Doctors, sheep and the Shard – an unusual weekend out in London COMPLETED 6/3 About This Page:

[chezp]

Doctors, sheep and the Shard – an unusual weekend out in London

Dates: Saturday 23 –Sunday 24 May
Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (42), DH Mark (49
Destinations: London
Resorts: Novotel Wembley
Meets: None
Celebration: Enjoying the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular, the Shard in the evening and some more National Trust properties

I wasn’t planning on writing a trip report on this short stay in London, mainly because I honestly didn’t think it would be of much interest. I know that some of you are partial to a bit of Doctor Who, like me (30 years+ as a fan and proud of it! ) but I figured for the majority, it wouldn’t be that interesting. Equally, while it’s nice we were planning on visiting at least one National Trust property on the Sunday, maybe two, if time allowed, that really wouldn’t be that interesting either, given that they’re not big tourist attractions.

However, when we decided just a couple of days earlier to add in a visit to the Shard for the evening to see what the city looks like near sunset, I figured that might have a bit more interest, so here goes…

Saturday 23 May – part one: “will we find somewhere to park?”

Originally we were going to leave around midday, and have a leisurely morning, but a few days before, when checking on the Novotel, I discovered it didn’t have a car park. Ok, not a good discovery. It got worse the more research I did. I could find plenty of event parking for the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular, but while you could arrive whenever you liked, generally they expected you to be gone an hour after it finished. Not going to work for us when we’re staying the night…

We then discovered there was a football match at Wembley Stadium, which of course brings a lot more people, and with them, traffic to the area. Ok, so parking may not be that easy then… After lots of searching and only finding a car park with 71 spaces near the hotel that may or may not have spaces, we decided to leave a lot earlier than our original departure time.

We were on the road around 9:15am, and headed out, following a route that was very new to me, although Mark was familiar with it. We headed along the main motorway in our county (state)…



… and on to the M25, which was fortunately behaving itself today, and then just after we got through the Dartford Tunnel, we turned off on to the A13, which took you into East London. From there, we ended up on the North Circular Road. Now I’ve never been on this, although we’ve been on the South Circular Road and that’s just like an ordinary road with lots of junctions, both traffic lights and roundabouts, and as a result, the traffic doesn’t move that fast. Well, to the north of the city, it’s at least dual carriageway, sometimes three lanes, and until we got to 10 miles from Wembley, no junctions at all. Sadly, this is just another case of how much better catered for you are in the north of London, as opposed to the south, as they have the majority of Tube stations too.



The last section to actually get to Wembley was a bit painful, and only when we got really close did we finally see the stadium:



All I could think about was “will we find somewhere to park?” Well, we had no luck with the parking by the Tube station, as we couldn’t even find it so we headed to our hotel to ask if there was any parking nearby. Mark was convinced they’d have to have parking, and normally I’d agree, but I knew from their website, they state explicitly they don’t have any, so imagine my surprise when I was told they did.

I was warned that there wasn’t much, but when we got inside, out of about 20 spaces, only about three were taken up, so we were able to park with no issue. That wasn’t the problem… getting into the hotel was. You have to buzz reception, who are supposed to let you in, only we heard it connect, as we could hear the receptionist checking someone in, but we were left standing there. Even worse, I couldn’t get a signal on my mobile (cell) phone, and Mark had left his in the car. He went back to grab his, and the link through to reception timed out, so I dialled it again, and thankfully this time, we were let in straightaway.



We headed up, and were told they did have a room ready, although we had fun and games with the credit card machine, as trying to pre-pay for breakfast just didn’t work. It consistently wouldn’t go through. I hoped there was nothing wrong with our credit card. We ended up paying for that and the parking in cash – thank goodness we had some on us, as we don’t usually carry much. That done, we headed back to the car to get our stuff, and at least we were let straight back in this time, and we headed up to our room, which was very nice.



We headed out not long afterwards to go and explore, and partially because I thought from all the maps I’d seen that the shops and restaurants were a good 10 minute walk away. Well, they couldn’t have been more than five minutes away, but on the way, we got some great views of Wembley Stadium.


