I have only visited London once before, in December 2010 when I went on a Sixth Form trip with my class mates. I fell in love with the city back then. We visited Oxford Street which was so lovely, all decorated for Christmas and Camden Market which was such a cool experience! I think one of my favourite things I done was myself and my friend jumped on a tube and just got off at a random stop to see where it would take us and we ended up at St Paul's Cathedral. We also went on two theatre trips, we saw Les Miserables and Wicked. So after talking it over with Reece for weeks, after wanting to go back for so long, we finally booked our train tickets and apartment to stay in for a few nights. I am so bloody excited! I've wanted to go back ever since I went back in 2010 and I can't wait to finally be back in the beautiful city that is London!
The main reason I want to go is obviously to visit the Creative Showcase, but me and Reece had actually planned to go in April of this year, but were put of by all the chaos that has been happening in London lately and the fact that one of the attractions I desperately wanted to go to was fully booked. I've decided that I can't let my fear of large cities and the awful things that have been happening in our country stop me from travelling, as I will miss out on so many wonderful opportunity's and I know I would regret it in the long run. There are so many other things we want to do in London as well, like visiting the Harry Potter Studios, which I've been dying to do for years now and I can't quite believe is becoming a reality!
We have a draft journey plan of what we're going to get up to in London so I'll let you in on what we have planned so far!
Our first day is going to be mostly travelling and checking into our apartment. We have reserved an apartment in the area of Canary Wharf but we are unsure as to whether this will be our final apartment as we have found one that is closer, but they wouldn't let you reserve the room without paying upfront. So if the other apartment is still available when we come to pay, we may change the area we are staying in. The place we have booked is beautiful and in a lovely area, it's just a little bit further out than we would like to have.
Our train journey is nearly four hours so this will take up the bulk of our first day. We do get into London at a reasonable early afternoon time, so I think we may wander around London for a while, maybe visit Oxford Street and actually get to see the mother ship LUSH flag store that I think is on every Lushies bucket list to visit! I'd also like to take Reece to see the standard tourist places, like Buckingham Palace , Westminster and the London Eye. I'd also like to pop into a museum as I never got the chance to check them out last time I was in London. I'm excited for this day, to have to entirety of London to be able to go and see whatever we want.
We will also need to go and grab some food to be able to eat for our duration of staying in London and I'm sure we'll pass a supermarket on our way to check in to our apartment.
I'm also super excited to get to our apartment! It looks stunning and the reviews are really good for this one that we have reserved and the other one that we may book! If we stay at the apartment pictured, we got a really good deal so I'm super happy we haven't ended up staying in a really bad area and some horrible place.
I love it when myself and Reece travel away for a few nights as whenever we see each other we're either staying at his family home or my family home and we rarely get time that is literally just for us. We've been away a few times together, we went to Newcastle in February 2015 for a The Script (my favourite band) concert that Reece bought me tickets for for Christmas, we visited Blackpool for my 21st birthday and we stayed in Dublin for Reece's 18th. It's been over two years since we've been away together and I'm really excited to take him to a city that I love so much!
The second day we are in London is all for the main event, the Creative Showcase! I am so so so so so so so so so so so excited! I have been lusting over the LUSH Creative Showcase since it first began, stalking the Instagrams of people who are there, trying to find out all the information about the new and exciting products that are available for that day only and to be released for future releases. Having a first glimpse and being able to purchase brand new products and grab some super limited edition items is every Lushies dream! The past couple of years, travelling to London has been completely out of my reach as I live in the North of England and it costs a complete fortune to travel down and then staying over in the capital is always a lot more expensive than other areas of the UK. In past years I haven't had a stable job to be able to plan the trip prior as I was never sure if I was still going to have a job at the end of that month. I'm so happy that this year I am finally financially stable enough to be able to join in on the fun first hand and see everything for myself.
I am super excited to see all the products that will be available to purchase for Halloween and Christmas 2017, at least this means I have plenty of time to sort out my wish list and I can grab some of the new products (if there is any, which there probably will be!) and I can try and test them out for you guys so you can get an idea of whether you would like the product before you buy it. Usually at events like this that LUSH organise, they have loads of products that are limited to that event and won't be in stores for a long time, for instance we first saw Metamorphosis at the showcase last year and it has only just came into stores now. There were a few products at the LUSH Summit this year that haven't been seen since, like Groovy Kind of Love and Thundersnow, so I'm hoping that there will be some exclusive products I can get my hands on as I never ever have any products that are really rare or limited edition.
