Christmas Present!

 

So, for Christmas, the kids wanted another day at Escape theme park. Well, we managed to go one beyond that with a 2day-1night camping deal. It was difficult to get solid information about the basecamp camping, but we did our best and managed to end up only slightly overprepared.

We were given a tent within the theme park to leave our overnight gear while we played away the first day, and then we were escorted to basecamp for the evening.  

 Jasmin began the day with being the first person up the hardest wall of the Gecko Tower. Grace, Dad, and Aiden didn't make it. Grace got about 2/3rds of the way up, and even Jasmin had to take a few tries.  Mom stuck with her personal goal of making it to the top for the easiest wall - something she hadn't managed the first time we came to Escape. We left the Gecko Tower once our arms and fingers were trembling from the effort of hanging onto the wall - and went straight on to the main business of the day which was Monkey Business: the ropes courses. While we were waiting in line (the park was super busy!) Aiden lined up to try being an acrobat - they coach you through 3 trapeze moves.  He did pretty well - since he gets lots of bar practice at home :)

And the rest of us tried out stilt walking. It's super hard! Mom got the farthest on her first go, but with practice, Grace came close to beating her.  Most of the time, we couldn't even get up and standing, let alone moving, though Mom did make three small steps.

We did two of the hardest and highest courses in Monkey Business, but no cameras were allowed to come with us, so no pictures. Aiden, being the lightest, actually got stuck when he slowed down too quickly on a zipline. The rescuer was clearly jaded with the number of people who got stuck in a day, showing the girls how to do a rescue themselves next time!

We discovered, to our dismay, that the in-park food court is now only A&W, instead of the roti we were looking forward to. Not only so, but also there were only set combos to choose from so we ended up with 5 bottles of unwanted soft drinks. It was interesting watching the kids' reactions to root beer! The unanimous conclusion is that it is way too sweet, and tastes like bad toothpaste. So only 2 out of 5 bottles got drunk and the rest we returned.

After lunch we changed and entered the water side of the park. By this time we had more or less played ourselves out, and the girls were more interested in finding a quite corner of the splash park area to hash over book worlds, plots, and ideas. Aiden, Mom and Dad tried out a few more rides/play places. 

At closing time we threaded our way through the lack of clear communication and uncertainties to get to our night tents.  Unfortunately, their main basecamp area was not yet open, so we were essentially camping in a parking lot area - not exactly what we were expecting... but it did mean there were no mosquitoes to deal with, which was a small bonus. There were quite a few families camping overnight. The service was slow and sporadic, but we got tents, air mattresses, fire wood, BBQ grill, the fire started for us, table and stools, and even our own moveable lamppost lighting.  The lighting was very convenient - until there wasn't a way to turn them off all night! All the same, we all slept pretty well. Except mom, who kept waking up with the light and her aching back...

As usual, Aiden was the first up in the morning. And, very Aiden-like, made quick friends with a boy in the next campsite and so was happily occupied for the rest of the morning until the park opened. Dad did us a breakfast of scrambled eggs and pancakes of sorts as Mom was a bit too stiff to be bending over the fire.

And then we joined the park fun again for the day. We went straight to Monkey Business to finish the final level 3 course before the lineup got too long.  But there were much fewer people in the park so it was a much nicer experience our second day. A few times Mom's leg refused to do it's work, so after completing that course, we opted to explore parts of the park we hadn't done the day before.  We headed to Flying Lemur - lots of high ziplining.  But Aiden weighed in too light, so Mom and Aiden tried out Jumping Jack, And a scoped out a few other ones to try later with the girls (the weight difference between Mom and Aiden was too much for the Kite rider, the line up for rope swing was long, etc.) He worked on his flips at the Jump Park area, and we got to take in an acrobatic show while waiting for the others to find us after Flying Lemur. 

Once we managed to get back together again (Dad did Jumping Jack, the girls did the rope swing, Mom ran around trying to find everyone...), we had lunch (getting mineral water instead of root beer) and went into the water park. Dad, Mom, and Aiden did the longest waterslide in the world while the girls opted to climb the Gecko Tower one last time. Mom got separated again when she was told she'd picked up the wrong tube for the longest waterslide ride and had to go back to switch it. So she got a lone chair lift ride up to the top and a quiet solitary 1,111m waterslide down again. Excellent views, but much more fun when you can share it!

Back together again, we opted to go for the fast dry slide down the "mountain." Unfortunately, the wait time was huge - which you don't find out until after the chairlift ride up so you're kinda stuck... the ride is a lot of fun - sort of like loud, dry tobogganing - but the wait ate up too much of our afternoon. We got down just in time to try out the Banana Flip slide... Grace, Aiden, and Dad tried it again. Mom attempted pictures, but it is so fast, this one of Dad is the only one that is not all splashes!

Then we did a family race on side by side water toboggan tracks. Mom went the farthest, Dad finished first, Aiden nearly took off from the water going over the bumps... fun. But we only did it once 😁 Then we went down all the "ordinary" tube waterslides in various pairs, until our legs were jelly from climbing all the stairs! Dad and Grace also tried the more daring loop-d-loop and dead-drop slides. Grace got stuck in the loop and had to be rescued. Before closing, Aiden challenged Dad to races on the short water obstacle course, where they collected a new bunch of scrapes and plastic burns :)

We left quite satisfied we did the park justice, nicely tired, and happily not sunburnt.  It was unexpectedly a very good 2-day holiday: as we were approaching home, the scenery had that familiar-strange welcoming feel. A salmon chickpea supper rounded it out just nicely.

Thank you Imma, NiNi and Yea Yea!