Something Different - Salou / PortAventura - Day 2

[HEMANCLOFTY]

Something Different - Salou / PortAventura (Oct 17)

The Index is Here
Day 1 is Here

Day 2 – Wednesday 25th October

I had a pretty good night’s sleep – the room was much warmer with the a/c switched off and the duvet on the bed. Maybe a touch too hot for my liking, but a lot better than the night before.

I woke up at 4am and had a quick social browse for about 30 mins, before putting Bee Movie on Netflix as it’s my go-to fall asleep movie (it worked).

I heard the first alarm go off at 6:55am, but completely missed the 7am one and didn’t wake up until 7:55am. Both boys were reluctant to get moving, so I watched an episode of Friends and got up at about 8:20am to start getting ready, eventually getting the boys up and moving too.

We’d originally thought that our 2-day PortAventure tickets had to be used on consecutive days, but Rich had found out that this wasn’t the case and that we had up to 3 days to use the 2nd day. He suggested that, as we were all a bit tired this morning, we swap our park day today with tomorrow’s planned rest / beach day. Once I’d double checked the tickets (he was right), I agreed that this was a much better plan, as we’d get much more out of a park day after a day of relaxation.

We headed down for breakfast at about 9am – as expected it was busier than yesterday, but still easy to find a table and quick to get to the food 😊. As usual, my pot of tea was first priority (and useful for holding our table)...

I started off with a mini custard-filled chocolate croissant, which was yummy (I was tempted to just have a plate of these as my breakfast)...

I resisted the sugar coma and got myself a plate of “bacon”, potato frittata and beans, which was just as nice as yesterday (no pic).

Tom chose bread and salami, but didn’t like the salami at all. As we’d located the ketchup today, I persuaded him to try some of my “bacon” on a sandwich, and he enjoyed it enough to go off to get some more for a 2nd sandwich. He wasn’t tempted by the pastries, so just had an apple and a glass of OJ.

Rich had a mixture of cheese, bread, mini sausages and various pastries, with a glass of OJ.

Again, no pics of the boys’ breakfasts

I found room for another 2 of the lovely mini croissants, plus a bowl of peaches and pears...

Breakfast verdict today: 7/10 for me (the croissants were worth the extra point), 3/10 for Rich (same as yesterday) and 2/10 for Tom.

A quick pop back to the room after breakfast, and we were ready to leave the hotel at about 10:20am. We headed for the beach via the Carra de Saragossa passageway that we’d walked up last night...

I checked a few places for sun spray prices for later (€12 - €16), as the boys don’t like the lotion that I’d brought with us and we only had ½ a can of spray left over from our Floziday earlier in the year.

Tom checked a few places for some flip-flops as the ones he had brought with him were a bit too small. We couldn’t find any Haviannas in his size that he liked, but ended up getting some from a store called Koala Bay for €12.99...

We also checked out a really fab pirate themed sweet shop, but didn’t buy anything...

There were of course lots of “tat” shops, with vendors trying to encourage us to come in for a bargain. These weird baby dolls seemed to be popular...

Once we got to the main sea front, we had a quick look in the FCBotiga (Barcelona) store...

Then we crossed over to the beach...

We all paddled for a while as we walked up the beach, and then we found a spot to settle down on the sand...

We hadn’t brought any swimmers or towels, thinking it would be too cold to go in the sea, but Tom was feeling brave. He had some light shorts on, so we convinced him to discreetly remove his boxers (using my cardigan for privacy). I did offer to walk back to one of the tat shops to buy a towel, but it was a surprisingly warm day so we thought we could get away without one (which we did).

I sat and chilled out, whilst Tom braved the sea and Rich busied himself burying his feet, before heading over to paddle with Tom...

It was lovely and warm in the sun, and actually so hot on my face that I had to turn around for a while...

At one point there was an announcement in Spanish, followed by a siren and going off intermittently for 5 minutes. Everyone stopped and looked around, but we couldn’t see anything wrong, so assumed it was some sort of drill. There was also a random man walking around offering massages for €5 (someone actually took him up on the offer), and a lady offering hair wraps.

