it quite amazing that traffic on downtown streets travels quite fast - especially when you forget to look in the direction of traffic and walk out in front of a car!

Anyway, the girls really enjoyed Kensington (Thanks Ben H for suggesting it). We left Kensington and decided that we'd walk to Harrods as we had remembered passing it while on the bus.
LESSON #4 - Always consult your map or ASK how far away something is. Harrods was much farther than we thought (or remembered)! We were getting tired of walking when we finally found it.

Shopped for a little while and decided to head to the London Eye and catch the night skyline. Discovered that the busses, taxis, and anything above ground was being detoured due to protestors (it's now 6 PM) so we tackled the Tube.

We attempted to teach the girls how to read the tube maps, but I guess jet lag was catching up with us. We suddenly were directionally challenged (and we're both in law enforcement)! We got straightened out and over to the Eye.

Pretty cool views with all the lights - including all the police lights of the barricaded areas. We had a "bubble" all to ourselves as we walked up and got right on.
During our tube rides back to the hotel we encountered some of the protestors. The girls thought it was interesting as they had never been around that sort of thing (with our line of work, we have).

We returned to our hotel (after getting lost coming out of Victoria Station) and ate dinner in their restaurant. I thought we'd be ready to crash, but we were up until midnight.

DAY #3 - Friday.
Today was Cabinet War Rooms and Imperial War Museum. We squeezed Parliament and Westminister Abbey after Cabinet War Rms. It wasn't raining so we got some great pictures including some of the remaining signs and banners from the protests. We enjoyed everything although we didn't see all of Imperial - mainly the Holocaust exhibit because the girls were really interested in that.

We saw Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's that night. Took a taxi there and back. Only 6 or 7 lbs each way. We bought the tickets direct from the box office before we went. Didn't want to chance that they wouldn't have any at half-price TKTS. We had 4th row center and we all loved it! We continued to sing the songs throughout the trip.

DAY #4 - Saturday
We got up somewhat early as Swiss Cottage cars was picking us up at 8:30 to take us to Heathrow to pick up our rental car. Swiss Cottage was right on time and we booked them by phone, not using the internet website. From other threads, I think they are charging more if you book via the web. It was 28 lbs.

Our rental car was Hertz booked thru British Airways Holiday deal. For an intermediate automatic (declining CDW), our cost was $252 for a week. We were supposed to have a Ford Mondeo, but Hertz upgraded us for free to a Ford minivan. Off we went with staff shaking their heads at the American getting in the wrong side to drive!

We did negotiate the airport and got onto the M fine. We planned to stop in Windsor, which we did, and tour the castle and town. This was a real windy, rainy day though and not very pleasant to be outside. Nevertheless, we figured out how to get to the castle and did the tour, saw the dollhouse, etc.

Upon leaving Windsor is where the adventure really happened. We were still learning the roundabouts and how to read the signs and my husband didn't yield to a car entering the roundabout. That driver layed on the horn and my husband stopped and motioned he was sorry and for that driver to go ahead. He didn't and instead jumped from his car and came up to us screaming at us and started beating on our rental car. He broke the side mirror and tried to break the window. My husband locked the doors and refused to get out. He told us to pull over, but we didn't and drove off once traffic cleared. He started to follow us, but finaly turned off. We realize we failed to yield, but there was no wreck, no damage, nothing for him to act that way. It scared the girls, but after a day or two we all laughed it off. Guess road rage is alive and well everywhere!

We drove to Wellesbourne, near Warwick and Stratford to Walton Hall where we would stay for the next 6 days. We had exchanged a timeshare for this location. Here we had a 2 bedroom apt style loft with a kitchen, living room and 2 baths. Much better than the smaller room in London!

After arriving and eating we settled in to watch a little British TV and do some homework.

More to follow.....

Keith

Great report! I look forward to the next instalment.

Any photos online?

Keith

Robdaddy

Sounds like greeat fun; please tell us more when you have the time.

MelissaH

Day #5 - Sunday
Off to Oxford today as Blenheim Palace was open for the weekend only. Normally it's closed after the first of Nov, but they were hosting a Christmas Crafts Fair. A lucky break for us to get to see the Palace and shop for neat crafts.

