Saturday 10th December 2011

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[09:27 GMT]

Journey to the airport was straightforward if quite cold. The temperature didn't climb above 5'c and indeed touched zero for a while on the M25.

We did our usual car collection from Gatwick departures which went to plan. We were in the terminal by 7:40. The departure area of Gatwick has been refurbished since we were last here. We can now get a lift straight to the check in area. A couple of people's in front of us at bag-drop but it didn't take too long. Bags 21.6, 21.4 and 18.3 KG.

As we're flying premiere economy on Virgin, we could go through the express security area, just before the main security section. We were the only people in the whole area. Needless to say, it didn't take long to get through as we has our 'own' personalised security staff ;)

No trouble through the scanner, although the guy wanted to check over Linda's belt. Perhaps he thought it was some odd animal skin or something?

I'd booked us into the No.1 Lounge whilst we waited for the flight. We'd stopped off at the Heathrow version on our way to New England earlier in the year. That lounge was brand new, but this one was showing signs of getting on a little. It was much busier than the Servisair Lounge that we've been into before. All in all 6.5/10.

[17:05 PST]

Sitting here in the casino area of the Palazzo. Not because I want to though...

The flight was very long but uneventful. I watched a couple of films on the way out. We were flying on 'ladybird' which is a plane that we have flown on before. It's one of the older 747s and it shows. Twice they had to restart the entertainment system - one of the reboots took 45 minutes! The cover to one of our screens fell off, I also noticed the flight attendant carrying another couple of covers too, so it certainly wasn't an isolated event.

We landed 20 minutes ahead of schedule. On exiting the plane, we walked out behind the magician Gillette Penn (of Penn and Teller) he really is as tall as he looks on screen.

Quick through immigration. Nice smooth taxi ride over here. No room ready.

That was two hours ago. Here we still sit. It's time to go and check again.

[17:55 PST]

As I suspected, they were having trouble calling my UK mobile number! I've no idea how long the room had been ready, I was too depressed to ask! Still, we are in the room now. Our bags have arrived, we last saw them over two hours ago when we got out of the taxi. Everything seems to be there.

We now just have to keep ourselves going. It's only 6pm over here, but out body clocks say 2am.

The rodeo is in town at the moment - I kid you not. There's currently a rodeo competition going on at the moment. It ends tomorrow I believe. You can see guys all over wearing their Stetsons and walking about in cowboy boots.

Now we've managed to tidy our stuff away, it's time to go out and have a quick look around. The decorations are up in the main part of the hotels.

There was more to see outside where there was a tree and a couple of characters dressed up in the 'Winter in Venice' theme.