G&P Travel Special - Postcard from Centre Parcs

Give yourself over to organised fun, and find your prejudices about swimming in a communal pool with over-excited children crumble in the face of a good flume.

Centre Parcs is essentially what the world would be like if an apocalypse wiped out everyone but the middle classes.  If I say that the sylvanian setting, the cabins arranged so that the view suggests you are alone in the woods, the no cars policy, and the emphasis on good clean outdoor exercise and activities for the family are all suggestive of the sort of holiday destination that certain European right wing parties of the 1930s might have come up with if they had been a little more into tennis and a little less into being shouty, then that should not necessarily be seen as a criticism.

Yes, there is a sense that underground there is some sort of control centre monitoring everything and that people who don’t conform to the Centre Parcs way of life are taken in the night, but not in any sinister way.  Rather, if the rowdy family next door vanished overnight with nothing to mark their passing but some muffled screams, one might be concerned but one would be more likely to enjoy the peace and quiet now available on your patio.

Centre Parcs is essentially a model village of chalets of various degrees of comfort and size arranged around a central hub of shops, places to eat and, of course, the sports centre, featuring the famous slides and outdoor pools heated, probably, by the centre’s very own nuclear reactor or by harnessing the excitement of the children, and adults, who are positively giddy at the thought of riding the slides, flumes and rapids again and again and again.

And of course the cyclone.  The cyclone is essentially a huge water chute, down which you ride along with three others on a jolly yellow inner tube from a tractor tyre.  Thee fun starts half way through, when a vertical drop gives you an unwelcome insight into what it must be like to vanish down a plug hole, followed by whooshing and swooshing before coming to rest in a pool and remembering not to say ‘fucking hell!’ in front of your young nephews.  The young nephews, who were like otters in the water, suddenly realised the importance of having an adult on board their inner tube.  The fatter the adult, the faster the drop and the more exciting the ride.  It was lovely to be in demand.

Other activities involved tennis, recovering tennis balls and paddling on the lake in a sort of catamaran canoe where one either hummed the theme tune to Hawaii-Five-O or bellowed ‘ramming speed’ as one went past other craft.

The bars in a place that sells itself on promoting a healthy lifestyle have a difficult time getting people to consume alcohol, so they put on the cricket on enormous televisions and the grown-ups can watch other people exercise and drink at the same time.  They also serve chips.

Working twin-deck barbeques like a meaty superstar DJ

I cooked on the patio, on twin barbeques.  Cool boxes may famously be the floatation aid of choice for Aussie fishermen, but also keep the tremendous amount of meat and fish I had brought along to barbeque fresh.  It was tremendously satisfying to have everything hot and ready to serve at the same time, while working the twin deck barbeques like some sort of meaty superstar deejay.

Finally, Centre Parcs is a place where you get close to nature, whether you wish to or not.  Barely was the front door of the chalet open when the tap tap tap of beaks at the patio doors announced the arrival of a troupe of inquisitive ducks, here to check out if we were messy eaters who ate a lot of sandwiches.  After correctly assessing that we didn’t look like the sort of people who waste food, but have recipe books on fowl, they waddled off to try their luck elsewhere.

Check out day brings another frenzy as wee electric vehicles shoot about carrying fresh linen and people who clean like their visas depend upon it.  The final activity was ‘find the car in the enormous car park with no zone numbers anywhere’.  Fun fact – standing in a crowded car park and randomly pressing your key fob while listening for a ‘whoop whoop’ and looking for flashing lights to tell you where you car is only works in the movies.