This is the Arena, which is where our event would be taking place later


I couldn’t resist a photo of this!



As you can see, the weather looked very nice, right? Remember this for later…

Next: there is no way I can stand in that!

[cubfancolleen]

Love the look of your hotel. While I am not a Dr. Who fan at all (sorry), I LOVE Shaun the Sheep. So I'm tuning in for those pictures!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

Love the look of your hotel. While I am not a Dr. Who fan at all (sorry), I LOVE Shaun the Sheep. So I'm tuning in for those pictures!

Oh don't worry, I know everyone isn't. Hopefully I won't bore you too much with photos from the show....

[greentie]

I'm just taking a break from your WDW & cruise TR (still on the first MK day!!!) to read this. I'm very much looking forward to reading about The Shard - I'd like to visit but DH isn't too fond of heights.

Amusingly enough we stayed at the Hilton in Wembley last Saturday night (16th) - I'm looking forward to hearing what you thought of the Novotel. We really liked the Hilton BUT we coughed up the extra money for a club room and I'm not sure we'd have been so struck with it if we hadn't.

[manticorjenn]

Sounds like another fun weekend. Can't wait to read about it and see all of the sites.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by greentie

I'm just taking a break from your WDW & cruise TR (still on the first MK day!!!) to read this.

Oh wow, just a little way to go then...

I'm very much looking forward to reading about The Shard - I'd like to visit but DH isn't too fond of heights.

This is our second visit to the Shard - we first visited it last September and the trip report I did from that is here: Serendipity, a day out in London.

Amusingly enough we stayed at the Hilton in Wembley last Saturday night (16th) - I'm looking forward to hearing what you thought of the Novotel. We really liked the Hilton BUT we coughed up the extra money for a club room and I'm not sure we'd have been so struck with it if we hadn't.

We stayed in the Hilton a number of years ago, whenever we were last at Wembley, which must've been at least five years ago. Back then, it was in a different building, on the main road, which now appears to be apartments. We liked it well enough and, at that time, there were no other hotels nearby, which gives you an idea of how much the area has changed in recent years.

We enjoyed the Novotel for the money - £125, which was cheaper than I could get the Hilton for...

[greentie]

Originally Posted by chezp

This is our second visit to the Shard - we first visited it last September and the trip report I did from that is here

I'm off to read that!

Originally Posted by chezp

We enjoyed the Novotel for the money - £125, which was cheaper than I could get the Hilton for...

Oh ouch! We paid £123 for the upgraded room at the Hilton - we were lucky enough to get it in a flash sale which is why we decided to go for the upgrade.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by greentie

Oh ouch! We paid £123 for the upgraded room at the Hilton - we were lucky enough to get it in a flash sale which is why we decided to go for the upgrade.

That was a good price. The Hilton was more like £160 and, when we got to the Novotel, they were quoting £300 for rooms in the sign behind the check-in desk!

[Dlandmom2]

I'm so terribly behind all your other trip reports! I'm going to stay on top of this one from the beginning!

[Cam22]

Your hotel looks very nice! Great photos from around Wembley, too.

[PhilsEagles08]

Why in the world did you run into so many problems during this adventure? The parking, getting buzzed in, & then card issues?! What the?! I hope the rest of the weekend goes smoothly!!! Also, I love the Ben & Jerry's pic!!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by PhilsEagles08

Why in the world did you run into so many problems during this adventure? The parking, getting buzzed in, & then card issues?! What the?! I hope the rest of the weekend goes smoothly!!! Also, I love the Ben & Jerry's pic!!

Well, thankfully the parking was better than we expected - at least the hotel had card parking! I think it was just the hotel, as thankfully we've had no further problems with that card. Things did improve after that...

[chezp]

Saturday 23 May – part two: there is no way I can stand in that!

We headed into the London Designer Outlet to have a browse in there, as none of the restaurants opened until midday, and it was about 11:40am. To be honest, we weren’t overly impressed with it. It didn’t seem to be very well laid out, and a lot of the stores just aren’t us. I honestly don’t know why we go to designer outlet places, as the names never mean much to us, as we’re not into designer things, and generally, I tend to look at the reduced prices and think “how much?”



