Rhodes 18th September 2019

Hello you! Fancy seeing you here....

Welcome to day 1, well it isn't really day 1 as all we have done is come down to standsted and stayed in a hotel over night, but I thought I'd sneak an extra day of rambling on about nothing interesting at all! After driving down late afternoon and serveral stops including seeing Charlie for his birthday and Starbucks after Starbucks (not just for coffee) we made it to the Hilton hotel. I wouldn't call it the smoothest ride down but we are here!

We booked the meet and greet parking service and thought the people would come and get the car from the hotel - we were wrong :( in fact the meet and greet is a 10 minute walk away from the hotel, well suppose we did meet them and they did greet us so I guess you can't really complain hey!! :) Our view from the hotel room is the airport runway so I wheeled Dexter in his pushchair over to the window to watch the planes, as soon as he saw one take off he started screaming, I just hope this isn't a 

taster of whats to come tomorrow my stress levels are already through the roof! 

We popped downstairs for dinner steak for me and Leon had chicken tikka!! Eek I think I'm going to be in for a smelly night.  Dexter is currently chilling out in his travel cot and trying hard not to sleep, its weird having him in the same room he shuffles around so much. Anyway I need to get shut eye as we are up at 3am - Goodnight everyone xx P.S I know some of the pictures below are the wrong way round but I can't fix it so you'll have to till your head...

3am!! 3am! Thats what time we had to get up and start getting ready, probably a good idea we did stay over last night then.  We head over to the airport and check in then off to security and everything is going along nicely right? Wrong! So I put all mine and Dexter's stuff in the tubs to go through xray and pick him up to take through the metal detectors and the buzzer goes off, Dexter has to have his hands wiped?? And a body pat down and I have to go onto a machine for checking - we are ok to continue because today I'm only going on holiday and not trying for world domination (thats next week). So everythings ok now right? Wrong! I've got Dexter back in his pushchair and picked up our tubs of stuff, I've started to head off and then realised I don't have my phone!!! panic stations!! I've got the guards checking through the tubs, Leon's ringing it and we still can't find it. There's another man asking me if I have baby milk and I anwser 'NO!" I check my iwatch and see the phone is still somewhere near me because it still connected to my watch but I just can't find it.

Just before I decide I'll close the whole airport and check every person for my phone I realise I also don't have Dexter's milk and a few other items...... opps.... the man shouting baby milk at me doesn't look pleased with me.  I forgot I had another tub which they took away with Dexter's milk in to check and in that tub was my phone! Well, at least my phone is safe and Dexter gets milk.... I'm still feeling a bit shaken from the thought of losing my phone but I carry on to the duty free. We try to get Dexter and fluffly aeroplane but just couldn't find one, so instead he got a cuddly duck from Hamleys (which is almost the size of him) and he says thank you very much Nanny Heather for his holiday present! We have some brekkie and head off to the plane, now anyone who has spoken to me recently knows my stress levels have been through the roof about this plane ride. So did it need to be? Well before we take off Dexter has fallen asleep on me using his new duck as a pillow so that was cool. 

He wasn't asleep long and once we were up in the air he was pretty relaxed and not constantly trying to get off of me.  He sits with Leon half way through the flight and has another little sleep and then we come into land, its at this point he's unsure about flying and has a cry and to be fair who wouldn't cry about landing!? I hate it.  So generally the flight was fine and he didn't seem to mind it.  So we are now in Rhodes and all is going well right?! Wrong!! lol somehow we missed the carousel which our luggage was going round on and missed our bus to the hotel!! (you couldn't write this stuff!). Anyway it gets sorted and we find our lonely suitcases and get another bus to the hotel.  The hotel is VERY nice and does live up to the pictures on the website, we have a lovely big room with a private pool off our balcony.  There's mexican theme food night on tonight and actually the food was pretty good too. Oh, just in case anyone is wondering, Leon doesn't have sea sickness - not yet anyway!! LOL!! xx

Hi, its Thursday and a very happy birthday to Andy!! Hope you had a lovely day.  Our private pool outside our room is a little bit cold for Dexter so we decided we would take him to the inside pool which is in the spa, while I'm there I book myself in for a massage (on Saturday) and also get a free hair wash and style for later today.  First we head off for some breakfast then a chat with our tour rep.  We head back to the spa to take Dexter swimming, get him changed and because the swimming pools here are a little deep we take him into the hot tub area which is like a smaller pool and warmer. We are the only ones in the spa when we get there which is nice and Dexter is showing off his swimming moves!! After about 20 minutes a couple of other couples come in and get in the swimming pool, then a spa lady comes over to us in the hot tub area and tells us Dexter isn't over 16 and we need to leave :( sad times as the outside swimming pools are just that bit to cold for him. Hopefully I can find somewhere for him to swim. 

