This didn't start as a trip report to the UK, but what the heck, I guess I type as much as I talk! (UK May/June 2005)
Mar 22nd, 2006, 06:23 AM
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This didn't start as a trip report to the UK, but what the heck, I guess I type as much as I talk! (UK May/June 2005)
This is more of a ‘here’s what I paid for things’ rather than an actual trip report. I happened to be going through some bags the other day and came across a wad of receipts from a trip to London and West Yorkshire in May/June 2005. I thought I’d share some thoughts and prices on some of the things we did.
The journey included my three children and myself. We flew USAir, roundtrip, Tampa to Gatwick (via Charlotte). I believe we paid about $600 each, and we flew out May 30th, and returned on the 7th or 8th of June. We took the Gatwick Express from the airport, and when we weren’t walking, which wasn’t often, we mainly used the tube and taxis. We only had two nights in London, and since the kids have never been, we had specific things that the kids wanted to see, and we decided since it wouldn’t be their last trip, we wouldn’t try to cram as much as possible in, we would take our time and if we missed something, then we’d have even more reason to come back!
In London, we stayed at the Windsor House Hotel (www.windsor-house-hotel.com). The hotel is located on Penywern Road, literally around the corner from the Earl’s Court Tube Station. We paid a total of 76.40GBP per night, which was for 5 people originally. I had great communication with who I assume is the owner/manager, Mrs. Jan Wardle. We booked a family room for 5 (as my (soon-to-be-ex) husband was supposed to make the trip with us. (Turns out, he was too busy playing with the blonde to play with us in the UK!!!) The room was big by UK hotel standards, BUT…the bathroom was another story! I could not CLOSE THE BATHROOM DOOR if I was sitting on the toilet, my knees prevented it from closing. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m heavy/fat/big boned/large/plus-sized, whatever you want to call it, but I promise you, my fat ass had nothing to do with the fact that I couldn’t close the door!!! Never mind that I could shower and reach the sink to brush my teeth at the same time!!! That aside, I really enjoyed the hotel. It served it’s purpose as a clean, decent place to sleep. We had a room facing the street, and only once, when I had the windows open at night, did I hear street noise, and it was a group of teenagers, walking down the street. I had read on tripadvisor that the hotel was horrible, noisy, etc, etc…but I guess we didn’t go there expecting the Plaza, and we were pleasantly surprised. The emails from the hotel explained that they are a clean, safe, budget hotel, which is exactly what they were.
The hotel offered breakfast, but we didn’t eat there. There was a Benjy’s on Earl’s Court Road that we went to every morning. It allowed the kids and I to not be restricted in our choices, was reasonable in price, and had great coffee!!
I know that I don’t have my days in order, but I’ll give you the gist of what we did.
Arrival day consisted of us going to the Science Museum, eating ice cream on the lawn outside, going to Harrod’s and collapsing at the hotel after dinner, which I can’t for the life of me remember where we ate, and I must have paid cash as I don’t have a receipt for it!
Day two started with a trip to the Tower of London, where we spent several hours wandering and looking. I have a receipt from the TIC at Victoria Station, for 42GBP, I am fairly confident that was our admission to the Tower of London. Afterwards, my son wanted to go to the London Dungeon, but, it was raining, so we opted for a very long boat ride instead. We were all still a bit groggy, but we ran through the rain like a bunch of troopers with our travel umbrellas (thanks Mom!). We got on the City Cruises boat, for 22GBP total. I tell you, we must have been on that boat for nearly three hours. It was dreary and nasty out, and we were perfectly content floating down the Thames, pretending we knew which star lived in which apartment along the river. I don’t think any of us laughed as much the whole trip as we did on the boat. It was a great bonding time, and I doubt any of us will ever forget that!
