Center Parcs has "4 stunning Village locations across the UK, each set in 400 acres of
beautiful forest with lakes and streams. Each Village has a wide range of
restaurants, cafes and shops. Plus, there’s over 200 indoor and outdoor
activities including the subtropical swimming paradise to keep your whole family
entertained during your break." Basically, Center Parcs is the equivalent of a "Beaches" or family "Sandals" type resort for Europeans. These parks unfortunately are NOT all-inclusive so you basically pay for anything & EVERYTHING you want to do. This is a blessing and a curse I suppose.
We stayed at the Center Parcs holiday village near our home. It's only a 9.5 mile drive from our house here at RAF Lakenheath! Woohoo! It was nice not having to spend half of our weekend driving to a destination and we were able to stay through Monday morning with enough time for Tyler to shower and get to work :)
Here's a map to the Elveden Center Parcs:
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| The resort property is enormous! |
Our weekend getaway started on Friday afternoon. We booked in to stay 3 nights (checking in Friday and checking out Monday morning). The park lets you enter any time after 10am on your day of arrival so you can take full advantage of what the resort has to offer. Tyler got off work around 12 noon on Friday so we packed our bags and dropped Buddy off at a friend's house for the weekend. They do allow dogs at the resort but the room we were staying in did not. We purchased a last minute deal for a room in the Lakeside Hotel on the resort which doesn't allow for pets. The Villas around the resort do however allow for animals :)
Here's Buddy being all sad Friday morning. He knew we were going to be leaving him!
We headed out the front gate of the base and arrived to the Center Parcs gate within 15 minutes. The lines at the gate were long... I guess it was a popular weekend for a getaway. We waited in line (in our car) until we made it to the front gate hut/station. They checked us in and ushered us to a LARGE parking lot where everyone parks during their stay at the resort. You can't drive onto the resort until 3pm. They unlocked the gates at the end of the parking lot at that time to allow guests to drive to their villas/hotel to drop off items but then everyone has to return their vehicles to the parking lot. The resort is basically vehicle-free.
Everyone rides bicycles! They rent bicycles for ~20-30GBP. I'm not sure if that is the amount per day (which would be outrageous) or if it's for your entire stay. A lot of people bring their own bikes (smart move). Some of the housing/villas are on the other side of the property from everything. It would stink to have to walk to everything late at night or when it is chilly out. If we would've stayed longer (or had stayed in a villa) we would've rented bikes. The hotel is VERY close to everything though so if you stay there, no bikes needed unless you want one for fun/enjoyment.
Day 1: Aqua Sana
This is the resorts well-known spa. I booked Tyler and I a "moonlight spa session for two people" for 49GBP total (that's a good deal if you didn't know). The spa session included 3 hours (6pm-9pm) of full use of the spa which has 15 "spa experiences". These experiences are anything from the hot-tub type pool to a zen garden to steam rooms from around the world.
The spa has 2 levels: The top level has 3 different themed steam rooms, a meditation room, and lounging areas for people to lay out, sleep, relax, visit, etc. The ground floor level has 5 different steam rooms, a foot spa area, a hot-tub type pool fitted with several spas, a zen garden, a café, treatment rooms (massages), and a newly added foot spa that entails putting your feet into a bath with little fish that eat off your impurities/dead skin. The building also houses an area for getting your nails done, skin treatments, relaxation rooms, and more!
Don't mind the guy in this photo. This is just to show a photo of what one of the steam rooms looked like inside. This was actually one of my favorite ones. It was the "Greek" room. On top of the metal disk there are 4 different spices (rosemary was my favorite) and every few minutes a self-timed bucket hanging above it (not shown) would pour a few tablespoons of water onto one of the spices. This in turn would drip onto the hot plates below and create steam. The room would be filled with the fragrance of the spice and you'd be sweaty like a racehorse!
Our favorite 2 steam rooms were the Eucalyptus room and the Japanese Salt room. These were the most powerful/hot rooms available. The Japanese salt one was so thick with steam it was hard to see the person next to you! The Eucalyptus room smelled like Vick's Vapor Rub and was said to be great for people with colds :)
We ate dinner at the café in the spa and afterwards we enjoyed the rest of the evening back in our hotel room. We were so relaxed/exhausted from the spa that sleep was our #1 priority!
On Sunday morning, we ventured back to the Spa and I enjoyed a "Decleor Detox" which was is described as follows: Combat problem areas like hips, thighs and buttocks with this dramatically re-sculpting treatment. After a rejuvenating head-to-toe skin polish, intensive massage techniques are used to eliminate toxins or help tone and firm. Using Decléor’s Slim Effect products, means your body will look and feel smoother, firmer and tighter. I didn't realize this prior to treatment...it was on sale and I thought "body detox" sounded good! Tyler enjoyed a full body deep tissue Swedish massage :)
Day 2 & 3: Water Park, Treatments, Mini Golf, Badminton & my personal favorite- FOOD!
