De Heuttenheugte Center Parc is immensely huge! I reckon that if we were to explore every nook and cranny of the place, and make use of every facility in and around the vicinity of Center Parcs at leisure, we would have to stay at least a week longer.
With only 2 more days to spare before we head back to Silver Bullet’s parents, we took our own sweet time to explore the facilities available there.
Swimming in the heated indoor themed pool, called Aqua Mundo, was more of a novelty for me and the kids (whoever swims in an indoor, heated pool in any tropical country?!).
What I like about the place is the fact that not only there are several variations of pools – from a toddler’s pool to Wild Water Slides – there are also playpens available for parents within the resting area. Such convenience! (And, not to mention, extremely kid friendly!)
With both Spud and Squirt being the ever-enthusiastic water rats, they took to the water in no time at all. While Squirt was happy splashing about, playing and exploring the shallow area, Spud seems to be happier when she gets to swim and dive in the deeper waters. She only did not like the man-made waves in one of the pools and was upset by the waves. She thought it was “scary”.
The layout reminded me of a place in Singapore where my parents (along with several extended families) used to take us to a a place called CN West on weekends when I was a little kid eons of years ago. CN West was an outdoor pool and was not quite as sophisticated as Aqua Mundo, but, I remember that as kids, we used to spend hours and hours in the water and riding the water slides. It also housed one of the first man-made waves and was designed almost exactly like the one they had in Aqua Mundo. At that time, circa 30 years ago, it was considered as THE “state of art”. When I was little, I had also thought that the waves were scary.
The good thing with taking kids to such a place is that they tire easily. (Yes you read that right! That means, we don’t have to hang around there for the entire day.) Spending just about 45 minutes splashing about in the pool was enough to tire them out. By the time you pull them out of the pool, walk to the changing area, change them and yourselves, clean up the mess, put on their socks, shoes, jackets and pack everything up, another hour has passed and it was time for lunch!
We never fail to continuously hope that the kids would nap well in the afternoon so we could also get some rest. We were successful with Squirt, but with Spud…forget about getting anymore afternoon naps.
Ever.