It was so nice that I googled the pedalos that I could see further up the beach. The website said €12 for an hour, which I thought was really good value for money, so when the boys came back I suggested hiring one. We all agree that it’s a great idea, so start walking down the beach towards them, stopping off for a cold drink on the way at one of the beach bars - €2.50 each...

As we were sat here chilling and enjoying our drinks we saw 2-3 more masseurs and people taking them up on the offer. It definitely wasn’t for us though.

We all needed the loo after our drinks, so used the beach-side public ones. They were fairly clean and well stocked with paper etc, but the floor was quite wet, so I borrowed Tom’s flip-flops just in case it wasn’t sea water .

We got to the pedalos by 11:20am. They were actually €15 for an hour, but still great value. Getting started was a bit tricky, and Rich ended up crotch deep trying to push us off (not ideal in his long denim shorts). I also got a wet bum from a splash as we went over a wave, so the adults ended up about the same as if we’d been on Bilge Barges.

Tom was up for a proper soaking and was straight on the slide and into the sea. Rich would definitely have gone in if he'd had non-denim shorts on, but I definitely wasn’t brave enough – swimmers or not.

We had a fantastic hour bobbing about and taking it in turns to pedal and steer...

The sea was so clear...

We headed back for the shore at 12:10pm, so that we’d be in time for our 12:20pm return. The boys had to get out to push us back in, and I got hit by another wave in the shallows, so we were all as wet as Bilge Rats again by the time we were back on shore.

We stopped off to use the loos again, and Tom put his dry underpants back on under his shorts. We were all feeling a bit soggy and were in danger of chaffing, so we agreed to make our way back to the hotel.

We stopped off to pick up a can of sun spray (€15.90), and called in at the “Simply” supermarket at the top end of Carra de Saragossa for a quick mooch. It was a great little convenience store / supermarket, and was cheaper that Michaelangelos. We decided to grab some bits for an in-room lunch and get a fresh baguette (49c) plus some ham, grated cheese, Ruffles, croissants and some Jaffa Cake style biccies and pop to take back to the hotel. Along with a can of shaving foam (which I’d forgotten to pack), this came to €11.90, so less than €10 for lunch plus snacks left over for tomorrow.

We also called in at our usual Repsol garage for Rich’s daily nicotine supply (€5.10) and were back at the hotel by 2:30pm (ish). Tom had a quick shower to rinse off the sand whilst I prepped our lunch and we all enjoyed our lovely baguettes and crisps sat out on the balcony...

It was quite hot in the afternoon sun, so we all retired to the room, where Tom snoozed, Rich mooched on his iPad and I caught up with my trippie notes (getting to THIS point by 3:30pm). As I was using the PortAventra map to help with my notes, Rich spotted that there was a daily Halloween Parade at 18:30pm, so we agreed that we’d probably have a longer than planned park day tomorrow and would aim to stay for that.

Tom was fast asleep with no signs of waking up for the pool time we had planned, so Rich and I spent some time searching Trip Advisor for somewhere to eat tonight. Back at home, Rich had come across a popular pizzeria called Francescos. He thought that he’d seen it on our walk last night and had noticed that 1) it looked closed and 2) it didn’t look as amazing as the reviews had suggested from the street. However, the re-reading the reviews they were mainly positive, the pizzas looked great, and TripAdvisor said that it opened at 7:30pm so we agreed to give it a try and set the alarm clock for 6:30pm.

Rich managed to sleep but I couldn’t drop off so watched Mean Girls instead. I got up with the alarm, woke Rich, tried to wake Tom and jumped in the shower. Rich popped out for a cigarette whilst I was in the shower, and I heard Tom get up as I was doing my make-up. He came into the bathroom, asking had we not bothered with tea last night (he’d slept so long and was disorientated so thought it was the next morning )

Once I’d dried my hair, Rich jumped in the shower and I did some more balcony Instagramming...

