Hi all! I know it’s been a little while since we last spoke; it was at the end of last year! It has been a manic first 3 months of the year, and a few changes are heading my way! But that is a story for another day! Today, I am giving you an update on my trip to Portugal in 7 days!

So, today marks 7 days until my friend and I head to Portugal! We are all paid, the hotel is booked, and my friend has a busy few days planned for us! We are flying out of Heathrow and are flying with British Airways in business class. I have never flown BA or business class, so I am excited about this! We are away for 4 days so a nice short break to relax us!

Our flight leaves at 09:15 in the morning, so that it will be an early start for us. It’s just under a 3-hour flight, so not too long. As it is business class, we get a meal too, which seems a bit weird! I have never flown business, so this will undoubtedly be an experience! We are planning on arriving in Portugal at 1300 their time.

We have chosen the Hotel Palácio in Estoril, about 20 minutes from the airport. Another new experience is that this is a 5-star hotel…. which I have never been to in my life!! So I am really looking forward to exploring the hotel! It looks amazing! My friend has expensive tastes!

As for the plans for the 4 days, I am a little in the dark, my friend has kept some details secret so it’ll be a surprise for me too! I know we are going to the aquarium in Lisborn, which looks incredible!

Currently, there aren’t any plans for more trips this year, but I will definitely be going on some trips as my life calms down a bit and I have some stability, so don’t worry. I will still be blogging my newbie experience!

Anyway, You can expect daily blogs as I blog my experience with you all! I will start with my packing blog tomorrow as I pack for next week! So see you tomorrow!

Well, I didn’t explain it to rain in Flordia for so long, but at the end of the day, it is autumn, so it’s really expected! Plus, a category two storm brushed past us, causing the rain! We thought rather than waste the day we’d go shopping! And let me tell you… this mall was HUGE! You can easily get lost here! There are so many different routes too!

We spent most of the morning there. The mall mainly consisted of clothes shops, but we did get a few things here and there! There was a GameStop, which I had never been to. It was a little small, but it had some awesome stuff in there! I could have easily bought lots of things, but I have to remember this important thing – I have to get it back home!

We continued to explore the shopping mall and found a Macy’s; we’d heard great things about it, so we went on a little explore. This place was also huge! It reminded me of what Debenhams used to be like back in the day in the UK. Again, I was tempted but had a lingering feeling of not getting everything back! Mum got a fantastic jumper and a shirt, all for a decent price, too!

There was a large sweet shop in there with a wide range of sweets! I could have easily bought so many sweets there!! It was too tempting! There was also a really cool chocolate shop; mum and I couldn’t resist! There was so much to see here, and it took all morning!

Our final shop we explored was…. wait for it… Primark! If you didn’t know, Primark has opened its first American branch over the last few weeks, which is based at this mall! Now I know what you are thinking.. why Ian? You have a Primark at home! And to answer that question I’d say to mark it of course!! What self-respecting British person would not! And to mark it, I’d say it’s an easy 8/10! So good job! Here are some pictures:

With shopping done, it was time for lunch! There was so much choice in the food hall of this mall, so it was hard for us to decide! We decided to be boring and have the same as last year…yeah, I know! Unfortunately, we had to wait a long time for our food. We ordered at 1258 but didn’t get our food until 1322, which isn’t great, but we Brits are used to queuing; the Americans… not so much; you could see the anger building up! At least the staff were trying their hardest! Here was our lunch:

After lunch, we had to head off to the local Walmart as we needed a few things we forgot yesterday, so we grabbed an Uber and went 10 minutes up the road. This Wal-Mart was also huge!! It is so tempting to buy many things, but we must stop ourselves as we have to get it back to the UK!!

We forced ourselves to get a basket to make sure we didn’t go mad!! We got what we needed and headed home. We chilled in the hotel room for a little bit as we had walked over 13,000 steps overall, and I was tired due to lack of sleep and needed to rest my feet. For dinner, we headed over to the Bayliner Diner; as it was simple and easier, I wanted something light, so I grabbed this salad:

Mum disappeared over to the place called the shaker as she had seen lots of people with ice cream and only wanted to “look” at what they had. 10 minutes later, she came back with this; it was awesome!

