Salou Day 3: Wedgies, Spanish Lifeguards & Change of Skirt

In my imagination, a water park would consist of one massive pool with various slides leading into it and a kids area. I thought this after only seeing snippets of water parks in films or on advertisements on TV. Little did I know the scale of what they are or can be! Costa Caribe, Port Aventura's water park, is huge. Due to my desire to be constantly swimming or doing water rides, (sun bathing is for people who can actually tan, I wasn't going to waste my time!) I left my phone in my locker for the whole stay. This resulted in me only taking two pictures, one blurry one of the indoor part as I was leaving and a selfie which is in no way interesting or appealing. Hence to visually display where I was, I'll be 'borrowing' pictures from elsewhere on the interweb.

www.portaventura.co.uk

     The lockers we had were on a balcony adjacent to the indoor pool of the park. With an amazing climbing frame for kids, an old style airplane hanging from the extremely high ceiling, 2 tunnel slides and tens of lounging beds, I could see straight away that a destination like this would suit anybody/family as there's something for everyone! My inner child was most definitely alive and raring to go at this point. The only thing holding me back, was my not-so-trusty flip flops which I had no choice but to take with me (even after swearing never to look at them again after the airport fiasco) to prevent contracting any unwelcome fungi on my feet. Yuck. Hence my desire to speed-walk to every attraction was reduced to a feeble hobble. Once on stone ground, I abandoned them as much as possible with the same feeling of taking off a bra after wearing it for one for 10 hours. Freedom!

Rapid Races www.tripadvisor.com.au

First up was Rapid Races. Considering it had room for 6 people at once and we were all above height limit, it was a good one to start with! Obviously some healthy competing between family is (never) rarely a bad thing so we took the race seriously. I won! ...The first race that is... there were several others after this and I may or may not have lost the rest of them. We were attracted to the slides more than the pools so we did most of them before a good old fashioned swim in the beach pool. Artificial waves are great fun but they'll never beat the real thing! Although knowing you're not going to get stung by a jellyfish or eaten by a shark is a genuine comfort. Of course all the lifeguards surrounding you is an extra comfort too. If I start laughing when I'm swimming in deep waters I instantly lose my ability to swim properly and basically start drowning. So thankfully there were loads of them there! Even if they are really strict and won't let anyone wear sunglasses in any of the pools...

     There are so many different types of water slides to do, it's crazy! I've only ever done the solo slides in Splashworld in Waterford, Ireland, which are just dark, tunnel slides. No rings, no pool you land into (just a tray), and the occasional gobshite (please excuse my french) of a kid that will purposely get stuck in the slide so the people behind him will crash into him. There's none of that here! The slides with rings are great fun in my opinion. The solo slides are usually faster and more thrilling but with them comes a lot of water in your face and up your nose and you usually can't see at all in the latter half of the journey if not all of it. With those slides you also get an almighty wedgie. Maybe this only happens to people in bikini bottoms but my goodness. I ended up wearing an unwelcome thong at the end of every slide I went down on my back on. Despite my efforts to discretely readjust as the lifeguard attendant is ushering you out, I definitely flashed an unpleasant site to many onlookers and one very good looking Spanish lifeguard more than once. Scarlet! 

There are too many slides to describe to an accurate portrayal of what they were like without being repetitive. You really just have to go on them all yourself to know what they're really like. However I will of course describe the largest slides, one of which is Europe's tallest free fall slide at 31 meters (102 feet) angled at a 55 degree slope, King

Red: Ciclón Tropical, Yellow: King Khajuna

Khajuna. In all its tall, yellow glory, it's much more nerve wrecking when you reach the top of the quene and look over the edge to the park below. 55 meters is quite high, not a height that I'm uncomfortable with, but what was unnerving was the wind that rolled in once some clouds came. Standing on the top of the tower, I could feel it sway beneath my feet. Not a pleasant sensation so I figured I was probably safer taking the slide than chickening out! The free fall wasn't as I expected. There's no trap door or anything, you just ease yourself off (I needed the help of the attendant who gave me an extra push... I blame the all-you-can-eat buffet at the hotel...). During the quick 10 second ride/6 second drop, I never felt that gut wrenching feeling you usually get when falling as I could constantly feel the slide against my back and the force of water is very strong around you. The lack of adrenaline was slightly disappointing. My brothers on the other hand thought it was terrifying and they felt that free fall sensation, so it could be just me! I went on it again later that day to see if it was any better but no, it was a tall slide which gave me an almighty wedgie! Still good, but surprisingly not in comparison to Ciclón Tropical, the 19.64m high, 100m long slide that goes parallel to King Khajuna. As this one has 3 steep vertical dips which result in the possibility of you lifting off the slide slightly, the momentum and feeling of motion is always there. I suppose that's where I get my kicks! 

      Now the park is not all queues and slides and scary things. It has amazing pools for kids with smaller slides but just as exciting ones (as my sister found out-screaming on a 5 meter long slide, hilarious!). The climbing frames they have are unreal. I may have climbed them myself once or twice while "looking for my nephew." Travelling with a child is seriously brilliant. There are so many things you can do with them where you would otherwise get stared at if you were doing them as an adult without a dependent. There are hundreds of loungers around, if not thousands so there should be guaranteed space for you to rest. There is also the Lazy River which involves you sitting in an inflatable ring while a current brings you slowly around the park. This is lovely and relaxing but it's also intersected with the occasional fountain or water feature to make sure you never stay too dry. The absolute highlight of this for me was actually trying to get in to the inflatable ring. It's close to impossible! Watching my brother fail at it several times and topple into the water was hilarious. 

I wasn't hardcore enough...

Due to a sunburn malfunction, my brothers and dad left the water park around 5pm. Myself, the sister and the nephew stayed right up until closing time (7pm) and had an absolute ball thanks to how quiet it got! The queues were non existent so we did all the slides, some again, some more than once. Having done every slide except the indoor ones, we decided it was time to go (and maybe be early for dinner for a change!). The only major downside to the park (this goes for the theme park too) is the toilets. They aren't ventilated as much as they should be so they are extremely stuffy and they smell really, really bad. Before they expand again on their ever expanding park, it would be nice to sort that out. So we headed back to the hotel and decided it was best to shower there.

     We arrived half an hour before dinner ends (which is the earliest we've been so far) so we felt we could take our time, and eat more. A lot more. After dinner I had such a big food baby I needed to change my zip up skirt to one with an elastic band. How do people come back looking skinny after holidays?! Madness.

The extremely chill seating at the beach bars

     We spent the rest of the night chilling at a bar on the beach which was lovely. Nothing beats having a drink with your family beside the sea. It was a good day.

Tomorrow, we rent bicycles and cycle to Cambrils!

Hasta luego, 

Ceara

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