We managed to kill about 20 minutes there, before heading back to TGI Friday’s. My goodness, you should’ve seen the number of staff they had on. Mind you, with a massive football match and two shows at the Arena (we’d be seeing the afternoon one, they also had an evening one on), I’m sure they’re going to have a busy day.

We were seated immediately and I got a barnamint Bailey’s, a cocktail made from Bailey’s, something minty (I didn’t photograph the menu, so I don’t remember! ) and vanilla ice cream. I did get a photo of it on my photo to post on Facebook, but forgot to take a “proper” photo until it was about halfway gone… it was very nice though.



For starters, I had the mozzarella sticks…



… while Mark had the boneless chicken…



For main course, I went with the Jack Daniels salmon, an old staple of mine and still just as good as ever.



Mark went for a rack of ribs, and look at the size of what turned up!



How he polished it all off, I really do not know.

We rolled out of there about 1:20pm, and decided we’d head back to the hotel for a bit of downtime, as the doors to the Arena didn’t open until 2:00pm. It didn’t help that there was now light drizzle. Since when was that in the forecast? Oh sorry, that’s right – it wasn’t. How come they can never get these things right?

We did notice that some people were going in, and asked what was happening. Apparently the foyer was open if you wanted to get a coffee or shop the merchandise stalls, but we decided we’d stick with our original plan of going back to the hotel. The drizzle was getting more and more persistent, and we were very glad we’d bought our Disney Cruise Line showerproof jackets with us.

After a few minutes back in the room relaxing, we ventured back out into the rain, which was worse than earlier. We headed over to the Arena, and went to our door, the South East. At first, I thought there was a bit of a line, but the further we walked down, the further we realised it extended. It was literally the whole darned way along the Arena back to the main road. We both looked at each other in horror. I had no idea how long we’d have to stand in that, but I knew I couldn’t do it with my chronic fatigue.

We headed back to the entrance, where there were security guys on duty, and I spoke to one, and he immediately gestured at us to just walk right through, cutting the entire line. I know Mark heard a comment from someone, and I can understand that, as if I was watching this happen, I’d be a bit hacked off, but I was so grateful for his help.

We made our way towards the merchandise stand, but it was absolutely mobbed. As Mark said, maybe we should’ve come in earlier when the foyer opened. I told him to forget it, and said the only thing I really wanted was a programme, and I was sure they’d be selling them elsewhere, so we headed inside to take our seats. They were a bit over to one side, which was a shame, but they were right at the front of a block, and I figured they’d be perfect, as surely the monsters would be walking right in front of us.


The TARDIS!

Mark headed out to get me a programme, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it and read it from cover to cover while waiting for the show to start and then in the intermission, which lasted 20 minutes. I won’t say much about the show, as I’m sure there are people reading this who’ve never seen Doctor Who in their lives and probably won’t be that interested, but I absolutely loved it. I had tears in my eyes at certain points, as they played back parts of the show that always make me well up.

Essentially, it’s a show with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, with footage from the show behind the pieces they play (all from the show). In between it was narrated by Peter Davison, who played the fifth Doctor, who was excellent. He had a wicked sense of humour, which everyone appreciated. He made a lot of the fact that an unexploded World War II bomb was found in Wembley a couple of days ago, and they were all told to leave the Arena for half a day, as they dealt with it.


Taking their final bows

From time to time, you’d then get some of the famous monsters coming on as well, which was very cool, although sadly it wasn’t that great for us, as a lot of the action was more in the centre, which was a great shame. Having said that, I did still manage to snag one or two photos of them along the way.


This was one of my favourite moments of the show, where one of the monsters, the Foretold, menaced a member of the audience!


Next: “can you hear that?”

[ccmom]

I was so hoping you'd do a report on this. The music is what got me hooked on Dr. Who, I just love it.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by ccmom

I was so hoping you'd do a report on this. The music is what got me hooked on Dr. Who, I just love it.

Happy to oblige and I hope you enjoy!