And that was our day! The wet and windy day turned out to be a busy day! We walked over 16,000 steps yesterday, and we were both shattered when we got back; it was an awesome day! Tomorrow is my birthday! It’s the first birthday I have ever spent abroad! Tomorrow will be a chill day as I celebrate my birthday and go to a restaurant for my birthday dinner, so see you tomorrow for a fairly shorter blog!

So we both started the day pretty early; jet lag hit us both! I tried to counteract this by going to bed later, but it did not help! I woke up at 0600 (1100 UK time), and Mum woke up around 0700, which is not too bad for her! Our first stop today was heading to Walmart, and as usual, it was awesome! The only problem is we kept buying… We ended up having to buy a big sports bag to get our shopping from the Uber to the room! Insane really! We spent $271… oh dear!! Here are some pictures from today’s shop.

As usual, we couldn’t help ourselves!! With that done, at least we have everything we need for our two-week break, we will probably have to head back at some point! For the earlier part of the afternoon, we just relaxed and had lunch, which was nice. For the rest of the afternoon we headed to City Walk and had a walk around! Mum hadn’t been and felt slightly out of our element! We jumped on the free bus and headed over

I hadn’t been there since January, and clearly, they are doing a lot of work there! I assume this is because of the new theme park, Epic Universe, which will open in May next year. We went there to see what restaurants they have there so we could pick a few to go with. I have decided to go to the Italian restaurant for my birthday on Thursday as I love Italian food! We booked a table for 1900!

We had a walk around and found plenty of choices! The plus side here is we can take the bus from the hotel to City Walk for free, so we won’t even have to get an Uber. We will, of course, explore other parts of Orlando, don’t you worry! Speaking of Epic Universe, they have a preview of the theme park and stock you can buy, which, of course, I did! I got a cushion star, which reverses and turns into an item box (only those who play Mario would understand!) and a Luigi cup! Here are a few pictures.

Epic Universe looks awesome, and I cannot wait to explore it. Unfortunately, America will not be on the cards next year! So my trip will have to wait! Finally, we decided where we would have dinner, and there was a great pizza place called Red Oven Pizza Bakery, where they make the pizzas fresh! Here are the pizza’s we had:

I managed to eat all mine! Mum had to save some for tomorrow! After finishing dinner, we returned to the hotel and chilled for the rest of the evening. We are heading to The Florida Mall tomorrow as the weather looks quite naff! So join us again tomorrow!

Following last night, we did our final check of everything we needed and ensured we had our toiletries and everything we needed. The day started with me waking up around 0730; I still didn’t sleep well, but better than the night before. I won’t lie; initially, I was pretty nervous and unsure; I am unsure why and can’t really explain it! It was a reasonably chilled morning; then, around 1245, we headed to McDonalds for our farewell meal with Dad.

It was delicious; McDonald’s has temporarily brought back the McRib! I wish it were permanent, as I’d have it every day! I paid for it as a thank you for Dad driving us! With that all done, it was time for the mammoth drive! I forgot it took an hour and 40 minutes to get to Heathrow! I even fell asleep in the back! I also checked into our flights on the way, as Virgin Atlantic allows check-in through their app 24 hours before the flight, so we are all checked in! Here are some pictures of the drive!

It took us about one hour 40; there was a lot of traffic on the M25 due to road works, so it was pretty slow here and there, but we were finally there! When I saw the Heathrow sign, I relaxed and felt ready for the holiday! Dad dropped us off at Terminal 2, as that is where Hilton Garden Inn is, and we said our goodbyes and headed to the hotel. It took a little finding but we got there in the end!

Now, this is a posh hotel! It really had that classy vibe to it and felt exclusive! We had already checked in, so we just headed to our room. Honestly, it’s lovely! It is a little small, but it will do us just fine! Here is my room tour for our hotel room for the night:

We both decided we wanted to do a little dry run to get to Terminal 3 to see how long it would take to get there in the morning. It was 15 minutes, so that’s all good; as I said above, we had already checked in with Virgin Atlantic, so all we need to do tomorrow is drop off our bags. We have fast-track security at 1100 and will begin boring around 1205, which should be more than enough to get snacks!