I'm also hoping that they will be selling Kitchen products there also, as I know last year they had Kitchen items readily available to purchase. It would also be really lovely to meet the staff who work so hard to create and package our much loved products! Hopefully it's a darn good menu that week!
I really hope Reece enjoys this day more than he thinks he will, he's not really into LUSH very much, like he will steal my Snow Fairy, but he will also stand outside my local store and wait for me to finish shopping instead of coming in with me. He knows how much I've been wanting to go to the Creative Showcase and how much I want to visit the Oxford Street store, so I'm very greatful that he agreed to come with me.
I can not believe I am finally visiting the Harry Potter Studios. I have wanted to visit here ever since it first opened and I can't believe that it is actually becoming a reality. I have been a Harry Potter fan all my life and I am that dedicated I have it inked on my skin. I could actually shed a tear at how excited I am to be going here! I have a feeling I'm going to be like a toddler on Christmas morning the day we visit here! Harry Potter means a lot more to me than the average person, it really helped me through some tough times when I was younger and gave me a world to engross myself in when I really needed to escape from reality. Now I'm going to be able to see the amazing world of Harry Potter in reality and it's been a long time coming for me!
I am super excited to see absolutely everything that the Studios has to offer. I'm glad we didn't go in April as we would have missed the opening of the Forbidden Forest and I think I would have been gutted if I'd have just missed out on it. I'm excited to see the Great Hall, to get my photo taken with the Knight Bus and to be able to walk down Diagon Alley. I can't wait to take a shit tonne of photographs!
I'm also glad that we've been able to dedicate an entire day to this trip so we don't have to rush around and constantly keep track of time in case we miss our train or check out and I can actually experience it all. I'm also excited to see all the merchandise that they sell here and treat myself to maybe a few purchases! I would definitely like to purchase something to remember my trip but I'll probably want the entire store!
Surprisingly, Reece actually wants to visit here! So I didn't have to twist his arm or persuade him with this one. Harry Potter is an obsession of mine the Reece can appreciate, so I really hope he enjoys this tour as much as I know I will!
Usually, I would point blank refuse to go to anything football related as I don't follow it and I would only watch a match if it was the World Cup really. However, we're doing so many things that I want to do this trip, it's only fair that we do something that Reece really wants to do and he said he would like to visit the Emirates Stadium. A good relationship is always about compromise, I want to go to the Showcase, we both want to go to the Harry Potter Studios and Reece wants to go to the Emirates. So this will be the main focus of our last day in London. The tour apparently only takes an hour or so, so we should still have plenty of time to fit in sight seeing around London for the places we don't manage to see on our first day.
I'm going to make a full list of all the sightseeing places I'd like to visit, (mainly so I can look back here and see what we can do!)
- Buckingham Palace
- Palace of Westminster / Westminster Abbey
- Oxford Street
- Trafalgar Square
- St Paul's Cathedral
- Piccadilly Circus
- London Eye
- Tower of London / Tower Bridge
- Natural History Museum
- Globe Theatre
We are also travelling back this day but we're not leaving until late afternoon so we should have plenty of time, the only downside being that I'm going to have to lug about everything I've purchased while I've been there! Luckily I'm going to take my pull along suitcase so I can drag it everywhere, and I already know it's going to be filled to the brim with beautiful LUSH smelling products and hopefully some Harry Potter stuff too!
When I return form my trip I will probably post an entire blog post about the Creative Showcase and a separate one about the Harry Potter Studios. While I'm om this trip, I'm going to try and share as much as I possibly can on my Instagram for all the people who are unable to make it to the Showcase and would love to have the opportunity to visit the Studios. I understand what it feels like, seeing people visit places you really want to go, so I'm going to try and bring people along for the journey as much as I can! You can follow me on Insgtagram - @iyastevie for all the live stories and photographs of this trip!
If you're a Lushie and you're going to the Showcase, let me know down in the comments below! It would be lovely to meet everyone who shares such a love for this company that I do!
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**Disclaimer: All views and opinions are my own. Photo credit: Google Images **