Although the weather was again rainy, really windy and cold, most everything was inside. We passed on walking around the grounds/gardens. They were open, but the maze was not.

LESSON #5 - For those teenagers travelling who like to dress "in style" with the jean pants dragging the ground, rainy England weather causes the pants to soak up water. By the end of the day, the girls pants were wet half way up their calves because of the "soak up" factor while walking about.

From Blenheim we hopped over to Oxford and visited Christ Church. Really neat place and interesting to see where the Harry Potter movie was filmed as well as hear and see how Alice in Wonderland came about.

Back to Walton Hall and a relaxing evening in the indoor pool and hot tub!

DAY #6 - MONDAY
Hooray - it's sunny! Up early (but not early enough) to drive 1.5 hrs to Wales. We made it safely and without to much of back tracking or getting lost. First stop was Chepstow Castle in Chepstow just across the Severn. You will pay a 4 lb toll going to Wales, but not coming back. Chepstow Castle is a ruins type castle that allowed you to walk around and climb around at your own pace. No fancy wax figures, etc. We had fun and enjoyed our beautiful sunny day (even left the coats in the car as it had "warmed" up). The castle was on the Great British Pass.

Since we had gotten a later start then I wanted we had to decide what skip on our list. Unfortunately, we decided to forego the Museum of Welsh Life and headed into Cardiff to Cardiff Castle.

Our amusing story from Cardiff - we found the castle and saw the "car park" signs. We followed them and discovered after turning into the entrance (which ran around the corner and we couldn't see) that this particular park was FULL. However, we had traffic behind us and no way to get out of the drive. We, and several other cars, literally had to wait until a car would exit and then it would allow another car in. We passed the time by people watching! We also finally used a feature of our rental car. We called it our "sonar radar" as it would beep when ANYTHING got close the the exterior of the car. It saved us major damage, I'm sure, while parking in tight car parks and negotiating the exit ramps.

The castle tour was very interesting and one that held the girls interest more so than others. From there, we headed into St. David's shoping center to the Bear Factory (thanks to Mucky for suggesting). One daughter collects monkeys and the other frogs and bears. We were each able to pick out our own, assist in stuffing them and pick out clothes as well as name them. A great Christmas treat for us all...this factory is similar to the "Build a Bear workshop" here in the US. But you can't dress them like guards from Buckingham here!

Next was dinner on Cardiff Bay. For some reason, we just couldn't get the direction right and drove around for an hour trying to find "the Bay". It was dark and harder to see, but everyone's directions were like this..."go over there and it's just around there" while they pointed in the general direction. We know they meant well, but we should have continued to ask. We did finally eat at an American place of all places! We have some picky eaters so food was not the experiment this trip!

Back to Walton Hall and to bed as it was pretty late.

More....

MelissaH

I'm working on the pictures. Thanks for reading....

DAY #7 - Tuesday
After 2 days of "road trips", today was closer to home base - Warwick. We'd planned lots, but just couldn't seem to get moving in the mornings! Cold, but not rainy.

Had breafast/lunch at a small cafe down the street from St. Mary's Church (can't remember the name)and then visited the church. The girls got a kick out of the crypt located at St. Mary's (I think that's the correct one?).

Then on to Warwick Castle and we spent probably 4 hours here. Lots to do and see. Some of the castle allows you to roam (towers and dungeon), while some areas you are gently guided thru (state rooms). The peacock garden was a treat and gave us some great photos!

After the castle, it was time for more shopping. We'd parked at the casatle park, but there are pedestrian entrances that lead to the town. While shopping, we decided that it was time to experience our first afternon tea.

We found a small cafe across the street from the Tourist Info Center. Never having tried any of the pastries, scones, etc., we found something for everyone. A pot of tea, scones and cakes hit the spot. Additionally, this was one of my daughter's assignments from her foods class. So the staff was kind enough to take our picture enjoying our treat for her report.

For dinner later, we ventured out to Loxley to a pub called The Fox. Great food with several fish & chip specials, but they also had steak to satisfy our unadventous daughter! The staff was very welcoming and was able to answer some questions about the area for us.

