Bath, England

I took Mom to the Thermae Bath Spa in August after a high recommendation from Susie. It was so incredible that I decided then that Jackson needed to experience it, too. We packaged this trip so that we had time for a quick overnight in Bath and a day at the spa. It was wholly worth it.

We woke up a bit early so we wandered into town and grabbed some coffee and just relaxed before it was time to get pampered. I could tell Jackson was nervous about this experience.

Coffee date! YUM! 

It was finally time to hit the spa so we got all checked in, changed into our "bathing costumes" and robes and headed out to explore the facility. As I had anticipated, Jackson loved it. There was just levels and levels of places to explore. There are warm pools, hot tubs, mineral spas, steam saunas, dry saunas, cold baths, and the list goes on. We explore for hours before it was time for our lunch.

Cappuccinos are a must here

LEMON WATER?! BLESS.

I had the salmon because it was amazing last
time and it was amazing again. Jackson had
a delicious chicken dish. 

I had the sorbet again. I repeated my order from last time
exactly. I'm predictable. Jackson had a lemon dessert. He loved it.

We went back to have some more time in the spas before it was time for our massages. I must admit that while my massage was good, my massage the time before was beyond. Jackson loved his and he hates massages so that was a real win. We finished up there and got back on the road to return to car to London's Heathrow Airport before heading into the city for one last evening.

We got all the way to the airport with no real issues minus a few wrong turns due to wonky GPS, but then released we needed to fuel up the car before returning it. We found a gas station on the other side of the airport and made our way to it. That part was fine. Then it was getting very dark and we were tired and still driving on the opposite side of the road from what we're used to and long story short I drove down a road the wrong way and scared the crap out of us and about 5 other vehicles who were certain that someone got to kicking off the new year early and was drunk driving. Luckily, there were no injuries and I was able to turn around without any assistance from the law. I've never been happier to return a car in all my life.

We took a shuttle back to the airport and promptly got on the wrong train. Son of a gun!! Things had been going so well. Instead of getting to our hotel in about 30 minutes it took closer to 75. By then we were bushed and the idea of walking down to the river to see the fireworks only to walk back and have to be up early for a flight was so unappealing that we decided to just hole up in our hotel room and watch them on television.

A sweet setup for our "honeymoon" 

We actually stayed at the same hotel where we'd been before so we knew the neighborhood. Jackson went out and found an open restaurant with the best fish-n-chips I'd ever had. He swore I would not have eaten it if I'd seen the rundown restaurant, but this meal was legit.

Jackson tracked down a final batch of fish-n-chips for
our NYE meal!

We got cleaned up after a day of adventures and crawled into bed to watch the BBC's coverage of the fireworks. They were amazing. We could hear them from our opened balcony doors. We listened to the revelers walk by for a bit then drifted off to sleep. We had an early flight at another airport across town so we'd be taking an Uber for that one. Thank goodness we didn't have to get on a train again! Bah!

How London looked that evening

We got to our flight without issue. London is just such a huge place that you forget it will take an hour without traffic to get to an airport. We made it without issue, got on our to Fort Lauderdale and got picked up by the cutest little airport shuttle, MacKenzie (with help from Grammy). It was so nice to take one flight and be done with it. A quick drive across Alligator Alley is cake compared to waiting for a connecting flight. We had such a fun trip!