On our last day at Center Parcs our quackers neighbours who according to Freya are actually Canadian Geese knocked on our glass door which was a thing they did every morning.  I turned to Rory and said “look our friends are knocking on to say hello” to which he turned to me with tears in his eyes and a quivering bottom lip and said “no they’ve come to say goodbye”.  My heart melted and he then told me that he’d like to live in Center Parcs!

We did have a fantastic time and loved the novelty of going on family bike rides and scooter rides at a whim without worrying about having to pull the bikes out of the garage and then looking for helmets etc.. It did make me realise that I really do make it much more of a chore than it should be.  The other advantage is that I didn’t need to worry about cars as everyone leaves their vehicles in a big car park at the start of the village.  That being said as a “health and safety” mum as Tim calls me I was even worried about the other bikes and the occasional maintenance vehicle that was tooting around at 5mph

As an early birthday present for Tim I decided to invest in adult scooters for us both as I knew he’d like me to have one too! I surprisingly love it as does Tim and it was such a great addition to our holiday.  Freya’s cycling came on leaps and bounds on the holiday and she kept saying it’s thanks to Center Parcs that she can now ride her bike so confidently although I kept reminding her that it is thanks to her.  One of the days Freya and Tim went on a bike ride and Rory and I went on a separate scooter ride.  After circling around what felt like an eternity and my quad muscles in just my right leg felt like they were going to explode, Rory and I decided to ask a lady with a dog if she knew the way to the country club which was our meeting point with Freya and Tim.  She told us to go down the hill on the right which we did and quickly discovered it was a dead end.  I turned to Rory and said that it didn’t look right to which he piped out “nice one lady”.  I couldn’t believe my ears that my 5 year old boy knew about sarcasm and it really did make me chuckle.

One of the main highlights of Center Parcs to Rory was the water park and in particular the “grand cascade”.  This was a water slide that was certainly grand and did cascade across the centre.  The four of us sat in a big yellow ring and I held on for dear life and to the annoyance of the other three kept checking that they too were holding on tightly.  I picked the wrong spot and proceeded to be facing backwards throughout the whole ride which caused Freya, Rory and Tim much amusement.

I used to thrive on adrenilin rushes but these days my desire has definitely peetered away.  After the backwards ride I was about to wrap myself in my towel and let the three crazy thrill seekers go on their next ride but then I decided to force myself and I’m glad I did as it was lovely to see how much Freya, Rory and Tim enjoyed the slides.  After 5 days of waterslides I have to admit that I did occasionally slip off to the jacuzzi.

The weather was fantastic and we made use of the beach and even managed to squeeze in a 30 minute boat trip where Tim almost fell asleep. We also enjoyed pancakes at the pancake house.  The only downside to Center Parcs was the escalated prices for all the activities and I’m sure if we’d done them all we would have spent the same as going on a two week trip to Hawaii.  On the one rainy day that we had, Rory obviously insisted that we spend it on the grand cascade but Freya wanted to go to the pottery shop and paint a porcelain penguin. It really was a labour of love between mummy and daughter and we spent over an hour intricitely painting this penguin.  Freya was counting the hours down to pick it up the next day after it had spent 7 hours in the kiln and we made the biggest faux pas when I let her carry it gleefully across the square to show her daddy.  The penguin slipped from her fingers and shattered into hundreds of pieces.  Freya was heartbroken so there was only one thing to do either pay another £16!!! Or plead with the shop for her to do another one.  Thankfully the shop manager was very kind and said to bring Freya back which we did.

The chalet that we stayed in was full of all modcons and once I’d got over the initial shock of squirells, ducks and geese walking around the outside I absolutely loved it and would definitely recommend a visit – you’d be quackers not to!