Monday 24 October 2011

Day 2- Whatever that means

Busy day yesterday, which was really day 2. A great start today though, breakfast consisted of a pile of Cranston's Cumberland sausages, an all time favourite and a big hit with the family. Must stock up prior to returning home as dad swears by them,.

Anyway, yesterday. Starbucks was quiet at 9AM, a cheeky double espresso for me and a tea with a croque monsieur for Will allowed me to check mail and other such online. I am am slowly changing my rather judgemental opinion on Cente
r Parcs, for the worse unfortunately. I love the lodge and woodland setting but the communal areas are worse than Haven in August or even Malaga at any time. I digress. After breakfast Will and Beth couldn't wait to return to the swimming area, but now before getting hold of two more bikes so that we were at full complement of velocipedes. Ed, Emma and I set off to find the Lakeside Inn and Sports Plaza, which we did and thence on to find the Outdoor Activity centre where we had Eddy booked in for Junior Quad-biking. That found and the route understood we returned to the Sports Plaza for a coke and a sit down, cycling is tough on the old knees.

It was about then that I concluded, after seeing the various courts, pitches and tables that Center Parcs operates in a similar fashion to budget airlines (reading a book on that now actually) except that the initial outlay is as extortionate as the additions. I'll rant about that later.

Quad biking with Eddy was fun to watch and over too quickly for Ed, he thoroughly enjoyed himself despite looking like a mini-stig with a massive cartoon helmet.

The remainder of the afternoon was reasonably quiet, especially after the kids, supervised by Will, disappeared back to the pool for a few hours. Around 6PM Emma realised that Will had forgotten to take the front door key and as we were booked into the Indian Restaurant at 8PM he and the others would be unlikely to get back after us and would be locked out. Leaving slightly earlier than we had planned I tracked down the trio at the pool and dropped off the key. Having an hour to kill we repaired to the Lakeside Inn and we halted once inside the entrance by a large sign: 'Wait here to be seated'. I didn't want to be seated, let alone wait. I looked a round, this was a con, a ruse, a misnomer. This was not an 'Inn' at all, not a 'Pub' of any description; it was yet another sanitised, soulless building devoid of atmosphere designed to squeeze every last penny out of the poor cattle milling around the carvery service area and bar. Not to be beaten by this Emma and I perched on barstools at the end of the bar and waited to be served, and waited, and waited. Customers came and went and still we waited. Then left.

The sports plaza bar is an atypical sports bar with loud sports imagery blasting from a multitude of massive screens and American football is louder than most sports, what's wrong with curling or pigeon racing? No-one was watching. I had to queue at the bar.
'That does it!' I thought, I detest queuing at the best of times and even more so whilst supposedly on holiday. Looking around I scrutinised my fellow queuees, they all seemed content and resigned to this tedious activity, what was wrong with these people? Then it dawned on me, this place is nothing more than 'Haven-in-the-woods', with the premium prices justified at the perceived 'exclusivity' and 'exotic' nature of the setting and accommodation. I'm ranting again, sorry.

The curry? Oh, yet another large room bereft of atmosphere, the food was nice enough and the portions justified the price I feel. Other than that not much to say on the meal, Bay Leaves takeaway in Gosport leaves them standing though. Emma appears to have damaged her knee on our cycle back and we subsequently collapsed in bed to sleep off the heavy Indian cuisine.

Today, as mentioned, has started well so we'll see.


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