The surprise May Villa & car (gulp) trip

[Keith]

We were planning on missing our usual May trip this year and having a longer Christmas/new year trip instead. Well things changed and I decided to book a surprise visit for DW staying in a lovely villa and gulp, tremble, hiring a car as you've all told me to for many long years

As a quick last minute thing, I was pricing up flights and although virgin wanted £600+ per person economy, hardly any discount for miles+money any more, thomas cook wanted a little over £200 each! So well I thought I'd give it a go for that price.

So here we are, terminal 1 in Manchester airport rather than the usual terminal 2, sitting in the escape lounge courtesy of the barclays premier airport angel scheme. Worked a treat and got us in free.

I dont know if the escape lounge has improved in terminal 2 recently but here in terminal 1 it's a LOT better than our last t2 escape experience. Compared to the toast in t2 escape, the t1 version has bacon sandwiches, egg with toast soldiers and loads more besides!

The staff in t2 escape have been quite snotty on several occasions, again in t1 couldnt be more different. Very very nice and helpful.

Of course I'm not really looking forward to the plane 200quid doesnt buy much and I understand that the seats are tiny and in flight entertainment is going to be limited to watching me try and fit into a seat. Luckily I've brought my ipad heavily loaded with films and books. SO much easier than bringing all those heavy magazines and paper books!

in flight meals were extra too but they're always awful so this time I've saved the money and bought some sandwiches from good ole boots instead.

At the other end, assuming I survive the tiny seats, we'll hopefully have a dodge charger or similar waiting for us and we'll be trying the Orlando bumper car experience for the very first time. If you never hear from me again, well, look for the rear of a dodge charger poking out from a swamp somewhere in the everglades and think of me.

In other gadget news, this it the first outing of the apple macbook air SSD. Tiny little thing, needs to be seen to be believed and instant to start up and load apps because of the 256GB ssd drive. I pondered bringing the 15 or 17 macbook pros as usual but this time thought I'd try and see if I could live with this tiny thing for a couple of weeks. so far so good! definitely a very fast little device and perfect for travel.

[Britchick]

Hope you don't end up in a swamp! Have fun!

[Isafari]

Wow, you got a GREAT price on the flight! We ended up having to pay over £2000 for two seats in December school holidays which cuts into our spends drastically.

You're gonna be fine with the car/driving - just you wait and see. Sit for a while at the car pick up and get used to where all the controls are before you set off - you'll wonder why you got so nervous.

Have a truly brilliant time and safe journey

[ukwdwnut]

mick *faints* OMG a trip report from keith

cool!! your gonna have a great time keith in a villa and i promise you will love the freedom of having the car to go where and when you want. its a piece of cake driving over there once you get used to driving on the wrong side of the road

have a great time and looking forward to reading more about your trip

[uscwest]

Wow, knew you were asking a lot of car questions, but WOW, off today. Have a great trip.

[arkvilla]

Have a great time Keith and I hope you love the villa experience

Driving is a doddle and you'll soon wonder why you've never done it before

Sandra

[catrancher]

Wow! A new game of "Where's Keith".

And I didn't even know we were playing.

Tom (... it's kinda like "Where's Waldo" but different.)

[daveann]

oh my goodness have a fab time you will love driving over there just relax and have fun

[josh.p.]

Think of all the places you can go with the car! Exciting!

[josh.p.]

P.s... send a Mouse on the Move when you've arrived safely at the villa because otherwise we'll have to send Tink swamp diving.