DAY #8 - Wednesday -
Statford-Upon-Avon - a 10 minute drive from Wellesbourne, we started with the Teddy Bear Museum (for the girls), then over to the Royal Shakespeare theater & Swan Theater. Unfortunately, mid and late Nov is a down time for them and we weren't able to tour the theaters. However, we did have takea short break in the their cafe which opens onto the Avon River. By now it was sunny and clear - great pictures of the river and swans. They'd even come up to the edge for us!

We left the theater and walked to Holy Trinity Church to see where Shakespeare is buried. From there we did his birthplace, New Place, and all the other houses affiliated with Shakepeare in town.

Can't remember where we had lunch, but we left Starford about 4 PM as we had theater tickets to the Bridgehouse Theater in Warwick that night to see "Jane Eyre".

Here's when our MAJOR ooops happened.... We needed gas and unfortunately put unleaded in our diesel engine rental car. Yes, you are wondering how could we do that? We wondered that too, but we did! I guess we didn't realize it was diesel because it ran so quiet (we're used to big diesel engine trucks in Texas).

We got about a block before the car dies in traffic. After a few minutes we realized what we had done. Luckily, we were in Wellesbourne about 4 miles from the resort. A very nice businessman helped my husband push the car while I steered to get it to a side street and out of traffic. The public library allowed us to use the phone to call the resort and Hertz.

Walton Hall sent a staff member to pick up me and the girls while my husband stayed with the car waiting on Hertz. Interestingly, hertz policy is that they send a mechanic first and then if the mechanic can't get it fixed, then they tow it. Well, it had to be towed (obviously!) and the nearest Hertz location was Birmingham airport (about 35 minutes away)

The resort advised that my husband should be back in time to make the theater (at 7:30 PM) so we should just relax in the meantime. Around 6:35, my husband called from Birmingham. He had just arrived in Birmingham because of traffic and wouldn't make it back to get us for the show.

The girls and I decided we could make it on our own and inquired about a taxi. The resort called one and advised the price. It was at that time I realized that I'd used all my pounds to but souvenirs earlier and all I had was plastic.

Walton Hall to the rescue. They "cash advanced" us 20 pounds to get into Warwick by taxi until I could get to an ATM. The taxi arrived and we got to Bridgehouse Theater. Great show! We thought it would be a story-telling type play, but it turned out to be
that plus comedy, plus some musical parts. AFter having a couple of stressed filled hours, it was a good way to end the day.

The adventure wasn't quite over, though, as there wasn't an ATM near the theater (and the theater was on the Banbury road outside town). So the girls and I walked about 3/4 miles to the nearest ATM and stopped to have dinner at the ASK Pub.

Great place for dinner! I'd go back. About 10-12 lbs per person for the meal (including soft drinks). We called the same taxi driver who had picked us up (he'd given us his cell # as the resort had told him of our earlier plight) and he arrived and escorted us home. Upon arrival, my husband had returned with a new rental car and the promise of a bill to clean out the engine! Oh well, it's not any fun if you don't have adventure!

janis

Enjoying your report - sounds like your family manages to make apple sauce out of bruised apples

It is so much nicer when you can roll w/ the punches - and you will have lots stories to laugh about for years to come.

Isn't Walton Hall in a terrific location - I've stayed there a couple of times and used it as a base for everything from Bath to Oxford to the Cotswolds to Wales to Worcester to Waddesdon and of course for Warwick and Stratford.

Looking foward to the rest of your reports.

Patrick

I agree with janis. While your report is very good indeed, it is your attitude that I'm impressed with. You make "perfect" travelers, ready to roll with the punches and turn the worst into "an adventure".

Mucky

Hi Melissa,
Just back from Oz and saw your report.
Wow did you have an interesting time !
How much was the Hertz bill??
I bet they loved you.
It would appear that you met up with arrogant queue jumpers and road rage idiots too..bad luck, we are not all like that honest.
Cardiff bay has had no end of road changes recently even us cardiffians struggle to find the right way lately, so don't be too hard on yourselves.
Bye the way avoid the car park on westgate street by the millenium stadium you will always have to queue..lol..ooops too late.;-)
Great report

Muck

jody

I missed this over the holidays but have really enjoyed reading it this morning.

