I thought I would write today about our trip to Jersey, well we decided that we would pop over to the darling little island to get some new glasses, as you know the island comes under English jurisdiction and so they have have all the normal shops you would find in the UK Specsaver being one of them.
Ok we saved for months because even though they do the usual buy one get one free offer, we both have verifocal lenses, you would be amazed at how the cost mounts up with all the little bits and pieces.
Anyway, enough about our glasses it is really the trip itself that I am writing about.
To try and make the experience as easy and cheap as possible we decided to drive to St Malo as that is where we were getting a ferry at stupid o'clock on the Saturday morning, we had booked a room at the Ibis budget hotel there for Friday evening and were quite looking forward to it, this was the first mistake, talk about basic, all the room had to offer was a bed, thankfully an ensuite and a very small TV on the wall. no chairs to sit on and only one pillow each - well the bed was as hard has bullets when we looked it was just a box with an inch thick mattress, there was a bunk bed over the head of the bed which John kept hitting his head on, we did get two extra pillows but the TV was so far away and so small we could hardly see it.
Next we ventured downstairs to look for the restaurant, when we asked where it might be located we got a real look of shock on the receptionist's face, oh no we don't have one just a buffet breakfast in the morning, so we thought we would find a shop and get a sandwich or similar, we found an Intermarche in a complex where there were some restaurants and thinking of prior experiences where we struggled to find anywhere open in the evening we made the decision to eat at lunchtime instead so in we went and ordered a steak, the lovely waitress asked how we like it cooked, we both said well done, I don't mind my steak rare but a good vet could have got these going, NO a bad vet could have managed it.
As we had to be at the ferry for 7am we had to get up for 5am so that we could fit breakfast in ( I must say the breakfast was excellent albeit a continental there was plenty of everything but you had to serve yourself even toast your own bread in a toaster, bearing in mind we stayed over so that we wouldn't have to get up in the middle of the night to get to the ferry on time, we gained absolutely nothing and lost a whole nights sleep
We decided to go as foot passengers, the journey out was ok they provided a coach to the ferry but on the way back we had to walk and with John's poor knees this wasn't good, leaving Jersey was a bit of an ordeal, we had to take all outer clothes off and put in a tray with our keys mobiles etc to go through the x-ray machine, I went through the posts and no bleep then John went through and set it all off, it turned out to be his hearing aids, then my bag gave them cause for concern as well as me ( you always feel guilty even if you aren't) Mine was a very tiny battery in a torch on a keyring.
All in all it was a pretty traumatic time but at least we will have our new glasses and be well informed for our next visit..
The moral of the story is:
- Don't stay in a Budget Ibis Hotel
- Don't go as foot passengers and take the car
- Stay overnight in Jersey so that you don't have to rush about and you can see the sights
- Don't go in the winter
Hope this helps any of you thinking of doing the same
