So we left New York City bright and early. Got to JFK airport just fine. We had two hours before our flight so we went to the lounge. Ty’s got that system figured out with the right credit card that gets us into about 80% of the lounges out there. It’s a life saver when traveling with kids to have a quiet space to get away to. The free food and drinks are also a huge plus!
We boarded our flight just fine and took off for London. Now this was our first time flying Norwegian Airlines. Ty gave me a heads up before our flight that unless you pay for it you won’t get any food. Which was fine since it was a 5.5 hour flight and we grabbed a bunch of snacks and some cans of juice from the lounge. 😉 But what I didn’t expect was that they practically ignore you if you haven’t paid for food service. No water, or any drink is offered. They basically wouldn’t pick up our trash unless it was shoved at them or we placed it in their trash bags ourselves! I found that part totally bizarre. Why would you not want to maintain the cleanliness of your airlines? But other than that odd bit, the seats were nice, they had built in screens and chargers, with plenty of leg room.
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With a five hour time change we didn’t get into London till 11:30pm. We knew it would be late night so Ty had booked us a hotel that was a 10 minute walk from the airport. We grabbed some food at a grocery store in the airport, so convenient! Then made it to the hotel and had the kids fed and in bed by 1am. Seems late but didn’t feel quite that bad due to the time change.
So I was of course awake at 6:30am but Ty and the kids, I had to wake them up at 10:30! We packed up and headed back to the airport about 11:30, to catch the train into the city. Again, grabbed some breakfast from the airport grocery store before figuring out the train system. This beginning our long drawn out ordeal of getting to our next hotel.
We made it to the right platform but got on the wrong train. Not figuring that out till it had already pulled away. Ty being the map reader extraordinaire that he is, had a new route planned out in no time. We got off at the London Bridge stop took a short walk from the train station to the tube and also got to see a few sights.
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We made it to the tube and got on the train headed in the right direction. Got off one stop too early and found out from a nice gentleman they’re doing line maintenance right on the end of the line we wanted. So we hopped back on the train and got off again at the next stop. Talked with the local workers and figured out it was easier to walk to the hotel then try and mess with the local bus.
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This was right outside the tube trying to make sure we were going to right way to the hotel. This was at 2:30pm, so it’s been three hours and we’re still trying to find our hotel. Everyone was a bit over it by this point. Not exactly the most efficient use of our time in London but this is real life travel. At least the views were nice!
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About 20 more minutes of walking, including an extra five past our hotel. Thank goodness Ty spotted it behind us! Even traveling as light as we are it’s still tiring pulling a suitcase or carrying a 40 pound kid on your back. It was very nice to finally check in and unload all the unnecessarys.
It was getting late and we’d hoped to have high tea and make it to the Transportation Museum today. However, we ran out of time and had to choose one. Hoping we will have time for the museum later we went for high tea at The Delaunay . I had found it online and it had reasonable prices compared to everywhere else I had researched. Knowing our kids were a bit young to fully enjoy either the tea or the finger foods. I still really wanted that experience with them and R is so into everything fancy I knew she’d really enjoy it.
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Hot chocolate for the boys.
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Right before she spilled tea down the front of herself. I told her to raise her pinky and she tipped the whole cup instead. 😬
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The food was so pretty! The kids liked about half the desserts. The scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam were my favorite! It was completely fun to try but the kids didn’t really enjoy the food and it was way to fancy for real life. But really we went for the experience, and I’m so glad we tried. No one broke anything, and we didn’t seem to bother anyone around us. SUCCESS!
Afterwards we walked around the Covent Garden Market.
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So when we first arrived at Covent Garden station everyone was queuing up for the lift. We couldn’t figure out why everyone was waiting for the elevator?! So we passed them all and headed for the stairs. Then we saw this sign which explained it.
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This station was WAY underground and you had to climb up 193 steps to exit the underground. It was a hoot, Ty carrying the stroller, myself, and our two rather young kids were passing up quite a few people on the way up those stairs! Was fun to experience but we definitely took the lifts on the way back down.
So after arriving back to our closest station we head back to the hotel and Linc starts fussing about wanting to get in the stroller. This starts an epic fit he threw for about 30 minutes. All the way through the station, down the street, over a bridge and through the town till we got to our hotel. We wouldn’t let him get into the stroller till he stopped fussing. Well he never managed to calm himself so he walked the entire way.
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This was one of a few stops to pout and pretend he wasn’t coming with me. There was yelling, threats and tears. It was quite an event.
Ty and R stopped to get some crepes for dinner but there was no way I was taking L into a restaurant. So he and I went back to the hotel. Where he was promptly fine and dropped all attitude.
Traveling with kids is not for the faint of heart! It can be so rewarding and amazing. Ryder had a wonderful conversation with a young man from Vietnam on the train today. She learned he speaks 5 languages and how that she could do the same if she wanted. On the other hand, you have to be tough enough to handle stares from strangers wondering why your child is throwing themselves on the ground screaming. Or the embarrassment from your child loudly announcing they just wiped their booger on the grab bar on the metro. And that’s just what happened today!