I hope MelissaH will continue with the rest of the story!

Judyrem

Me too, very enjoyable!

MelissaH

Hey everyone - sorry for the delay (holidays,family issues and work have kept me busy). Thanks for the kind words!

We haven't gotten the bill yet from Hertz...maybe they forgot about our mishap? I'm sure now that I've requested FF miles for the rental, they will be sure to remember us!

Anyway...
Day # 9 - THURSDAY
After arriving home late Wed. night and all of our adventures, we slept in a little. We had planned to tour some of the smaller towns/villages in the Cotswolds. Luckily, I had realized before we ventured that direction, that plan wasn't going to keep the girls interested...not a "teenage" thing.

So we threw the itinerary out the window and set off for the Cadbury chocolate factory in Bournesville (near Birmingham). Our resort had no idea how to get there so we just jumped on the M and stopped at a McDonald's to ask as we neared Birmingham.

Finding it would have been much easier had we split onto the other M (can't remember exact #'s), but instead we chose to tour thru a portion of Brimingham (not really our choice, but it beat backtracking). We arrive at the same time as 3 bus loads of school kids.

However, it took them longer to get ticketed and in so it wasn't bad. Wow...they start you off with 2 or 3 candy bars each as you begin the tour. They give you 2 or 3 more (different kinds) about half way thru and give you a taste test of both white and dark chocolate and let you make a chocolate carmel bar.

We hadn't eaten lunch before we arrived so imagine how hyper we all were after "tasting" and eating a candy bar. Everyone ended up taking at least 4 candy bars with them for the plane ride home. This stop was a good addition and something different from the "old, ancient castles" as the girls put it.

From Bourneville we drove back to Coventry to Kenilworth Castle. Another castle ruin, we were able to get out and wonder thru the gardens and the ruins and burn off some energy. It was a sunny day so our pictures of the grounds, castle and gardens came out great.

We returned to Walton Hall to freshen up and then drove to back to Stratford. We originally were going to try to watch the lighting of the Xmas lights here, but heard several traffic reports about roads closures, etc. due to the event and opted to enjoy the lights after the hoopla.

We did eat dinner in Stratford at Lambs resturant. At first we were the only people in the place and all the staff stared at us, but I guess it was because we were eating at 5:30PM so we could catch a local show. Lambs was OK, not something we rave about and somewhat expensive (about 80 pounds).

Since everyone had been bitten by the "theater" bug after Phantom, we had looked for more show opportunities. RSC and Swan were dark, but the Civic Hall was presenting "For Me and My Girl". The cast was actually a local teenage thespian type group with the 2 lead actors being about the age of the girls. The guy was cute, or so they thought so they were enthralled! Although not as good as our other 2 shows, this production was more like a neighborhood/town show. During intermission, we all met several of the parents and students attending and got a taste of English life. So for that, I'd say it was worth it.

Back to Walton to pack up as we head to London tomorrow.

DAY #10 - FRIDAY
Up early to leave to drive back to Heathrow to return the darn rental car! I arranged to have Swiss Cottage Cars meet us at Hertz and take us back to Windermere Hotel. Again I did this by phone and not internet and was quoted 23 pds. Swiss was early and so were we - all worked great.

We arrived back to Windermere in Victoria. As it was only 11:30, our room was not ready this time and we left our luggage and headed out to grab some lunch and then to Buckingham Palace. Lunch was at St. George's Tavern (corner of High and Belgravia I think). Very reasonable, very good and something for everyone.

After many pictures at Buckingham, we headed to Sherlock Holmes museum. For those who followed some of my other posts, we had originally planned to visit Black's Crime Museum (affiliated with Metropolitian Police). I had corresponded with the curator and was given permission to tour (only law enforcement personnel are allowed with proper ID, etc. and arranged in advance). However, they do not allow kids, even teenagers, and we were reluctant to leave the girls on their own even for a couple of hours since this was everyone's first trip of this magnitude. So we cancelled our tour until we return again some day and opted to check Sherlock Holmes.

