Mickey & MINI day 1

Posted on by Ian C.

When we arrived, first task was to make GPMINI a little cleaner (after sorting the flat battery issue!) … it’s nice to have MY car down here instead of a rental (although the Chevy HHR we used to get from the airport is reasonable):

Then it was time to join the MANY other MINIs (more than 150), pick up my registration pack, and meet a few friends from previous events, including David & Erica, Stephanie, and of course James, Pedro, Alex and Barry (who create this excellent event!):

 

In the evening, Margaret joined me for the big dinner event at the hotel – and like last year there was great food and excellent entertainment, including a super slideshow of last years event created by MINIbee 🙂

 

GPMINI “flies” south

Posted on by Ian C.

Actually, GPMINI crawls south is closer to the truth!

I’m heading down to Florida tomorrow for the excellent Mickey & MINI event, which I attended last year with George, sharing his classic Mini … this year I wanted GPMINI to attend, but couldn’t take the time off work to drive her down there.

So instead I used the services of Inter City Lines … and I’ve got to say, I wasn’t really very impressed! Next time I’ll use FedEx 😉

Inter City were fine for the initial setting up of the contract – and I hope they were fine at actually transporting the car! They have nice trucks with a lift gate so that the car is driven flat, no worries about ground clearance … But Inter City are not very good at communications!

Last Monday (15th) I called to see what day they planned to pick up the car, because on the Tuesday I had a meeting … they didn’t know. But then at 4:30pm, when I was already at my meeting’s location, they called to say they were coming the next morning! Less than 20 hours notice 😦

Luckily I was driving the convertible so GPMINI was at home – but Margaret had to deal with the picking up since I was away. And the driver had the audacity to complain that GPMINI wasn’t pristine clean (no wonder since I’d been away for the weekend and didn’t know they were coming – of course unlike many of their cars, GPMINI isn’t garaged).

So, they picked the car up on Tuesday (the 16th) and said it would likely be in Florida Friday or Saturday (delivered to our second home down there).
Finally, GPMINI was delivered yesterday – they called our management company at 9pm Tuesday night to deliver, but they sensibly suggested waiting till Wednesday morning.
Thus, it took 8 days to deliver GPMINI from Massachusetts to Florida – slower than I drove the other way last year during The Great Ice Cream Run!

I really have no complaints about the time – I wanted it delivered by tomorrow and it was – but I’m not at all impressed with the very short notice they give of both collecting and delivering the car.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to joining GPMINI and Mickey & MINI this weekend 😀