Once we had done that, it was time to find a place to eat dinner! We found a nice pub-like restaurant in Terminal 2 called The Queens Arms and decided to go for that! It was awesome! We could see the aircraft take off as well! Plus, the food was excellent! Here are some pictures of our dinners and dessert!

With that done and having full bellies, we decided we’d get a few things from the shops. Mum needed a new glasses case, so Boots had one, and I wanted some drinks from WHSmiths. Once we did that, we returned to the hotel and wanted to try the rooftop bar at this hotel; it was great! We could see the planes taking off and landing and the view of Heathrow! I even had a cheeky little cocktail! Here is a few pictures:

Now I am really feeling in the zone! We had a great time up on the rooftop bar. Mum and I were definitely starting to relax! We returned to the hotel room and started getting ready for bed! We don’t have to get up too early in the morning as our flight is at 1300, but we have set our alarms for 0730 to allow us to get ready and head for breakfast, and there should be plenty of time to get over terminal 3! No doubt I will wake up earlier due to the excitement!!! Anyway, see you tomorrow for our travel day!!

It was a relatively chill day today, really. I did most of my packing yesterday but had a few things to do today! I did struggle to sleep last night. I think I have pre-travel jitters, but I know I will be fine when we get there, so I only had about five hours of sleep, which isn’t brilliant! First things first, a trip to Lakeside!

As I said yesterday, my parents told me of a surprise birthday and Christmas present: a MacBook Air! They bought it for me, and today I went and got it! So I left home around 0915 and made good time to Lakeside. I got there in about 35 minutes! First things first, it was time for a coffee! As many of you know, I love my coffee, and Starbucks is my favourite, so I sat there and grabbed my first Christmas drink: Toffee Nut Latte. It was awesome! I sat there, took in the atmosphere, and actually really began to relax, which is impressive as I have struggled the last few weeks!

Once I had enjoyed my coffee, I headed to the Apple Store to pick up my MacBook Air! The staff were really friendly and helpful! After that, I headed to M&S as I needed to grab lunch as mum was heading to my sister-in-law’s baby shower, as my sister-in-law is due at the end of December. Here is a picture of the table!

Mum was there the whole time, and it lasted about three hours! I headed home and started to set up my MacBook Air. Let me tell you, it is fantastic! I love it! It will help massively with updating my blog for our trip and doesn’t make a racket! I spent 3 hours setting everything up! During that time, the final bits arrived for my pack: my facewash and a pair of swimming shorts as I will need them this time for Discovery Cove, and I WANT to go to the swimming pool on site as I missed out last time due to self-image issues, I will push myself to go there this time!

When Mum returned, we checked into our hotel room for tomorrow at Hilton Garden Inn; we are on the 4th floor, so, look forward to a room tour tomorrow! With that out of the way, I was finally done! I packed everything and triple-checked that I had everything. I will do a final check tomorrow before we leave for the hotel! We had dinner, and I had a fairly chilled evening!

And with that, we are ready to go! We are flight-ready, packed, have all our documents, and are ready to go! I cannot believe how quickly this has come up! It feels like yesterday I was saying 100 days to go! Tomorrow will be my pre-travel day. I will take you with us as we head to the Hilton Garden Inn at Heathrow, where we will be ready for our flights!

Let’s do this!!

Welcome to our pre-travel day! Today we head to Gatwick Airport and get our self checked in at the hotel we are staying at! Honestly I am surprised at how quickly it has appeared! I finished my last shift last night and am so ready for my holiday. Here are a few pictures of our final pack this morning!!

We had a pre-drive McDonald’s and a bon voyage meal! I paid to thank Dad for driving us!

Shortly after lunch, we had to leave Chelmsford and head to Gatwick! Dad agreed to drive us there, so shout out to my Dad for the lift. Gatwick was more confusing than Heathrow, which is saying something! We got lost trying to find our hotel, but due to work, they had moved the entrance to the car park, so that was fun!

Finally, we had arrived at Gatwick. We had a bit of a walk to our hotel, but we got there in the end! After we checked, we decided to do a dry run for tomorrow as we had an early flight, so we went around the terminal, finding where we had to go. Firstly, we found the Tui area; secondly, we found the premium security part and then headed back. We are now ready for the morning! Here are a few pictures and a room tour!

