Well, we decided it would be a good idea to try and turn in early yesterday evening (well, I think it was yesterday evening, I’m not entirely sure anymore!) so we could get a bit of sleep before the flight. We duly turned in an 22:00 and managed to get no sleep until we got up at 02:00. This wasn’t helped by Nibbler as he’s discovered how to open our bedroom door and letting himself in at 01:00 to sit on us 
We ended up leaving the house at about 03:30 and made it to Purple Parking at about 05:45. They were super efficient and they seem to have an insane level of security so the car should be fine. They got us to the airport by about 06:20 which gave us plenty of time to kill before the flight at 11:00
The next task was to check in. They seem to have done away with staff and made all check ins self service. This turned out to be not too bad, but the UI on the system sucked
After dumping the bags we went through to airside and had a wander around. The usual suspect abound but Heathrow terminal 3 doesn’t look quite as polished as Gatwick does. Had a pretty good breakfast in TGI Fridays and hit the starbucks for a pick-me-up. we then killed time until 09:45 when out flight started boarding.
The plane turned out to be half empty which was cool so we ended up with a row to ourselves. It turns out plane entertainment has come along a lot since we last flew and each seat has a state of the art console with games, movies on demand, a CD jukebox and loads more. Shame I managed to crash it once within an hour, fix it and then completely kill it two hours before the end of the flight Maybe Kentmail has infected it
The flight was pretty good, got fed so much we ended up not being able to eat everything. A bit grueling at 11 hours and we were glad we decided not to fly on to Vegas today.
Going through customs at SFO was nice and easy though, it was busy. They don’t seem as paranoid here as at Orlando and we didn’t get the usual scan we’ve got used to.
We then walked outside and nearly melted in the heat! It’s only something like 16 degrees but as it’s been -2 at home it feels like the middle of summer. At this point we began to regret not packing more summer gear! Managed to catch a courtesy bus to the hotel (The Clarion at the airport) at the second attempt, the first time the bugger drove off without us!
Quick checkin and a really nice room. It’s huuuuuge! I reckon it must be nearly the size of the ground floor of our house! and this is a smallish room
I’m sold as you get free ice and an ice bucket, how cool is that? (It’s the small things that please me!)
Had a nice meal, a homemade burger that weighed about half a ton, all for $9.99. Nice and healthy to start with The Hotel also has a nice pool, spa and fitness room that puts the University gym to shame! We didn’t use the pool even though they are having record temperatures here, as we’re so tired we’d have probably sunk
Tomorrow, Vegas!