 We cut through another hotel to get back to the main road and as we go through I notice the people are wearing a very simular all inclusive wrist band to ours. Well it would be rude not to stop and have a free ice cream wouldn't it?? I pop back to the spa at 4pm and have my hair done for this evening, which is nice but it's a little bit of a con as they are just trying to pedal some expensive hair products - nearly 200 euros!! lol, no!  We head off to the fancy pants resturant with Leon in his new trousers, oh the shopping mall was just round the corner from the row of shops we were at early. The food was lovely and for most of the meal Dexter was asleep, he woke up towards the end and the waiter got him some ice cream to cheer him up. All in all its been a nice day, very hot though!  Leon did want me to write something on the blog with happened in the resturant but we have both forgotten what it was - If i remember I'll add it in.  Good night from all of us xxx

It's a lazy day here is Rhodes today and we really haven't done much at all, so that means not much of an update for you, soz!

We had our breakfast a little later this morning they make fresh omelettes in the resturant so we both tried one, they were ok but a bit oily so I probably won't have another one.  The food isn't amazing here and lunch time is pretty awful, there's a few options - the main resturant, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner then there's food place down by the beach and another food place by the pool. The 2 food places serve food all day long and its chips, pizza and pasta kinda stuff but it's really not that nice, the resturant is better food but you have to be better dressed i.e not flip flops and no beachwear etc. There is 3 fancy pants resturants like the moonlight one we went to last night, I think we will be trying more of those out. 

OH!! I remembered what Leon wanted me to add to the site yesterday - so we were in the fancy pants place last night and on the table beside us was a younger gay couple who didn't seem amused they had to sit next to a table with a baby but Dexter was asleep for most of the meal and didn't make any fuss, but just before we got our dessert he woke and made some noise (not a lot of noise but they could hear he woke up) and I saw them look at each other and roll their eyes.  I was eating my dessert when Leon says to me 'what's the matter?' I look up and say 'nothing why?' and he then tells me I'm moaning away into my dessert like a nutter! hahahaha, I was having a little moan in my head about the chaps next to us and didn't even realise my mouth was moving!! 

While we were at breakfast this morning some woman collapse in the resturant and smashed her face up!

Firstly happy birthday to Heather from all of us here in Rhodes (and that means everyone in Rhodes), we hope you have had a lovely day and haven't missed us too much!!

Well have I got an update today!! buckle yourself in it's going to be a good one...

Today actually starts yesterday well last night really, after writing the blog and settling in for the night it must have been around 9.30 when the new people in the upstairs apartment started making alot of noise, it sounded like furniture being dragged along the floor and this must have gone on for a good hour before doors were slammed and voices started, we phoned reception and asked them to ask the people upstairs to stop dragging their furniture about.  But it continued then music started up and singing, we gave it until 12am and phone reception again, only the chap on the other end of the line didn't seem to understand Leon so at 12.20am I march down to reception and tell them to sort it out, which actually they were doing while I was in reception, I got back to the room and silence had resumed after telling the chap in reception he'd better sort it out as he didn't want me coming back!! (like I'm so scary!)

So Saturday morning neither of us were really bothered about going for breakfast but we forced ourselves down to the resturant, Leon had bread and cheese, I had beans on toast and Dexter joins us and eats his breakfast (banana porridge) in a highchair.  Today is massage day and I'm pretty excited for this, I head down to the spa (yes the one Dexter got us thown out of) and soon I'm relaxing on the massage table, ahhhh this is the stuff dreams are made of! there's some smoothing music on I can only explain it was being japanese pan pipes, but I had floated away to a better place when the lady doing the massage says to me 'my breasts are together for you' it takes me a couple of seconds to float back into the massage room and say 'sorry?' again she says 'my breasts are together for you?' Well, I didn't think its was that kind of place!! After a couple more seconds I realise she actually said in her greek accent 'Is the pressure ok for you?'!! Hahahaha!

When I get back to the room Dexter is ready to head off to the paddling pool to try that out so off we all go.  We arrive and there is a little blow up boat which we pop Dexter in for some photos, he's loving it and I get some nice pictures of him then he falls out of the boat and into the freezing cold water! Leon quickly saves him while I'm just rolling around laughing at them.