So the park houses a giant indoor water park, strange right?! Well it's supposed to be a tropical paradise which sounded great to us since it was so cold/rainy out this weekend. We packed up our swimming essentials and headed out to find the park.
Here's a view from the air of the park area. The water park is within the large dome and you can see some of the tubes for the water slides. The park housed this "world famous" Cyclone ride, 2 typical water slides, 1 fast/raging river, 1 slower river, 2 super steep straight slides, a lagoon, 1 normal big pool that turned into a wave pool every 15 or so minutes, a kiddie pool area, 4-6 hot tubs, and outdoor "cold" pool, and 1 plunge pool. The park also had cabanas and a café & Starbucks inside.
Here's a sample map of the inside:
Here's Tyler at the water park entrance :)
Really cool dome overhead!
Tyler enjoying the warm "weather" haha!
This area turns into a wave pool :)
The entrance to Tyler's favorite ride is behind us (the Cyclone)
This is the Cyclone from the outside. It's fun because you reach zero gravity up to 4 times during this ride.
This is where 2 of the slides drop out
Tyler spilling out of the raging river
Pool at night
Very tropical- We didn't feel like we were in England!
This is inside the full-body dryer you can pay 1GBP to use. You step inside and it dries you off in minutes. It was pretty awesome. We used it both days we went to the water park.
*THE FOOD*:
Some of the other areas within the resort include 13 cafes & restaurants: 11 of which we enjoyed a bite or two at! I swear, vacations are all about the food for me :)
One of my favorites :) The girl working behind the counter was VERY sweet. Her name was Gemma and she remembered our names the second day :)
Tyler's first breakfast at the resort courtesy of the Pancake House.
It was a waffle covered in vanilla and chocolate ice cream, malt balls, whipped cream, and chocolate flake. This IS the breakfast of champions! I settled for a boring vegetarian omelet so I didn't feel the need to take a photo of it :)
Tyler freezing outside the Pancake House
This is where we ate dinner the 2nd night: Rajinda Pradesh (Indian food)
The food was REALLY good. We had garlic naan bread to share and Tyler had an extremely spicy chicken dish (can't remember the name) and I had a chicken Korma dish...yummy!
We ate here (Dexter's) for lunch on the 1st day.
Tyler had an order of chili cheese fries and I had an order of sweet potato fries...healthy I know!
This is the resorts grocery store. We thought it would be outrageously expensive but it was really reasonable and in some cases, cheaper than off the resort.
This is the Lakeside Hotel that we stayed in and to the right is the hotel's revolving Lakeside Restaurant. We ate there for breakfast on the 2nd morning..here are some pics from our table.
View of the lake outside
Views from the restaurant we really pretty
Waiting for our food
The coffee was good and the little logs of butter came in handy on our toast!
This was taken from "Forester's Inn" which is the restaurant at the resort Club House
I had the Luxury Hot Chocolate!
Huck's restaurant was an "American" restaurant :) The food was pretty darn good!
I thought this was funny- from Huck's menu
"Thanksgiving Dinner" haha
Their American restaurant is serving British beef?
Tourist!
So, this is when sneaky Tyler took a video of me rocking out at lunch!...darn him!
My half size portion of pork ribs
This was our last dinner at the resort: Bella Italia. We both had the spaghetti carbonara.
The bread basket was to die for!
*Time for some FUN!*
We thought it would be fun to do some activities besides eating on our *Holiday* so we signed up for some badminton time.
Almost everything was housed within the Sports Plaza: some food places, the water park, arcade, bowling alley, badminton courts, tennis courts, build a bear, shopping, roller skating rink, and MORE!
This is how I loosen up before playing! haha!
Tyler is a Pro...he won the badminton tournament at his high school :)
Mean-muggin
We basically turned this into a photo shoot!
*Next things next: Mini golf*
Mini golf is located on "treasure island" which is an island on the lake...
This is how you golf, riiiiight?
Poor Tyler was freezing to death but we had a lot of fun!
The pirate ship at the 9th hole
This is a notice before you head onto the island...we did indeed run into some geese with nests but they were friendly for the most part:
It doesn't look like it but this goose was HUGE!
The one laying down was nesting :)
Speaking about birds...we were surrounded by birds all weekend...
PEACOCKS!!!!!!!!!!!
This one was strolling right outside of our hotel!
This is looking outside our hotel room door
I fed them Wheat Thins
This was my newest friend on the trip
Some spots around the park that we enjoyed:
This is the outdoor ropes & tree trekking courses...even have a zipline!
Candy store!
This is a pottery painting studio inside the Lakeside Hotel
So many people!
In addition to the activities shown, the park offers four wheeling, archery, clay shooting, lazer/paintball, roller skating, wake boarding/knee boarding via zipline, kayaking, paddle boating, and MUCH MUCH MORE...basically the list of activities is endless. We will be going back some day to do more :)
...A little bit of Oregon paradise within the UK...