Boy, I really burst the bubble here! The girls were NOT aware that Sherlock Holmes wasn't real. Quite the conversation we all entered into during our tour here! WARNING-if you don't really know that much about the character, I suggest skipping the site.

From Sherlock we travelled to Charles Dickens museum. We stopped here mainly because one daughter is currently studying Dickens and was to report back as part of her assignments.

Since it was open late, we headed over to the British Museum. The girls started to complain about a full day of museums until they saw the mummies and the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman stuff. They thought the mummies were cool and they had studied some of the history and more familiar with Egyptian, etc. We got really confused here, though, as 5 PM "closing" time came and they began to shoo us out. Several people asked about staying open later and the staff kept saying the next floor was open. We'd go there for a few minutes, until the shoo'ers caught up and they we'd be moved again. So we really didn't get to stay for the late openings (and we probably didn't ask enough questions to get us there either). Besides, the crowds had picked up from a week ago at the various attractions (it's now Thanksgiving weekend) and we were beginning to get generally exhausted.

The girls wanted more shopping time at harrod's so we headed there for a while and picked up more souvenirs. We took a taxi back to St. George's Tavern (that's how much we liked the food), but the place was packed. So our cab driver suggested a fish and chips place that was a favorite of the taxi drivers. Can't remember the name, but it was pretty good and fairly inexpensive (57 pds including dessert for 4).

Back to Windermere to catch some sleep before our last day in London. By the way, ask hotels for a multiple day discount. I think I read it here on Fodors to do that and even though we split our days (2 & 2) at Windermere, they gave a 10% discount for 4 or more days. I also tried a discount ofr payine in cash, but didn't get anything for that one.

Stay tune for the details of the flood.......

MelissaH

Ha...I knew asking for FF miles would trigger Hertz to remember us. The charge appeared on the credit card for cleaning out the engine - 138 pounds. Ouch! But a lesson learned for future trips!

I also forgot how great the staff of Winderemere was on Friday (day we returned). Our room wasn't ready when we got back into London so we left our luggage (we had our original 3 bags, 2 backpacks plus a couple of bags with souvenirs) with them. When we returned to the hotel at 10 PM that night, all of our luggage had been neatly placed within our room. They had been so kind to haul it down 2 flights of stairs, etc. A welcome surprise!

I also hadn't mentioned the hotel's breakfast. A full English breakfast is included in the room price. In addition to eggs, a meat, potatoes, and toast they had cereal, fruit, juice, coffee, and water. If you left hungry it was your own fault!

DAY #11 - SATURDAY

Our last day in London. Rainy and cold. We listened to what everyone said and planned to be at the Tower of London when they opened to avoid lines/crowds. However, I failed to realize that the crowds would be much greater on this day then probably any other time during our vacation as it was the Sat. after Thanksgiving.
LESSON #6 - think about how others vacation and when crowds may be more during the tme span of your vacation.

Although we were there at opening, we waited about 25 minutes in line. Thankfully, a family that got off the tube with us, pointed us in the right direction (because they had visited before and walked the wrong way) and saved us some steps!

The Beefeater tour was huge and we were at the back. We couldn't hear (literally I think there were 100 people) so after about 15 minutes, we decided to go things on own own. We headed over to the Crown Jewels and although there was a line here too, it was moving. Wow...amazing stuff! I wish we could have taken pictures! We also learned about the present monarchy during the films shown as you que up.

From here we went to White Tower (I think) and then to various other areas to see the prisoner inscriptions. We even got some pictures of the ravens!
Unfortunately, we didn't get to give this site the time it deserved. Between the weather and crowds and our general exhaustion (and teenage girls missing home), we were only here a couple of hours.

From here we went over to the Tower Bridge experience (used a 2 for 1 offer) and wondered thru learning about the bridge, how it was built and that it's not the same as "London Bridge".

Somewhere along our travels today, the girls saw a flyer on the London Dungeon after reviews here I had purposefully not mentioned it). So they thought it sounded cool and wanted to visit. We stopped for lunch at Cafe Rouge, which was in an open air shopping mall. Great food. We were afraid the "picky eaters" wouldn't find anything to meet their tastes, but we all had some combination of chicken sandwiches and french fried (not chips because we were in a french cafe!). Total price after 4 meals and 4 softdrinks was around 50 pounds. It was located on the south side of the Thames going towards the London Dungeon is all I can remember.

