My day didn't have the best start as Michelle had been texting and ringing me frantically to tell me our hotel, Hotel Famalie had cancelled on us. Yes, they had cancelled our booking on the morning we were due to fly over to Blackpool. I was not too impressed as you can imagine. However we did manage to get booked into the hotel that the convention was in, Norbreck Castle Hotel, despite reviews not being great.
With our hotel drama all sorted out, I took a quick trip into town to get a few essential items as it was also payday. I treated myself to some lunch on the way home. I had quite a relaxed afternoon before I had to travel to Belfast City Airport to meet Michelle and Audrey for our flight. Our flight from Belfast to Manchester wasn't until 6:50pm. We dropped our suitcases off then went through the dreaded security. The airport was pretty busy with it being a Friday night. We got some pizza and chips to split between the 3 of us. Our flight was with Flybe and took off on time. Sadly I was sat on my on, rows behind Michelle and Audrey. I listened to my Disney playlist on my Ipod during the 50 minute flight. The flight was ok but I found it to be quite shaky and at one point we had a massive drop in which I think I left my stomach behind. As we had arrived in Manchester earlier than planned, they hadn't a stand for us. We did have to wait a short while on a shuttle bus coming to take us to the terminal building. Then we had to wait a life time on our luggage making an appearance.
Then we had a 5 minute walk to take us to the bus and train station. We had another wait on our train but we got ourselves some drinks. Our train wasn't until 9:30pm. When our train finally arrived, we had an experience with a very rude woman. Our tickets had our actual seat numbers on them so we headed straight to our allocated seats. In Northern Ireland we don't have this so we assumed we had to sit in those seats. We were told that our train was only going to Preston, rather than Blackpool which confused us tourists so we asked the rude woman if our train stopped at Blackpool (we don't know where Preston and Blackpool are or how far away they are from each other). She kept saying "It goes to Preston!" in a sharp tone. I know that, I'm not stupid but does it stop at Blackpool on the way to Preston? "It stops at Preston!" She said again. You blooming told me that already, but is Blackpool on route to Preston? It was like getting blood from a stone. I even tried to explain that we are from Northern Ireland and don't have a clue about where these cities are but she wasn't giving us anymore help. Thankfully someone nicer on the train gave us the answer we were needing and that our train would be stopping at Preston then we'd be getting a bus or something on to Blackpool. Now that wasn't the last we seen of rude lady, oh no. When we got onto the train again, she was sitting in our seats and wasn't too impressed when we asked her to move and she tried to argue that the seats weren't allocated, cue us showing her our tickets. She ended up sitting across from us then proceeded to throw us dirty looks and tuts every 5 minutes.
Rude people aside, we ended up meeting another fellow Oncer, Sophia who sat down beside me and we had a flick through Michelle's Once Upon A Time storybook.
Our train stopped at Preston due to a railway strike but we were due to get a bus (or so we thought) to take us on to Blackpool. Again, we had to wait forever in the cold and dark on our transport to Blackpool. At this point we weren't really told anything which was annoying. Then several taxis came to take those of us waiting onward to our final destination. We were one of the last groups of people to get picked up. I was shattered by now and I just wanted to get to our hotel. The taxi driver kindly offered to take us all to our hotels, rather than just to the bus station were he had originally been informed he was taking us. When we arrived in Blackpool I could see the huge roller coaster at the Pleasure Beach. I was quite excited to see everything. We finally arrived at Norbreck Castle Hotel for about 12am, midnight. Loads of Once Upon a time fans were already there and at the party that was put on for attendees of the convention.
With our hotel drama all sorted out, I took a quick trip into town to get a few essential items as it was also payday. I treated myself to some lunch on the way home. I had quite a relaxed afternoon before I had to travel to Belfast City Airport to meet Michelle and Audrey for our flight. Our flight from Belfast to Manchester wasn't until 6:50pm. We dropped our suitcases off then went through the dreaded security. The airport was pretty busy with it being a Friday night. We got some pizza and chips to split between the 3 of us. Our flight was with Flybe and took off on time. Sadly I was sat on my on, rows behind Michelle and Audrey. I listened to my Disney playlist on my Ipod during the 50 minute flight. The flight was ok but I found it to be quite shaky and at one point we had a massive drop in which I think I left my stomach behind. As we had arrived in Manchester earlier than planned, they hadn't a stand for us. We did have to wait a short while on a shuttle bus coming to take us to the terminal building. Then we had to wait a life time on our luggage making an appearance.
Then we had a 5 minute walk to take us to the bus and train station. We had another wait on our train but we got ourselves some drinks. Our train wasn't until 9:30pm. When our train finally arrived, we had an experience with a very rude woman. Our tickets had our actual seat numbers on them so we headed straight to our allocated seats. In Northern Ireland we don't have this so we assumed we had to sit in those seats. We were told that our train was only going to Preston, rather than Blackpool which confused us tourists so we asked the rude woman if our train stopped at Blackpool (we don't know where Preston and Blackpool are or how far away they are from each other). She kept saying "It goes to Preston!" in a sharp tone. I know that, I'm not stupid but does it stop at Blackpool on the way to Preston? "It stops at Preston!" She said again. You blooming told me that already, but is Blackpool on route to Preston? It was like getting blood from a stone. I even tried to explain that we are from Northern Ireland and don't have a clue about where these cities are but she wasn't giving us anymore help. Thankfully someone nicer on the train gave us the answer we were needing and that our train would be stopping at Preston then we'd be getting a bus or something on to Blackpool. Now that wasn't the last we seen of rude lady, oh no. When we got onto the train again, she was sitting in our seats and wasn't too impressed when we asked her to move and she tried to argue that the seats weren't allocated, cue us showing her our tickets. She ended up sitting across from us then proceeded to throw us dirty looks and tuts every 5 minutes.
Rude people aside, we ended up meeting another fellow Oncer, Sophia who sat down beside me and we had a flick through Michelle's Once Upon A Time storybook.
Our train stopped at Preston due to a railway strike but we were due to get a bus (or so we thought) to take us on to Blackpool. Again, we had to wait forever in the cold and dark on our transport to Blackpool. At this point we weren't really told anything which was annoying. Then several taxis came to take those of us waiting onward to our final destination. We were one of the last groups of people to get picked up. I was shattered by now and I just wanted to get to our hotel. The taxi driver kindly offered to take us all to our hotels, rather than just to the bus station were he had originally been informed he was taking us. When we arrived in Blackpool I could see the huge roller coaster at the Pleasure Beach. I was quite excited to see everything. We finally arrived at Norbreck Castle Hotel for about 12am, midnight. Loads of Once Upon a time fans were already there and at the party that was put on for attendees of the convention.
We got checked into our rooms. Sadly, I had a room of my own as they didn't have any rooms for three people. Plus, I wasn't even on the same floor as Michelle and Audrey which sucked. My room was on the first floor right by the door to the lift. I didn't even have a window in my room so it was like an oven. It was clean and would do the job for the next three nights (if I didn't melt due to the heat). Michelle and Audrey were on the second floor and had a view of the sea. I was getting my stuff unpacked when Michelle decided to ring my room, put on an accent and claim I was in the wrong room, sending fear through my body. "You're in the wrong room as there are two little Monkeys sleeping in there." referring to my cuddly toy monkeys. It was finally time to hit the hay and try and get some much needed sleep before the very long day we had the next day.
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