Blog ≫ 2023 ≫ Holiday 2023 - Center Parcs day one
Up early from Bath, no hotel breakfast today. Got a coffee and a snack from a cafe across the road and walked with our bags back to the car. All up hill of course this time, taking shortcuts that were up more stairs. Nice interesting little alleyways, but less so when you have a rucksack on your back and a wheely suitcase at your feet, and trying to drink a coffee too.
The car was where we left it, this was a nice neighbourhood to park in, and it probably makes a difference being on someone's drive to just being on the street.
A longer drive than expected to Center Parcs, patchy traffic in places, but not bad. Obviously a billion times better than driving there from home. We were bemoaning the fact that our nearest one is so far away. Remember when they were going to build one in Lyminge? Would that be good? Would we have used it a lot?
Small queue to get in, got processed very quickly. We got there as close to 10am opening as we could, and it only took us about fifteen minutes to get in, but then you still can't get into your lodge until 4pm or so. So we have to park the car in the carpark, take one small bag of swimming kit and run straight to the pool.
The next four days would be a lot of swimming, well more water slides and sitting about near a swimming pool. First thing we went on was the biggest flume, and it was good. It's fairly gentle, though quite long. Just one bit that got briefly scary when it goes dark and you can't be sure which way you're going to go next. Quite a long queue for this one so only went on it a few times.
Proper scary one was the Tropical Cyclone. You're on an inflatable raft, very high up. Hang on tight, down a flume and into a kind of funnel where you drop out the bottom. I nearly dropped out of my own bottom. We must have done a similar thing at another Center Parcs but I did not remember it. Maybe we never did it before as the boys were too young? I would do this one again, we did quite a few times, only the queues slowing us down.
There's also the Typhoon, a cut down version of this just for two. Very similar but smaller.
Best part of the park is the rapids, this is an artificial river that you bounce down. Quite long, mostly outside, though very warm even in the bad weather. I am still covered in bruises from this one. This is the bit we went on most.
There's a nice short queue fast ride "the white slides", these are called something piste officially. Very fast white slides, one bumpy, one flat. Did I say they were fast?
There's an actual lazy river, this is normally my favourite thing, but this one was too gentle. Too lame for the boys to go on.
After our first go in the pool it's time to get to the lodge, so back to pick up the car and drive to the lodge. This is a bit of a log jam, but not too bad. We drove to the lodge, chucked all the bags in and I took the car back. We were in "Pine" which is the most central. Lodge 355, but that is not very useful info. I didn't even unpack much, just lived out of my bag, though we obviously had wardrobes and everything. The lodge is lovely, they're quite standardt though this might be a better than average one. Open lounge diner kitchen in the middle, windows all round with views of the forest. Our bedroom and bathroom to one aned, and a bedroom and bathroom for the boys at the other end. Comes with coffee machine and toaster (that we used a lot) and dishwasher and oven (that we didn't use at all). Normally I'd have taken pictures of the lodge, like I do with all the hotel rooms, before we made it too messy. Don't seem to have done this time. I have one picture of the lodge but I don't tend to post pictures with the kids up here these days. I have probably shared the picture to you directly, let me know if you'd like to see any!
After this, back in to the complex again, though a different part. The swimming and shops and some restaurants are in "The Plaza" but we were heading to "The Sports Plaza" as we had booked The Family Quiz for 6pm. This is only on once a week1 and works with screens, an app on your phone, and a quiz compere.
We were actually early, so got a drink and booked a pool table for half an hour. The boys are convinced they are experts at pool and will take no advice, but I think we gently improved them over this half hour.
The quiz was very good. As with all things Center Parcs I think they have improved since we last went to one. We obviously thought we'd be great at the quiz, but had a bad start and then kind of gave up on it. Kept plodding on to the end and actually came 6th out of about thirty. I think there were only a couple of questions in it in the end.
We had food from the sports bar while we ate, and while it was fairly basic we were pleased with it as our first meal of this leg of the holiday.
Guessing 1188 cups of coffee from my espresso machine23 probably comes to £1.25 a cup (including actual coffee and now servicing2 so not the electricity).
- And as I write this up, I have just recommended it to a friend who is going in a few weeks, but it's all booked up.
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- Though I was not using my machine this week so that would throw the stats out a bit