Well it's finally the day of our big adventure. After a really stress free successful trip to Disney a few weeks ago we promised ourselves we'd be all packed up and ready to go well ahead of leaving day. The kids have their last day of school and Al and I both have a days work to complete. It's 5.45am and as someone who is very much not a morning person I find myself wide awake presumably due to an inner panic that there's still piles of clothes left to pack, emails that need sending and shopping to be done! Our planning spreadsheet which should at this point in time be lovely and green still has gaps for where we're staying and activities that we're planning. This trip is definitely going to have more let's do this random thing we've stumbled across when we get there.
Tomorrow however it's theme park day or at least I hope it is given I've still not bought the tickets, thankfully it's not as busy as Disney and with a full 27hrs left to go before we drive up I've at least secured tickets! As always on one's last day in the office issues crop up and my plan of finishing a little early didn't really happen so it's all hands to the pump to get the last 10% packed which seems to take 50% of the time. Other than the post office computer systems going offline so I can't return the wrong sizes and extra bags I had ordered on same day delivery yesterday the kids are collected put straight into the van still in their school clothes. In my head I thought we'd have time to pop to the shops and get a McDonald's en route given how early we were a couple of weeks ago for our Disney boat, what I hadn't realised is that we're booked on a boat to Dunkirk and that leaves an hour earlier so the sat nav has us arriving 3 mins before the supposedly last check in time of 1hr before departure. Nothing like a bit of stress to start the trip but so far so good with the traffic, the 8hr Disney haunted mansion audiobook the kids are listening to seems a success and it's not until we're 30 mins away from the docks that I get the first request of are we there yet and we're hungry (so am I kids, I didn't get lunch!) It's actually plain sailing (pun intended) and we arrive with 15 mins to spare. I dread to think how busy this place is going to be next week, they have already set up loads of barriers to keep people from switching lanes.
There's still time to head to burger king although we're soon regretting the choice as we're miles away from the building, we debate turning back but as we'd not seen a boat in the docks we go for it. Once the order is placed I send Al and the kids back just in case things start moving, no one wants to be that empty vehicle that everyone is having to drive around. As I'm waiting it looks as though a coach full of kids had ordered ahead of us and I hope I don't get a call and have to abandon the food! We're in luck but it's a fast march back, we're parked in lane 35 and the food court is opposite lane 175! I've cracked 15k steps anyway and actually we needn't have worried as there's plenty of time to sit and eat our food (and the kids who've never had a burger king before decide it's better than McDonald's).
Even though it's only been a few weeks since we were last in the moho we've got a couple of upgrades. Firstly a non slip table mat in the hope that the kids stuff doesn't fly off whenever we turn a corner (I shall report back on the success or not), a collapsible bucket for carrying water (my middle of lidl purchase last year was fab but on an early trip to the lakes in May it sprung a leak) and a new drivers window switch. Coming back from Disney Al put down his window to hand passports over in Calais and the damn thing wouldn't come back up! We were worried we'd have to drive from Dover to Winchester with it open but with a bit of brute force and good luck it came back up but we're taking no chances and have replaced the switch.
It looks like we're only stopping at two campsites the whole trip (one yet to be booked!) the rest of our stops are a combination of park & rides, aires and other random places recommended by the moho community. That means I've probably packed our entire summer wardrobes in the hope we can survive as long as possible without needing to find washing facilities. Having looked in the cupboards I think Al is going to be our weakest link, which also means I've likely massively overpacked.
This year's trip sees us crossing 9 countries, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, overnight boat to Finland, boat to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland (then back through Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France). We've got day trips in all countries except France. A new country for Al and I is Latvia meanwhile the kids clock up another 5.
Planning the route was actually rather tricky, there's a balance between the fastest route between two places but also not going to the same places, I have to say chatgpt has been helping me find interesting things and has come up with some hopefully good suggestions, I actually had it read my blog to determine the things we like to visit as a family so it did suggest a variety of castles, art galleries, zoos and aquariums, it then offered to make the kids scavenger hunts for the places we were visiting.
Anyway we'll muddle through making memories with or without detailed plans, for now it's a good crossing despite all the fog, the kids do some drawing, I resist the duty free and I just hope the kids get some sleep on the drive through to the Netherlands as we've got a long day ahead tomorrow.