With us settled in, it was time for dinner. There wasn’t much choice at the hotel, so we sought a restaurant in arrivals. It was a nice place called The Nicholas Culpeper. It had a friendly indie vibe, and the food was fantastic.

The food was excellent. It was fresh, and it was lovely. With that, we retired to our hotel room to prepare for tomorrow’s travel day. Our flight leaves at 10:10 am tomorrow, so an early get up, 05:30! We need plenty of time to grab breakfast at the hotel and head to check in to put our bags on the plane. Plus, there is an 08:00 premium slot to get through security. It is going to be a long day tomorrow!

We are both looking forward to and excited for our holiday. Add to the nerves we both feel! Join us tomorrow for Day 1 travel day! Thanks for reading.

So, let’s get started, shall we? I have learned a lot from my holiday in January, so this process was slightly more straightforward than when I first did it! I started the day downloading all the movies and TV shows I wanted to watch on the flight out there on my new Samsung Tab S9+. This helped me during January’s flight! I have had to pack today as I am working three days from tomorrow, so best be prepared!

Next up, I got my suitcase back out, battered from the last flight. As you can see from the picture above, I still have my old luggage tags in my case; it just reminded me of my holiday in January! I checked the netted part and realised my Apple Tag had run out of battery, so it was time to head to Sainsbury’s to get a new one.

It was a scorching day today; I guess the weather is preparing me for Orlando! Anyway, while I was here, I got toiletries for the trip. I learned something from my last holiday and didn’t buy big bottles, just the travel minis. It was 3 for 2, so it saved me a few pounds!

Much better, eh? I am starting to look like a proper traveller now! So I got a clear bag to fit them in and have everything I need for the hotel on Friday and the initial day in Orlando. We have plans to visit Wal-Mart when we arrive, but it’ll depend on how late we get into Orlando and how tired we are!

Next, it was time to do some washing. I had to wash my shorts, shirts and a few more bits of underwear. Luckily, it was warm enough today that they dried pretty quickly! Now that I had done that, I put my pants, socks, and then my shirts into my suitcase. It feels much lighter this time, but I guess I don’t have two weeks’ worth of clothes because we are only going for one week! It should help us bring some goodies back!

The next part was me putting my towel in, as the ones at the hotel (at least in Adventurer) were too small. I placed it in the second compartment along with my swim shorts (I will bypass my fear!), sunglasses from last time and my body puff for cleaning. The toiletries will be put into my hand luggage for the hotel on Friday then I will put them in my suitcase so there are no problems at the airport! I also put a few spare clothes in my carry-on, so I have spares in case my bag goes missing.

I haven’t fully packed my carry-on bag yet; I will do that on Friday morning before we go to the hotel. We are staying at the Hampton by Hilton Hotel on the North Terminal at Gatwick Airport, recommended by a staff member. We have twin doubles (better than the other one we had booked, which was just single twins) and breakfast included, so we don’t need to stress about getting on our flight!

Well that’s my packing done! I had an email from TUI yesterday confirming that our flights were planned and ready, which means they won’t be affected by the air traffic control outage experienced last week, so that was good to hear! Also, our rep emailed us who will stay at the hotel should we need support, which is great!

I can’t believe we are so close now!! It felt like yesterday that I booked this surprise holiday for Mum, and with everything she has been through since her brain bleed, we weren’t even sure we’d be going! But thanks to Addenbrookes, who saved Mum’s life, Mum can enjoy a relaxing holiday in a place she has always wanted to go! I have three more shifts to do; then I will be ready! I am getting excited now! I just got to push through 36 hours!

So that’s it for now! Today, I managed to get my packing done and ready. Friday, I will finish my carry-on luggage. We are prepared to go! My next blog will be Friday evening at the hotel in the UK for Pre-Travel Day, so I look forward to it!

So this morning, I got up and finished off. Firstly I took a trip to Sainsbury’s to get some essentials. Then, I got myself some pyjamas for the trip. It was quite a stressful morning as the stress was piling up.

