A good flight and on time arrival. Flight time was only just over 9.5 hours, which is pretty good. The breakfast eggs Benedict were excellent – much to my surprise. I started to watch Wallace & Gromit’s ‘Curse of the Were Rabbit, but didn’t manage to finish it.
We were off the aircraft smartly but it is a LONG walk through to immigration. We are both on UK passports, so the ‘smart gate’ option for us and although out of 15 gates, only about 4 were operating, we were only queuing for a couple of minutes. Both through OK. Five minute wait for luggage was no problem and with nothing to declare, straight out to the arrivals hall and to the Enterprise check in desk to process our hire car. Paperwork completed, we then wheeled our baggage through and joined the mob trying to get into the lifts, to go down to the ground floor.
Dragging luggage onto escalators is not advised so the lifts were our only option. There are 5 lifts, but strangely enough, for a modern airport terminal, where the expectation is that people will have luggage, they are surprisingly small.
The Enterprise shuttle bus arrived after a couple of minutes to take us to the depot. Since last using their shuttle, they have plastered the exterior windows with signage, so for anyone trying to learn where the depot is when returning their cars, they have no idea where they are! We couldn’t see a thing out of the windows.
A few minutes wait until we were pointed to our car, a SEAT Leon, diesel. Seemed OK and once we’d heaved the two cases in the boot and one wheelie bag, one wheelie bag inside, we set off. Couldn’t find the light switch!
Steady misty, drizzling rain but thanks to the guy on the gate, he told me where the light switch was. A rotary switch to the right.
Sat Nav included on this model, but as with most modern cars, you now need a 30 minute acclimatisation session to learn all the electronics. We missed the turns, twice, and had to do a couple of U turns before we finally found ourselves on the M25 heading in the right direction, ready to join the M1 North. So slow. A 50 mph speed limit and some stop/start motoring and a lot of surface water.
A Costa coffee stop on the M1 and we managed our AirBnb booking location OK in Nottingham.
We have to be realistic here. This was a very cheap option, as anyone who has stayed at AirBnb places will know, there is a huge variation of price and also facilities. Our room is effectively a basement but to reach it, in the rain, down a steep flight of steps, with heavy(ish) cases wasn’t easy.
Access is then through the owner’s craft studio. The positives are free Wi-Fi, and no car parking charge, (street parking…) with tea making facilities. Bear in mind that Wi-Fi at the Marriott was $13US a day and car parking at our last night in the UK is £25, (about $48NZD), which is about the cost of this accommodation, and you have to take a pragmatic view. Very much a case of you get what you pay for. No wardrobe/hanging space, a tiny en suite, the width of the standard shower, with another of those tiny wash basins, but the killer here is that there is a heavy wooden shelf just above, with a small mirror, that effectively showed my stomach. Not a pretty sight. Straightaway, having a wet shave was going to be an issue.
At this point, we realised that this wasn’t a good choice. As we’d also booked for 8 days after Blackpool, we very quickly made the decision to not return. Rather like the US TV having a big screen, but poor content, this was a nice host with not such good accommodation – for a couple. Had the weather been bright and sunny and we could have enjoyed the outdoor area, it might not have been too bad, but with a cool drizzly day...
We nipped out to see brother Dave and partner Sue and although we were fairly tired, we accepted Sue’s invitation to enjoy a chicken chasseur and on the way back, tried to catch son Stewart, but they were out.
So, we crashed early, but had to put the fan heater on for a while. No pics as yet. It would be nice to get a good night’s sleep, but somehow, going to bed a bit early usually means a poor night’s sleep. With sunrise (ha-ha-ha) at some ungodly hour, no doubt I’ll be wide awake early.
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