After the boat, we decided to walk. The rain had let up some, and we had about 3 or 4 hours to kill before the Ceremony of the Keys, so we walked, and walked, and BAM…we ended up at Trafalgar Square, at dusk, and it was magical. We hadn’t planned on seeing it until the next day. The kids were in awe. We had been watching on the webcams for a while, and aside from the London Dungeon (hey, he’s 12) my son really, really wanted to see Trafalgar Square. We did a little wandering about and decided it was time to eat. We ended up at Garfunkels (3 Northumberland Ave). The following is on my receipt (we must have been hungry!). 2 Large Cokes, 2 Vanilla Milkshakes, 1 Chocolate Milkshake, 1 garlic Cheese Bread, 1 Nacho Supreme, 1 Unlimited Salad Bar, 1 Bacon Cheeseburger, 1 Spaghetti Bolognese, 1 Sausage/Mash and to top it all off, we split a Chocolate Revenge for dessert. Our bill came to 53.90GBP, not including tip. We absolutely enjoyed this meal. It was a nice place, clean and the food and service were great. We were running a bit late after dinner, so we hopped in a taxi and headed back to the Tower for the Ceremony of the Keys. What an enjoyable evening that was. After the Ceremony, we tubed it back to Earl’s Court and slept like babies!
At some point during our short time in London, we went back to Trafalgar Square, watched the changing of the horse guard (my daughter got clocked in the head by a horse, quite amusing!), we didn’t hang around the palace for the changing of the guard, but in route to somewhere else (couldn’t tell you where) we saw the changing of the horse guard (I believe that’s what it was called), I guess there’s a difference, and I’m sure a local told me, but I can’t for the life of me remember right now! Last day in London was a blur as we tried to do last minute things before heading off to Victoria Bus Station to catch a National Express to Leeds to visit family and attend a wedding. I do have a receipt from Deep Pan Pizza, near Trafalgar Square I believe (7 Whitehall), where we ate lunch our last day, 4 buffet’s and 5 large drinks without tip were 26.31GBP.
We arrived safely in Leeds, albeit, late at night, too late in my opinion for a mother and three kids to schlep their bags through Leeds to catch the late bus to Keighley. (I lived in Keighley during middle school, and my best friend and his wife are employees of the West Yorkshire Police (she a detective, he’s a data analyst I believe) so this is not a tourist making assumptions, I know better!!!) We jumped in a taxi and 30GBP (well worth it to me) later, we were at the front door of the Innkeeper’s Lodge in Keighley. We had a family room, it was really nice. It had a double bed, plus a sofa that opened to a smaller double bed. There was a desk, tv, and boy what a bathroom! The tub, oh the tub!!! We paid 45GBP per night, but they were having a weekend special, so we only paid 125GBP for 4 nights. This included a very nice, big variety, buffet breakfast, which we ate daily. The hotel has a Toby Carvery attached to it, we ate dinner there one night, but I don’t have the receipt, so no clue as to the cost. Hands down, the BIGGEST Yorkshire pudding I’ve ever seen! I know that my son had a shrimp cocktail, and we all ate from the buffet for dinner, and we all equally enjoyed it. The hotel itself is about a 10 minute walk to town and about 5 minutes to the train station.
Our time in Keighley was mostly spent visiting family, but we did spend a good part of a day in Haworth. We rode the Worth Valley Railway there (steam train) for 37.68GBP return. We went to the Bronte Museum (10.50GBP) and shopped, and shopped, and shopped. We spent another day in York, those receipts must be lost in space somewhere, but we did go to Jorvik, watch a street performer, spent a ton of time in the Minster and shopped, and shopped and shopped! We ended up in a bookstore (a rather large one, but I can’t remember the name right now), where I spent about 100GBP on books. My son is a huge fan of Jenny Nimmo and she had a book out that had not been released in the states yet, so, we had to buy it. The girls found several also. As soon as we walked out of the book store, it started to pour. We ran to McDonald’s and got a table by the window, got some drinks and read, for about an hour or so. As soon as the rain let up, we headed back to the train station since we had a wedding to attend the next day.
The next two days went something like this…Wedding, sleep, hangover, Christening, sleep, hangover. Our last day in Keighley was spent with family and friends, then it was a late night drive back to Leeds, to park our butts on the National Express overnight coach back to London. Gatwick express back to the airport and home we flew. Can’t recall anything from the airports or flights, so they must have been rather uneventful.
