More (Port) Adventures in Salou - Day 4

[HEMANCLOFTY]

More (Port) Adventures in Salou
Day 4 – Friday 1st June 2018

The Index is here
Day 3 is here

We were all a bit tired when the alarm went off this morning, so we allowed ourselves a couple of snooze button presses before getting up at 8:15am...

Even so, we were all dressed, and I was taking pics of Tom’s first breakfast plate by 8:45.

Tom had a bacon sandwich, followed by his usual chocolate pancakes and water...

Rich had a couple of plates of mini frankfurters and bread, with some cakes and OJ...

I mixed it up a bit today and had a ham and tomato omelette, cooked to order from the grill, with a few pieces of chorizo and some cakes (as there were no peaches today ), with my usual pot of tea...

The finger sponge with orange flavoured chocolate was lovely. The mini muffin from the free-from counter was not!

We were all done by 9:15. We quickly popped to the room to sort out our park bag and were ready to leave the hotel by 9:40. This was a bit later than we'd planned, plus we needed to pop up to the Repsol Garage to buy a packet of cigarettes (€5.15), so it was actually 9:45 when we left for the park.

Even so, we still made it to the gates by 10:10, which was ok as Shambhala was opening at 10:30.

We powerwalked to China, getting to Shambhala by 20-past and Tom found a bench to wait with our bags whilst Rich and I headed on. We didn’t have to wait too long and made it onto the 3rd train of the day, around 2/3 towards the back and in the inside pair of seats. It was absolutely amazing! So many airtime hills, fast, exciting and we both agreed that it was our number 1 coaster EVER!

We met back up with Tom and headed for Dragon Khan, via the loos...

Dragon Khan was about a 20-minute wait and we had another great ride, with Tom coming off saying that it was his number 1 coaster. When we got off, Rich told us that he’d had a wasp between his back and the seat for the first part of the ride – I looked, and he had a red mark where it had stung him!

It was already hot, so we headed over to Angkhor...

We had 2 rides in a row, getting a boat to ourselves on the second go, so we could keep running around to work both sides for maximum squirting and lots of fun! It was my turn to get bitten this time, possibly by a mosquito as it got very itchy later...

It was 12:15 by now and, as we were already wet, we headed to Tutuki Splash via Sesamo Adventure. As we were passing, Tom and I decided to have a go on El Salto de Bla, which is a funny little parachute drop where you have to pull yourself up with a rope – it was quite hard work but good fun...

We were on the back row for Tutuki Splash and had another good soaking.

It was 1pm by now and Tom was hungry. We decided to ride Kontiki (the pirate ship) first though as we all thought it would be better on an empty stomach . We were on with a fairly big school group, and the operator had to stop our ride for a few seconds because one of the girls was using her phone! Really?

We ended up back in China in search of food and stopped at Altai as we liked the look of the toasted sandwiches they were selling. Rich and I both went for Cheese & Ham and Tom had Bacon & Cheese. We also had a large Coke and a bag of Elmo cheese-puffs to share, and it came to €20...

We found a nice shaded area to eat and chilled out a bit until 1:40. We were looking at the show times whilst we were eating and decided on the 2pm showing of Los Rituales Mexicanos, so we walked around to Mexico...

I stopped for a quick pic with Betty Boop on the way, as no one was taking any interest in her and I felt a bit sorry for the cast member making an effort to wave at guests walking by...

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We got to the theatre / canteen a few minutes early. We had to buy something as it was a dinner show, so we just got a Large Coke to share from the bar (€4.20). It was a pretty area, but quite noisy as lots of school groups were eating their lunch...

The show was ok – a mix of fire dancing, a contortionist and lots of singing and dancing...

After the show, we mooched our way around to Far West, seeing Mexican Woody & Winnie on the way...

Stampida was only a 10-minute wait so we headed on, going for the blue train this time. It was a lot rougher than the red train the other day, but still great and Tom decided that this was actually his number 1 coaster (ahead of Dragon Khan).

We continued mooching around Far West for a bit...

Tom and I had a ride on the Carousel...

I met Woody...

Then Rich and Tom had a go on the Shooting Gallery (€1 each), which they both said wasn’t very good...