Basically, I bought a lot of toiletries that I thought I could take, but upon reading official sites and the TSA website, I discovered I couldn’t take some of the stuff I bought, not even in the hold luggage. So I got stressed and had a bit of a moment. After speaking to my folks, however, it eased my mind a bit! So this is what I bought:

What I found out during my research is that in America, the TSA (which is like our border force) will only allow you to take a cumulative amount of liquids in your hold luggage; that limit was 1 litre, so of course, combined with my mouth wash, shampoo and shower gel (not pictured) I hit that limit, and of course, this stressed me out as I really don’t want something a simple as that causing me trouble at the airport! I also found you can’t have any deodorant, which makes sense as it is flammable. So when I get to America, I will have to make a quick trip to Walmart for these essentials! Who’d of thought it’d be so stressful to pack? I even found out you can’t even put an electric toothbrush in your hold luggage due to the battery, so it’ll have to go into my hand luggage to be scanned, which will be ok! Correct me if I am wrong, though; it’s all new to me!!

Alongside the day mum bought me lunch to celebrate my holiday, we got a Five Guys delivered, which was quite a nice treat after getting so stressed out! After that, I relaxed a bit and focused on my packing. First, I added my pyjamas and some of the stuff I bought. I placed them in a bag and put them in my suitcase. I also grabbed charger cables for my iPhone and iPad alongside my razer blades and electric toothbrush head and placed them in the zipped pocket.

After the stressful morning, I have finally completed my packing. I think I got everything; I literally went through this about three times to ensure I have everything I need!! If I miss anything, I’ll have to grab it in America or the airport’s departure lounge.

With the stress of the day, I did have good news: my bid was successful, and I have been upgraded to economy delight, which gives me more legroom and priority check-in. I picked my new seat with this upgrade; I was torn on which one to have. I had the option of a window seat or even more legroom at the front of the bay. In the end, I chose to sit in the window seat so I could get some awesome pictures of take-off and landing for my memory and this blog too! If you were wondering, I bid £70 for the upgrade, which seemed reasonable! I am really getting excited now!! So here is my case, all zipped up and ready to go for Tuesday!!

Finally, to top off the day, my brother and sister-in-law Facetimed me to wish me well for my journey; we had an excellent 30-minute chat about my trip and how they were getting on. They reassured me a lot, so now I can start to get excited. Of course, there are a few things I am worried about, but I am sure as I go through the process, I’ll understand it a bit more!!

Tomorrow I will be blogging about my Pre-Travel day here. As I said, tomorrow’s plan would be for me to go to the Premier Inn on Bath Road, which is outside Heathrow Terminal 3, which will make the travel day more manageable as I can grab an Uber from the hotel to Heathrow. Shout out to my Dad, who is driving me there tomorrow!

See you tomorrow! Time to get excited!!!

Today marked my last shift at work, too, so I had to temper my excitement as I had to focus on my job. So now, I am sitting in my room drinking a cup of tea, with no shifts left to do, wondering where that time has gone! I am already starting to feel my excitement rise just sitting here and typing this out!

Over the past few days, I have been making last-minute preparations for my holiday! First, I bought some plugs that work in the US, so I can charge my devices at the hotel and use any UK devices I need; I also purchased some trainer socks because socks and shorts are not a great look!

I have been chatting with some experienced Orlando/Florida holiday staff members while working this week and have learnt a great deal along the way, so thanks to my colleagues who helped guide me and point me in the right direction, it has alleviated my stress a little!! I had a call from the TUI rep in Orlando this afternoon; I found it a bit weird that a Florida number appeared on my phone! However, she sounded super friendly and helpful.

As I fill with excitement, I can’t help but feel nervous too! As I have said, I have never travelled this far before, so I am left wondering what it will be like and if I am missing anything. Also, I have never actually been to an Airport aside from work, so I am also worried about check-in and security; I have been trying to work out how long it will take to get through security and the people I spoke to said about 3 hours, so I will need to make sure I leave my hotel at a decent time to head to the airport.

Then, of course, there is the worry about what I need to do when I get there, I have transport from the airport to my hotel, but I am worried that I will miss them or if I go in the wrong direction. I guess this is all natural to worry about, but I wanted to pencil my feelings down! But overall, I am really excited and can’t wait to get there!

Over the weekend, I’ll be posting blogs about my packing process and taking some pics along the way to look out for that! Please, as ever, if you have any advice, then let me know; I am all ears!

See you tomorrow!