My gentleman and I recently went on a trip to London and Ireland - my first vacation in years, our first big trip together, and his first time off the continent. Overall, it was very good, and we had some serious soul-searching on whether or not to come back. The siren song of steady paychecks were what finally won out, but we have both agreed it will not be our last vacation together or abroad.
London:
We intentionally flew out on Monday night, so that we could have a weekend before our vacation to prep and be relaxed from the start. In hindsight, taking an overnight flight with a connection at 3am was maybe not the smartest thing, but I did like the mid-week start. We landed at London Gatwick at about 9am local time, and hopped a cab into London. Somewhat expensive, but we were both pretty fried at that point. Moreover, even the cabbie got lost looking for the hotel, so I'm pretty sure if we'd tried it ourselves, it would have been a rough start. The hotel itself was nice, if typically British (i.e. very narrow rooms with high ceilings, as if height makes up for lack of elbow room). Breakfast was included, and we slept in both days we were there.