I’m going to try my best to paste a link to the photos. Some of them, well, the kids took, that’s all I’ll say. I’m pretty sure that I put captions under most of them. Watch for the family thumbs up (I swear my son thought he was the Travelocity Gnome!).
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=...0&y=sa3gug
Boy, this really wasn’t supposed to be a trip report, but I guess it kind of morphed into one didn’t it!? Oh well, its practice for my trip report after Italy in October!
Thanks for letting me babble on!
The journey included my three children and myself. We flew USAir, roundtrip, Tampa to Gatwick (via Charlotte). I believe we paid about $600 each, and we flew out May 30th, and returned on the 7th or 8th of June. We took the Gatwick Express from the airport, and when we weren’t walking, which wasn’t often, we mainly used the tube and taxis. We only had two nights in London, and since the kids have never been, we had specific things that the kids wanted to see, and we decided since it wouldn’t be their last trip, we wouldn’t try to cram as much as possible in, we would take our time and if we missed something, then we’d have even more reason to come back!
In London, we stayed at the Windsor House Hotel (www.windsor-house-hotel.com). The hotel is located on Penywern Road, literally around the corner from the Earl’s Court Tube Station. We paid a total of 76.40GBP per night, which was for 5 people originally. I had great communication with who I assume is the owner/manager, Mrs. Jan Wardle. We booked a family room for 5 (as my (soon-to-be-ex) husband was supposed to make the trip with us. (Turns out, he was too busy playing with the blonde to play with us in the UK!!!) The room was big by UK hotel standards, BUT…the bathroom was another story! I could not CLOSE THE BATHROOM DOOR if I was sitting on the toilet, my knees prevented it from closing. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m heavy/fat/big boned/large/plus-sized, whatever you want to call it, but I promise you, my fat ass had nothing to do with the fact that I couldn’t close the door!!! Never mind that I could shower and reach the sink to brush my teeth at the same time!!! That aside, I really enjoyed the hotel. It served it’s purpose as a clean, decent place to sleep. We had a room facing the street, and only once, when I had the windows open at night, did I hear street noise, and it was a group of teenagers, walking down the street. I had read on tripadvisor that the hotel was horrible, noisy, etc, etc…but I guess we didn’t go there expecting the Plaza, and we were pleasantly surprised. The emails from the hotel explained that they are a clean, safe, budget hotel, which is exactly what they were.
The hotel offered breakfast, but we didn’t eat there. There was a Benjy’s on Earl’s Court Road that we went to every morning. It allowed the kids and I to not be restricted in our choices, was reasonable in price, and had great coffee!!
I know that I don’t have my days in order, but I’ll give you the gist of what we did.
Arrival day consisted of us going to the Science Museum, eating ice cream on the lawn outside, going to Harrod’s and collapsing at the hotel after dinner, which I can’t for the life of me remember where we ate, and I must have paid cash as I don’t have a receipt for it!
Day two started with a trip to the Tower of London, where we spent several hours wandering and looking. I have a receipt from the TIC at Victoria Station, for 42GBP, I am fairly confident that was our admission to the Tower of London. Afterwards, my son wanted to go to the London Dungeon, but, it was raining, so we opted for a very long boat ride instead. We were all still a bit groggy, but we ran through the rain like a bunch of troopers with our travel umbrellas (thanks Mom!). We got on the City Cruises boat, for 22GBP total. I tell you, we must have been on that boat for nearly three hours. It was dreary and nasty out, and we were perfectly content floating down the Thames, pretending we knew which star lived in which apartment along the river. I don’t think any of us laughed as much the whole trip as we did on the boat. It was a great bonding time, and I doubt any of us will ever forget that!