We were all ready to head out by 7:30pm. Me and Tom got the lift up to the top floor to see if we could see the restricted adults only roof-top pool. You needed a key card to get in, but the area up there (which also included a mini spa) looked nice.

It took us about 15 minutes to walk to Francescos, where we found it was indeed closed until 3rd January...

This seemed to be the case with a lot of businesses and even some apartment blocks throughout Salou. There was still plenty of options, but I image it would be even better to visit on-season.

We knew that Maccy D’s was just around the corner, so we headed there instead rather than risk a restaurant that we hadn’t seen a review for. This turned out really well as we all enjoyed our burgers. We ordered on the touch screens (in English) – Rich had an El Grande Big Mac Meal, I had an Extreme Bacon meal (minus Salsa and Onion) and Tom had his usual Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal (minus Pickle, Onion and Mustard). Rich and I got free mugs as we had our meals Large. This was a bargain at €22.95 and we all really enjoyed it - Here's mine...

After our Maccy’s we turned right and headed further up the sea front to explore the shops we hadn’t seen yet. It was a bit more upmarket at this end, with some expensive clothes shops and a couple of restaurants we liked the look of. Goretti Pizzeria looked particularly nice (bright, clean and busy), so we made a note of the name and decided to check out the reviews with the possibility of coming for dinner tomorrow night.

We turned around not long after and made our way back via the busier sea front way rather the side streets (just to be on the safe side). We looked in a couple of tat shops along the sea front, and Tom bought a light up slingshot toy that lots of street vendors were demonstrating and selling for €2.

We headed across the road to the large paved area by the beach so that the boys could have a play...

It was a fun way to fill 15 minutes or so, but one of the flights got bent after a while, so we said we’d get a new one tomorrow night to bring home.

Alter this we headed back to the hotel, stopping at one of the shops on Carra de Saragossa for Tom to buy a shoulder bag for €5, and we spotted some "Disney" theming...

We were back at the hotel by 9:15pm, by which point I was really feeling the chafe from my wet shorts earlier .

Even though we aren’t big drinkers, I opened the free bottle of Cava, just to see what it was like...

It wasn’t good, but to be fair I don’t like any type of Champagne or Prosecco, so I wasn’t expecting much. Even with some Sprite in it I couldn’t drink it and Rich didn’t fancy it at all. We did let Tom try a sip and he wasn’t impressed either. I did enjoy one of the croissants we’d brought earlier though.

At about 10pm, Rich realised that we were out of pop. As the Repsol garage was only 3 minutes away and Tom was already in bed, we risked leaving him for a few minutes and popped out. I even went in my PJs and Rich’s hoody . To be fair, my PJ bottoms are polka-dot leggings (Minnie PJs of course), so I didn’t look too out of place.

Pop supplies replenished, we all just chilled. Tom was watching Friends, Rich was googling other European theme parks and May Half-term prices, and I finished up today’s trippie notes whilst munching another croissant, finally settling down at 11:15pm.

This had been a lovely chilled out and relaxing rest day, and we were all glad that we’d changed our plans .

[Mortimer Mouse]

A nice relaxing day. The beach looks pretty deserted. Do you know what the temperature was during your stay?

[frozenfan97]

Really enjoying your trip report having been in Salou this summer.
I have stayed in Hotel Dorada Palace 5 times so glad you also liked it.
Can't wait to read the rest.

[HEMANCLOFTY]

Originally Posted by Mortimer Mouse

A nice relaxing day. The beach looks pretty deserted. Do you know what the temperature was during your stay?

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Sorry for the delay replying to your message

I think it was about 20oC at the point mid-morning when I was feeling quite hot, reaching highs of 23/24oC most days.

Evenings were warm enough to wear dresses without tights and just a light cardigan

[HEMANCLOFTY]

Originally Posted by frozenfan97

Really enjoying your trip report having been in Salou this summer.
I have stayed in Hotel Dorada Palace 5 times so glad you also liked it.
Can't wait to read the rest.

See more...

Thanks for reading along - I'm sorry I've taken ages to reply

We really liked the hotel and have booked it again for our return in May