We had a slow stroll back around to Mediterannea...

...and we were out of the park by 3:30. It was a hard walk back to the hotel this afternoon – it was hot, my legs were tired, and I was thirsty.

We were all tired by the time we got back to the hotel, so all had a rest / doze. I managed to sleep from 4 to 5:30 but was woken up by Tom clanging around getting a drink and some snacks. As I was awake, I asked him to bring me a glass of squash and a packet of mini cookies and watched an episode of How I Met Your mother before getting up at 6 to have a shower.

I sat on the balcony for a bit after my shower, letting my hair dry and writing up a few trip notes. I woke the boys up at 6:30 so that they could start getting ready.

After the boys were done in the bathroom, I tried finishing off drying my hair with the hotel hairdryer, but it was blowing cold air so I gave up and tied up my hair...

We were all ready to head down to Roadhouse by 7:15...

...But when we got there, there were no tables available until 9, so instead we booked a table for 7:30 tomorrow evening and headed down to the beach front for either a McDonalds or a Burger King. Deciding on Maccy’s by the time we’d got there...

Rich had a Grande Big Mac Meal (large with fries and Fanta Zero), Tom had an Extreme Bacon minus sauce and onions (medium with fries and Coke), and I had a Rio-chicken-something (large with wedges and Fanta Zero) – it all come to €21 and I paid on my card as we’d used the digital screens to order...

We all enjoyed our Maccy’s and joked that being dressed up in here was starting to become a holiday tradition for us (we’d done the same thing in October, when the restaurant we were headed for was closed for the season) .

After we’d eaten I suggested walking up towards the marina area as this was an area we hadn’t explored yet, so we mooched up the seafront up to Salou Port, and around the path past the fishermen to the viewpoint area...

On the way, we stopped to ponder what this little beasty was...

...took loads of pics...

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...and marvelled at this guy paddling his way across to the land on the other side – he was quick...

We took even more pics before walking back...

...and sat for a while by the Boat Club – it was definitely a bit more upmarket at this end of town...

We mooched through a funky little street market...

...and stopped to watch two lots of kids having a go on this “Wipeout” inflatable...

It was really funny to watch, but Tom didn’t fancy having a go himself.

We kept mooching back, crossing back over the road by Goretti’s to use the Santander ATM (I needed to get out another €100 as we were down to our last €100 and had to pay €75 for the mountain excursion tomorrow). The ATM let me do the transaction in GBP which came up as £94 – not the best exchange rate, but convenient.

We stopped to get Tom an ice cream on the way back - €2.50 for a 2-scoop cone...

We headed back to the hotel via the same side street we had walked up last night, as Tom had seen a baseball cap he’d liked and wanted to get it. There was another Michelangelo’s supermarket, so we popped in to get some more cans of pop (8 Pepsi Max and 8 sprite), some water and some bread rolls, ham and turkey (€13) to make a packed lunch for tomorrow.

We tried a few different shops for hats, but they were all overpriced for obviously counterfeit designs. One “Armani” one was €20 – the vendor did offer us it for €15 as we were walking out, but turned down Rich’s counter-offer of €10, so we decided to leave it and encouraged Tom to see what they had in the FC Barcelona shop later in the week.

They hadn’t sold cigarettes in the Michelangelo’s we’d stopped at, so we had to pop into our usual one to get a couple of packets to keep Rich going for a few days (€5.15 each) – the cigarette vending machine was in the coffee shop area, so I asked if they had tea. They did, so I got one to take back to the hotel (€1.70).

We were back by 10:30 and I sat out on the balcony enjoying my cuppa with an Alpen bar...

I stayed on the balcony writing up the rest of yesterday’s trippie notes until 11:30. Then I got our towels and swimmers ready to pack tomorrow morning and was in bed by midnight. We fell asleep watching theme park vlogs.

I woke up just once in the night at 5am. The bite on my leg was very itchy, so I put some Sudocream on. I’d forgotten to pack the antihistamine cream. I did have some Piriteze but I didn’t think it was bad enough to take one.

Our step count for today was 19061

Day 5 is here...