After the boat, we decided to walk. The rain had let up some, and we had about 3 or 4 hours to kill before the Ceremony of the Keys, so we walked, and walked, and BAM…we ended up at Trafalgar Square, at dusk, and it was magical. We hadn’t planned on seeing it until the next day. The kids were in awe. We had been watching on the webcams for a while, and aside from the London Dungeon (hey, he’s 12) my son really, really wanted to see Trafalgar Square. We did a little wandering about and decided it was time to eat. We ended up at Garfunkels (3 Northumberland Ave). The following is on my receipt (we must have been hungry!). 2 Large Cokes, 2 Vanilla Milkshakes, 1 Chocolate Milkshake, 1 garlic Cheese Bread, 1 Nacho Supreme, 1 Unlimited Salad Bar, 1 Bacon Cheeseburger, 1 Spaghetti Bolognese, 1 Sausage/Mash and to top it all off, we split a Chocolate Revenge for dessert. Our bill came to 53.90GBP, not including tip. We absolutely enjoyed this meal. It was a nice place, clean and the food and service were great. We were running a bit late after dinner, so we hopped in a taxi and headed back to the Tower for the Ceremony of the Keys. What an enjoyable evening that was. After the Ceremony, we tubed it back to Earl’s Court and slept like babies!
At some point during our short time in London, we went back to Trafalgar Square, watched the changing of the horse guard (my daughter got clocked in the head by a horse, quite amusing!), we didn’t hang around the palace for the changing of the guard, but in route to somewhere else (couldn’t tell you where) we saw the changing of the horse guard (I believe that’s what it was called), I guess there’s a difference, and I’m sure a local told me, but I can’t for the life of me remember right now! Last day in London was a blur as we tried to do last minute things before heading off to Victoria Bus Station to catch a National Express to Leeds to visit family and attend a wedding. I do have a receipt from Deep Pan Pizza, near Trafalgar Square I believe (7 Whitehall), where we ate lunch our last day, 4 buffet’s and 5 large drinks without tip were 26.31GBP.
We arrived safely in Leeds, albeit, late at night, too late in my opinion for a mother and three kids to schlep their bags through Leeds to catch the late bus to Keighley. (I lived in Keighley during middle school, and my best friend and his wife are employees of the West Yorkshire Police (she a detective, he’s a data analyst I believe) so this is not a tourist making assumptions, I know better!!!) We jumped in a taxi and 30GBP (well worth it to me) later, we were at the front door of the Innkeeper’s Lodge in Keighley. We had a family room, it was really nice. It had a double bed, plus a sofa that opened to a smaller double bed. There was a desk, tv, and boy what a bathroom! The tub, oh the tub!!! We paid 45GBP per night, but they were having a weekend special, so we only paid 125GBP for 4 nights. This included a very nice, big variety, buffet breakfast, which we ate daily. The hotel has a Toby Carvery attached to it, we ate dinner there one night, but I don’t have the receipt, so no clue as to the cost. Hands down, the BIGGEST Yorkshire pudding I’ve ever seen! I know that my son had a shrimp cocktail, and we all ate from the buffet for dinner, and we all equally enjoyed it. The hotel itself is about a 10 minute walk to town and about 5 minutes to the train station.
Our time in Keighley was mostly spent visiting family, but we did spend a good part of a day in Haworth. We rode the Worth Valley Railway there (steam train) for 37.68GBP return. We went to the Bronte Museum (10.50GBP) and shopped, and shopped, and shopped. We spent another day in York, those receipts must be lost in space somewhere, but we did go to Jorvik, watch a street performer, spent a ton of time in the Minster and shopped, and shopped and shopped! We ended up in a bookstore (a rather large one, but I can’t remember the name right now), where I spent about 100GBP on books. My son is a huge fan of Jenny Nimmo and she had a book out that had not been released in the states yet, so, we had to buy it. The girls found several also. As soon as we walked out of the book store, it started to pour. We ran to McDonald’s and got a table by the window, got some drinks and read, for about an hour or so. As soon as the rain let up, we headed back to the train station since we had a wedding to attend the next day.
