Bucko's World

Florida 2013

T - day

What a difference a day makes.  I always hate, more than anything else, the morning before a flight somewhere.  I don't know what it is, but I just hate it if the cab's even a minute late, hate it if there is the slightest bit of traffic on the way, hate being in that queue at the airport with the great unwashed wearing their velour tracksuits, toting fake Louis Vuitton luggage and chastising their children Chlamydia and Uvula for being proper little shits.  But most of all I hate travelling to Heathrow, a fucking nightmare from our house anytime, any day.  And this time the journey took a torturous 2 and a half hours of crawling through central London, due to an accident on the M25, followed by one in Knightsbridge.  It would usually be enough to make me apoplectic with rage, to the full on blood vessel bursting point.  But the trick this time is we did it the night before.....

And so I'm rather relaxed, and getting up at 7.00 not 4.00.  And our cab from premier inn to airport is 5 minutes early, and only takes 5 minutes too.  But best of all is when we arrive at Heathrow.  Terminal 3 is fantastic, and Virgin have their own, separate part of it.  There's no dodgy tracksuits, no hen parties in T-Shirts proclaiming "Here Cums the Bride", and brilliantly, no queues. we're ushered straight to a check in desk and minutes later we are bag free and heading towards passport control.  This is unheard of.  There's no queue at Passport Control either.  This, too, is unheard of.  We're round duty free, loaded with swag, and out of there before you could say "Bob's now to be called Roberta".  And still to come is the Cherry sitting proudly upon the icing on the cake....

And it comes in the shape of the Virgin Business lounge.  And Oasis of luxury and calm in an otherwise uncivilised world.  You could, if you wished, get your haircut, relax in the Spa pool and steam room, have your nails done or get a facial.  (I offered to assist with the last one but they politely declined.  Perhaps I hadn't eaten enough celery the night before?)  We settle for a full english, black pudding and all, and the free champagne.  It would have been rude not to.  We then get to spend a very calming couple of hours before our flight stealing magazines and watching people who can obviously afford to do this all the time looking at us with disdain.  It's marvellous.  There's is still one more that adds an extra grin to the already wide smile - priority boarding.  We're called to board at our convenience and are able to stroll pass the nylon shirted masses and "what what what" it straight to the head of the line.  Even errmm...marvelouser.  We're still turning right once we get on the plane, but we've avoided all that nastiness until now.  Game on!  Lisa has also had the forethought to get us the seats near the back so we're only in a row of two, no one in Sergio Tacchini is climbing over me for a piss I can tell you :-)

and so we arrive relaxed and unfluttered in Miami Airport, another bane of my life in a previous existence.  But we're through immigration in a mere 20 minutes, and eventually find our bags having been told the wrong carousel number by the Virgin rep, and then even a huge line to get through customs fails to dampen the enthusiasm.  Before you know it we have a car and are at our hotel.  There's bad news though.  Only 25 minutes of happy hour remain at the Tiki Bar so we're up against it!  But like the rest of the day, it proves to be a triumph.  Two beers are rapidly consumed when, at 18.59, 1 minute before happy hour ends, I manage to sneak and order for two white wines under the door.  When they arrive half price and served by the half pint, we can only laugh, knock them back, and stagger off to Carrabba's already pissed before we've been in the hotel even an hour.  And so a day I normally dread ends very well indeed, with a carafe of red and meatballs and pasta to die for.  Let's now see what the rest of the trip brings our way!