The afternoon is pretty lazy Leons watching the Grand Prix and football and Dexter is sleeping.  I decide late afternoon we should go out for a walk as we haven't done much for the last couple of days.  On our travels we stumble across the hotel where we might have stolen that lovely banana ice cream from the other day, well it would be rude not to pop in again for another, right? Well while we were there eating our ice creams we thought to ourselves we may as well stay for our dinner and head to their restaurant, its 6.10pm it doesn't open until 6.30pm but we notice we don't have the right attire on so probably best not to push our luck, at the ice cream place they also do crepes so we had those for our dinner with beers and cocktails. A little bit of karma came back to get me though when a whacking great wasp trampled on my crepe :( - I ordered another one, I didn't know where the wasps feet had been.  So for the rest of our stay we are booked into fancy pants restaurants so expect food updates and pictures.  We are now settling in for some sky movies and hopefully no noise from upstairs tonight. Oh, the other thing we were debating in bed the other night is whether your bed should be tucked in at the feet end, Leons says yes, I say no.  Good night xxx

Hi, its another blazing hot day in Rhodes and I've got a plan, since the day we got here I have wanted to take the sight seeing motorised train around Kiotari (that's where we are) and today is the day and I'm not taking no for an answer! After breakfast we head outside the hotel to wait for the train to come, we wait and we wait...... 15 minutes late the train arrives and I feel the rush of excitment come over me, only to have it dashed as the train slowly drives passed us and doesn't stop! :( We head back into the hotel and speak to the holiday rep who says it's most odd, it normally stops and it will pass the beach road so we can go down there and try to get it, we do just that and after another 20 minutes wait we are finally on the train! Choo choo! Now the plan is to stop at Glystra Beach which is meant to be a nice sandy beach, the sand where we are is awful its like type 1 building material.

We are kinda squashed in on the train and it stops at hotels along the way, the train comes up to a junction and I look up I see signs for Glystra beach, I turn to Leon and say 'isn't this our stop?' but its too late the train as slowly gone round the corner and not stopped :( In the end I think bugger it this is too much hassle. As the train is going along I realise that actually how are we going to stop back at our hotel theres no way of telling the driver we want to stop, Leon says to me 'watch out our hotel will be coming up soon" and just as he finishes saying that we pass very slowly past our hotel.... Its ok I say to him we will stop at the shopping mall people will want to get off there and lucky enough we did! Now this shopping mall is just across the road from the hotel with the nice banana ice cream and guess what?... yes, more banana ice cream for us! On our walk back to our hotel 

we stop off at a shop and find Dexter ablow up boat with leg holes so he can float around in our pool without a) falling in and b) getting too cold. We head back to our room and don our swimming kits for an afternoon of fun in the pool. This evening we went to the fancy pants Italian restaurant which was ok, I'm not that keen on Italian food but as it goes it was ok.  It was a buffet for starter and maybe we ate too much bread and oil but after months of not eating bread believe me it was amazing - Neither of us could finish our main courses off I had penne alla bolognese and Leon had pizza, we didn't overly go for desserts either but did finish the meal off with an expresso which if you add a sugar to it is very, very good!! Goodnight all xxx

WE'RE ON THE ROAD TO RHODES!! Oh yes today we have a hire car and we are going out to explore the capital Rhodes (the capital of Rhodes is called Rhodes or in Greek Rodos).  It's about an hours drive to Rhodes, to start its a little bit scary because we haven't really driven alot on the left hand side of the road apart from in America but thats much easier then Europe, but Leon soon gets the hang of it and to be fair it's a much nicer way of getting around than public transport of weird little trains that don't stop for you! We aren't overly sure where we are going when we get there or what to look out for, we want to see old town as Clark and Kelly told us to go there. We kinda weirdly find the right place to park and we walk through the old town and stop off for something to eat, 

Tonights fancy pants restaurant is a beach BBQ, bacially you can pick as many meats as you like.  I tell the chef I would like steak, prawns, 3 different meats from the pit and kebab, he looks at me and says 'are you sure?' "yes' I say, 'ok but thats alot' he replies, so I leave the kebab for now and come back later - thankfully I didn't have the kebab as we really struggled to eat what we ordered! It's a good job my new dress is stretchy as I'm sure I've grown a few inches over dinner! As it was a outside beach BBQ there were lots of cats around which kept Dexter amused while we ate.  Well that's all for today folks, until tomorrow, goodnight xxx

It's the last full day of our first family holiday and also quite a lazy day too.  We missed breakfast this morning I don't think either of us could face the food down in the buffet restuarant.  After a slow start to the morning we decide to wake ourselves up in the swimming pool, we all get ready and head in, oh boy it's cold, its VERY cold but we carry on and get Dexter in the pool in his new blow up boat again, he seems to really love it just floating around in his boat.

I've got a bit of a sore throat and headache today and wanted to pop to the pharmacy to get some throat sweets so we head out to the mall.  Yes, that's right the mall which is across the road from the other hotel with the banana ice cream and crepes, really its only right that we pop in to say goodbye to our second home and have lunch there!!  It's a 2 mile round trip to the other hotel and back to ours.

Tonight is our last fancy pants restaurant night and its at the burger place and actually the burgers were soooooo good! Oh and there's a water show on at the fountain area (which we only found out tonight as we are out late). We also popped into the amphitheatre and saw a bit of the show - it looked ok but Dexter was awake and needed to go back to the room.

Don't forget to meet us back here 27th June 2020 for our next holiday! Until then love to you all xxx