The next two days went something like this…Wedding, sleep, hangover, Christening, sleep, hangover. Our last day in Keighley was spent with family and friends, then it was a late night drive back to Leeds, to park our butts on the National Express overnight coach back to London. Gatwick express back to the airport and home we flew. Can’t recall anything from the airports or flights, so they must have been rather uneventful.
I’m going to try my best to paste a link to the photos. Some of them, well, the kids took, that’s all I’ll say. I’m pretty sure that I put captions under most of them. Watch for the family thumbs up (I swear my son thought he was the Travelocity Gnome!).
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=...0&y=sa3gug
Boy, this really wasn’t supposed to be a trip report, but I guess it kind of morphed into one didn’t it!? Oh well, its practice for my trip report after Italy in October!
Thanks for letting me babble on!
Mar 22nd, 2006, 08:07 AM
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Hold the phone.
Science Museum, Bronte stuff, loos that won't fit even the most dimensionally underprivileged...sounds pretty much the mixture as usual.
But you and three children GOT THE OVERNIGHT BUS FROM LEEDS. You're still here to tell the tale - and you just mention it as if you'd been on an ordinary train or something.
I can understand why you took it. But what was it like?
Science Museum, Bronte stuff, loos that won't fit even the most dimensionally underprivileged...sounds pretty much the mixture as usual.
But you and three children GOT THE OVERNIGHT BUS FROM LEEDS. You're still here to tell the tale - and you just mention it as if you'd been on an ordinary train or something.
I can understand why you took it. But what was it like?
Mar 22nd, 2006, 11:00 AM
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CotswoldScouser--LOL, yes, we lived to tell the tale, and it wasn't so bad. It's actually about the 5th or 6th time I've done the overnight National Express Leeds back to London to catch a morning flight. It was the first time for the kids, and they quite enjoyed it. My friend (who had just gotten married) took them to the sweet shop earlier in the evening, so they pretty much ate their way back to London. And they were ready to crash as soon as they put their butts in the cattle class seats on the plane. My main motivation for the bus was cost. I believe it was about (and I could be wrong here) 50GBP round trip, because I purchased the Family Coach Card. I couldnt' beat the price, and we looked at it as an adventure. My kids are very adaptable, and love to travel, so they pretty go with the flow.
Scarlett--Thank you!
GreenDragon--Thanks, when I finished typing I could not believe how much I had written. I had every intention of simply listing the names, locations and cost.
Cigalechanta--Thank you!
We all had journals on this trip, but who knows where mine is. I've asked the kids to take their journals and write a report based on what they wrote. Hasn't been done yet!
My oldest daughter's journal (she was 15 when we went) contained items like "Ahhh, England. The chocolate rocks, the soda sucks, and I had to pay to pee!!!" I actually printed that out and hung it on her bedroom door when we got back!
My youngest daughter left her pocketbook at the McDonald's in York, and we didn't realize it until we got back to Keighley. Having friends on the 'force' helps. One phone call to York Police and they sent an officer to McD's to claim the pocketbook. It actually arrived back in the States before we did. She was very upset because it had her journal in it, and very excited to get it back. She sent the officer a very nice thank you note, and proceeded to lose the damn thing two weeks after we got home!!!
All in all, it was a great trip, and as mean and harsh as this may sound, I'm SOOO happy it was just the kids and I.
I'm off to Italy with friends/coworkers in October, and I've promised the kids that if Santa can swing it financially (since Santa's only got one income now!) we'd head back to the UK over Christmas.
We'll probably skip London this time, and focus on family and Yorkshire. Maybe head to Scotland to see family. We'll fly in/out of Manchester and won't get to play on the National Express overnight bus! I've been blessed with children who truly appreciate anything and everything, and who don't mind sacrificing at home in order to go just about anywhere. They get excited when I get home from work on a Friday and say "pack a bag, we're taking a road trip". They don't even care where we go, they just love to go! I guess they got the bug from me. I flew to the UK on my own when I was 5 (of course, my Nana met me at the other end), for the first of many, many trips over.
Thanks again!
Scarlett--Thank you!
GreenDragon--Thanks, when I finished typing I could not believe how much I had written. I had every intention of simply listing the names, locations and cost.