After lunch, we ventured over to the Dungeon only to find the line was 3.5 hours long (it's now 2 PM). Thankfully the girls also wanted to see St. Pauls' (as did the parents) and we decided to go to St. Paul's since they closed at 4 and come back to check the line.

St. Paul's also had a little bit of a line. We used a 2 for 1 here also. We wandered thru the place and stopped for a few minutes to watch a wedding that was taking place. It's still undergoing renovations to the outside and inside, but that's OK. (If you present your admission flyer the gift shop gives you a couple of postcards showing the front and the inside of the dome for free)

We headed up to the Whispering Gallery and watched some more of the wedding then decided to tackle the rest of the climb. We DID make it to the top (530 steps up) although one daughter and my husband wanted to stop at the Stone Gallery, but we convinced them they had made it that far they might as well finish it! There's not much room on the observations areas and it was pretty crowed (plus windy, raining and cold) so we didn't stay out long.

After climbing down, we stopped at the cafe for a bottle of water (and collected our postcards) and walked thru the crypt. It was almost closing time, so we headed back to the London Dungeon in hopes that the line had gotten shorter.

When we arrived the line was shorter (only 2 hrs now), but a staff member was now occupying the end and informed us that they had techanical difficulties and they had closed the line because they were supposed to close at 5 PM but they would accomodate those still in line. As hard as we tried explaining that we were leaving the next morning, she wouldn't budge (and we didn't really think she would). So no Dungeon for us (Darn...not really!)
It was then that I realized that I should have planned the more popular attractions on the Friday before when the crowds were less and the off the beaten path sites on this Saturday. A lesson for next time!

Since we had an early flight the next morning, we headed back towards Victoria and stopped at St. George's Tavern. We definitely wanted to try the dinner food. Earlier this time, we got a table and enjoyed a couple of pints and some fish and chips and watched the pub crowd. A good family night together as we recapped our adventures and talked of future trips!

Back at the hotel...we began to pack up and one daughter decided to take her shower before bed. We began with adventures....we end with adventures. She forgot to put the shower curtain inside the tub and flooded the bathroom. Of course she didn't realize it until she got out several minutes later. Her clothes were soaked and there was about an inch or so of standing water on the floor. We ran upstairs to ask for a mop and the hotel owner almost had a heart attack until she realized that we were on the bottom floor. (The floor wasa tile and there was nothing under us to damage). After that she laughed and brought us lots of towels,etc. and offered to place my step-daughter's clothes in their dryer so that we wouldn't have to pack wet clothes.

WE finally made it to sleep to get up at 5:30A to get to Gatwick on time. We took the Gatwick Express and made it OK.

Our last little problem arose after we arrived back at DFW. We had parked in long term garage and had found a place close to the terminal and by the gate we needed. When we came out, our car wasn't there and there were 1 hr parking, tow away zone signs everywhere. We all thought the car had been towed, but as we talked about it even the girls said they would have noticed those signs and something wasn't right. As well that ends well...turns out we were on the wrong level! Our car was where we left it and had NOT been towed.

We ended up using our Traveler's Checks to pay for parking (they'll let you do that) so we were able to get rid of them easily.

The girls were back in school on Monday and haven't been affected grade-wise. Actually, the one daughter now feels comfortable going to morning tutoring (she went for a couple of weeks after returning too) whenever she doesn't understand something.

So I'd say it was a success and their education did not suffer as a result. However, we planned way in advance and worked with the school to fashion our itinerary to some of their lessons.

Thanks to all who shared their thoughts, ideas, opinions in this forum. You guys helped us plan in some many ways and it gave us a great family vacation!

Mucky

Hi Melissa,
Thanks for sharing your report with us.
I really enjoyed reading about your adventures (and misadventures)

Bad luck with the Hertz bill, but I thought that was cheap !!
You got away lightly there
;-)

Cheers

Muck

janis

Yep- bad luck re the car rental bill.

But VERY good luck with the dungeon!!!!