Saturday morning we tumbled
out of bed around 9:30—just in time to make the free breakfast buffet at the
hotel. As Spanish hotel breakfasts go it
is quite good, compared to Germany it is down right paltry! There were a variety of pastries, and toast,
fresh fruit, cereal, lunch meat and cheeses as well as juice, milk and coffee.
We were parked and
walking up to the ticket window at 11:30.
There was already a short line, but it moved quickly. I asked for “cuatro” tickets, motioned to the
rest of the family (so it was clear we needed adult tickets for all) and Dave handed
over the credit card while I moved aside to put the wristbands on myself and
the kids. Dave signed the slip and
grabbed his wristband without really looking at it. . .
We started walking up
to the park itself (about a 5 minute
walk up the hill from the parking area) and about halfway David looked at the receipt
and then asked me how much I had expected the tickets to cost. I was expecting him to say we had been overcharged,
but as it turns out we were only charged 4 Euro! I read the little flier they handed us when
we bought the tickets, and the best I can tell (it was in Catalan, so I had to
puzzle it out and make some guesses) they were having a special day and taking
donations for Unicef instead of charging for tickets. The cashier must have thought I meant to
donate “cuatro” instead of buy 4 tickets.
I was torn between feeling terrible hat we donated so little and being
elated that we spent 120 Euro less than I was expecting for the day. Oddly, there were no signs up and there was nothing
on the website about this.
Anyway, we got that
figured out right about when we turned the last corner and were suddenly greeted
by the huge and lovely Sacred Heart Church which stands right at the entrance
to the park:
I had checked and knew
the church would be open two hours later than the park, so we went on past and
into the park area.
The oldest section of
the park is the highest on the hill, and the first part you enter. This oldest section can be entered by anyone,
with or without a wrist band. You can
buy tickets for these rides if you do not have a wrist band for the entire
park. We were happily surprised to see
that even thought it was still about a quarter to 12:00 these older rides were
already running. We jumped in the short line for “the lever.” It goes very high and Dave and I chickened
out before we got to the front—but the kids rode and told us we missed one
incredible view of the city (which I am sure we did).
After that we wanted
to ride the airplane ride (also slow moving and scenic) but everything shut
down again at noon! We were told that
due to the special day there would be a special show and then everything would
open at 1:00. The show was all in
Catalan and aimed at very young kids, so we explored the playground areas and walking
paths in the always open portion of the park.
Here are Marika, Dave and Rio fooling around in the amphitheater (we are
always drawn to stages!):
We heard the roller
coaster at 12:40 and knew they must be running things again, so we headed up
into the main section of the park, showing our wrist bands for admittance at
the base of the stairs.
First we headed to the
right, which had about four rides. The
classic swing ride grabbed our attention first and the kids rushed to share a
double seater while I got in the single line.
David gets sick on things that spin so he gamely sat this one out. I have to say it was pretty thrilling. The ride sits on the slope of the hill such that
on the non-loading side you are much higher off the ground than on the load
side, once the swings spin out—and on that side the view is spectacular—it must
be similar to how a bird feels soaring past the city.
Next we headed down
the hill to the Fun House. Groups of
about 10 go in at a time and walk through.
The wait was only about 3 minutes before we were climbing up a ladder
whose steps moved as you try to scale it, to get inside. I imagine many kids would find this fun. Rio found it creepy and Marika was bothered
by the flashing lights, so we did our best to get through quickly and get
out.
Next up was the mine
train ride—which did not have a line either.
The lack of lines during a holiday break on a reduced price weekend was baffling,
but really nice. The mine train was a
fun little coaster—a reasonably long track and a speedy train and no hills at
all. It whizzed through the trees, which
was a nice feel.
The last ride on that
side of the park was too scary to all of us but Marika. So, she gamely road alone:
She LOVED it and rode
it twice in a row. The rest of us dubbed
it the Mayan Death Wish Ride and wondered how flashing lights could bother a
person but not this?! The thing goes up,
upside down and round and round at all levels.
Eegads, it made me queasy just to watch it!
We were starting to
get hungry, but wanted to get the larger roller coaster in before eating, so we
headed over to the other side of the entrance area to ride Russian
Mountain. It is the red track you can
see in this aerial shot I pulled off of the internet:
What a FUN little
coaster. It only has one big drop, but
it rushes through trees and around corners and has sudden, lovely views of the
city below—and is the smoothest coaster I have ever ridden. It was just plain FUN!
We tried to get the
flume ride in before lunch as well, but it was not running, so we headed out of
the park and across from the church to eat at the sit down restaurant. Rio got to open his gifts from Marika (Jason
Derulo CDs) and card from his grandparents while we waited—and he was so thrilled
that an email came into to Dave’s phone from his Uncle Tom and Aunt Kay while
we were there. By the end of the day he
had emails from all of his aunts and uncles and grandparents—it sure is nice to
be able to hear from people no matter where you are these days. We had hot sandwiches for lunch—they were
good but not excellent.
Once back in the park
we rode the 2 story antique carousel. I
like this photo because you can get a feel for what the views were like in most
of the park:
We also finally rode
that plane ride. You sit in an actual
airplane that flew from Madrid to Barcelona starting in 1928 and move slowly
around in a circle (twice) checking out the views (oddly, this was the longest
line of the day—we waited about 25 minutes):
Our next stop was the
hall of mirrors. I’ve never really been
in a big mirror labyrinth and it was really fun and silly. Here the kids are showing off their gloved
hands while we waited our turn:
We headed back into
the newer section of the park and rode the roller coaster a couple more times,
the classic rocking ship style ride, and then noticed the flume ride was back
up. I was recovering from a cold and it
was getting chilly out so I decided to stay dry and just snap a photo:
Shortly thereafter it
got dark and we had ridden pretty much everything, so we headed back for
favourites. Marika rode the Mayan Death
Wish Several times without getting off.
She was one of about 10 crazy souls doing so:
Meanwhile Rio went
back to the mine train. One section of
track goes very close to the walkway and I got the almost ghostlike photo as
Rio rushed by:
Shortly after I took that
photo, the Mayan Death Wish stopped.
Marika, and her fellow adrenalin junkies were stuck at the highest point
while technicians tinkered with controls for about 20 minutes before being
brought down.
Once down, the crazy
riders all started chanting wanting to ride more. They were told the ride was done for the night
though and reluctantly got off. I would have
been running off as fast as I could (well, f I had ever been up there to begin
with, which I would not!).
We rushed up and made
one last trip on the swings before closing time:
And then headed out of
the park and up to the church (and more photos of that tomorrow!)
No comments:
Post a Comment