Cigalechanta--Thank you!
We all had journals on this trip, but who knows where mine is. I've asked the kids to take their journals and write a report based on what they wrote. Hasn't been done yet!
My oldest daughter's journal (she was 15 when we went) contained items like "Ahhh, England. The chocolate rocks, the soda sucks, and I had to pay to pee!!!" I actually printed that out and hung it on her bedroom door when we got back!
My youngest daughter left her pocketbook at the McDonald's in York, and we didn't realize it until we got back to Keighley. Having friends on the 'force' helps. One phone call to York Police and they sent an officer to McD's to claim the pocketbook. It actually arrived back in the States before we did. She was very upset because it had her journal in it, and very excited to get it back. She sent the officer a very nice thank you note, and proceeded to lose the damn thing two weeks after we got home!!!
All in all, it was a great trip, and as mean and harsh as this may sound, I'm SOOO happy it was just the kids and I.
I'm off to Italy with friends/coworkers in October, and I've promised the kids that if Santa can swing it financially (since Santa's only got one income now!) we'd head back to the UK over Christmas.
We'll probably skip London this time, and focus on family and Yorkshire. Maybe head to Scotland to see family. We'll fly in/out of Manchester and won't get to play on the National Express overnight bus! I've been blessed with children who truly appreciate anything and everything, and who don't mind sacrificing at home in order to go just about anywhere. They get excited when I get home from work on a Friday and say "pack a bag, we're taking a road trip". They don't even care where we go, they just love to go! I guess they got the bug from me. I flew to the UK on my own when I was 5 (of course, my Nana met me at the other end), for the first of many, many trips over.
Thanks again!
Mar 22nd, 2006, 11:14 AM
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Pantelia:
"I flew to the UK on my own when I was 5"
Where are you when we need you? We have people on this board connipting at the thought of 20 yo's travelling round Europe by themselves. And they dismiss our "get a grip" reactions as those of uptight Britons.
I knew the Yankee spirit wasn't dead.
"I flew to the UK on my own when I was 5"
Where are you when we need you? We have people on this board connipting at the thought of 20 yo's travelling round Europe by themselves. And they dismiss our "get a grip" reactions as those of uptight Britons.
I knew the Yankee spirit wasn't dead.
Mar 22nd, 2006, 11:54 AM
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Cots--
This Yankee spirit has a Yorkshire mother and a father from the Bronx, spirit is a very mild form of what I have!!
I've always had the local travel bug, "road trip" was one of my first words! My first (of many) trips across the pond was when I was 5, also 6 and 10 (solo flights) back to the UK. When I was 8, I spent the summer in Greece with my other grandmother, but it was not a solo flight. Back to the UK at 12, for two years this time (solo flight, but lived with my psycho sister), then again at 16, solo. Many other flights since, and when I went with my mom three years ago, I realized as we were on the plane, somewhere over the Atlantic, that at 33 years old, it was the first time I'd made that trip with someone else. I suppose if it's in your blood, it's there, no questions asked.
Laustic--Thank you!
This Yankee spirit has a Yorkshire mother and a father from the Bronx, spirit is a very mild form of what I have!!
I've always had the local travel bug, "road trip" was one of my first words! My first (of many) trips across the pond was when I was 5, also 6 and 10 (solo flights) back to the UK. When I was 8, I spent the summer in Greece with my other grandmother, but it was not a solo flight. Back to the UK at 12, for two years this time (solo flight, but lived with my psycho sister), then again at 16, solo. Many other flights since, and when I went with my mom three years ago, I realized as we were on the plane, somewhere over the Atlantic, that at 33 years old, it was the first time I'd made that trip with someone else. I suppose if it's in your blood, it's there, no questions asked.
Laustic--Thank you!
Mar 27th, 2006, 12:45 PM
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What a wonderful report! Who cares how you started it, it pulled me in and provided a great way to spend some time reliving our travels. Haworth is great and I loved the Black Bull Pub when we visited there. Thank you for sharing!
Julie
Julie
