MsPennieLane
<font color=660099>Self-confessed Disney addict<br
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2003
- Messages
- 904
Tuesday 13 April Day 1
The alarm wakes us at 2am wed gone to bed about 9pm the night before but it was really hard to switch off as you knew you were going to have to get up. We dressed and were out the door at 2.30. It took us an hour and a half to drive from West Ewell to Stansted, the roads were really quiet. We park up at the Midstay e-parking car park which wed booked online - £28 for 3 days parking. A bus was waiting for us to take us to the terminal building. Our check-in desk wasnt yet open so we wait. We had no idea Stansted was so big or how many check-in desks Ryanair actually have they have 4 lines of check-in desks! It finally opened and the queue was horrendous. At first were miffed when people from a huge basketball group keep pushing into the queue instead of queuing behind us but it turns out they were all in the 1st queue on one ticket, so were ushered passed them into the 2nd queue. The check-in guy is really irritable and starts swearing at the basketball players for not queuing properly hes obviously not a morning person! We finally get our boarding passes (which they have to write out as Ryanair are a ticketless airline!) and we go through security. I manage to set off the alarm walking through and I have my first search and she certainly was thorough!! Still, she found nothing and we were on our way (maybe it was the poppers on my cardy that set the thing off!). We wander through Duty Free which really wasnt worth it, not much in the way of discount really. We stop at WHS so I can buy some goodies. The queue is heaving and leads right to the back of the shop! I find High Fidelity by Nick Hornby so buy it with some drinks for the plane. Considering the size of the queue, it only takes us about 10 minutes to get to the tills, and there is only one person working. We take the monorail and then walk to our gate. Again, its heaving and everyone is just stood around the gate so no one can get through. At first they called for people with children and who need assistance, then it was passengers 1-65 which is great as were 61 and 62 woohoo.
We walk to our plane a Boeing 737-800 series and get on through the back entrance. Once on, the seats are a free-for-all so you just sit where you want to. We chose the middle. We were seated and waiting for ages it turned out 3 idiots had gotten lost so their luggage had to be removed! We finally took off, an hour late. The flight was very basic I had my iPod and book to keep me occupied. It seemed that wed only been above the clouds a short time before we started our decent. We landed an hour and a half after takeoff, half hour early which was cool. We didnt have any turbulence either thank god. We got off the plane and headed straight for baggage collection. Reus Airport is tiny with not much seating and a café. We didnt have to wait long for our case so we headed straight for Sol-mar rent-a-car (or rent-a-wreck we were calling it!) We were quoted 75Euro for 3 days hire and had to pay 122 which included fuel, and we were told to bring the car back as empty as possible. We were amazed to be given a brand new Citroen C3, and very nice it was too! We were on our way very quickly.
hubby with our rental
The signposting is bloody diabolical! We were told to head for Tarragona but in fact, we shouldve headed straight for Salou. After a 10 minute detour, we finally found a sign for Port Aventura hurrah! I think it took us about 20 minutes. We drove through the entrance for the Hotel El Paso and we could see how close it was to the parks. We were stopped by security who had to check a list of people due to check-in that day.
The reception was packed with people checking out it was 11am after all. We queued for about 20 minutes and were shocked to find our room was ready for us result! We were given our spandangly room keys/passes and our voucher for breakfast which lasted the length of our stay. We had to pick a timeslot of either 8-9.15am or 9.30-10.45am, so we opted for the earlier slot so we could get in the parks quite early.
El Paso reception
Our room was located in the Jaguar building on the ground floor, which was very close to the main building.
The room is very clean and spacious. You have your bathroom on your left as soon as you walk in, which has a very powerful shower in the bath and a big sink area (and loo of course!) The main room has a huge bed with a table and chairs, TV and a wardrobe and safe. There are also cupboards and chests of drawers.
We have patio doors shame we werent higher up as wed have had a lovely balcony. Still, it was handy for Andy and we had a tiny patio area surrounded by a little hedge.
We chilled for a few minutes just to take a breather then we headed straight for Port Aventura. Its a 5 minute walk from the El Paso complex. You can either leave via reception or there is a gate by the El Coyote restaurant, which we found out after walking back on ourselves!
The weather is very warm but breezy. The 5 min walk takes a little longer as its mainly uphill and we just have a leisurely stroll.
The entrance is heaving but only because there is a huge party of irish kids on a school trip with only 3 teachers! Again it turns out they are blocking the entrance and they are still waiting for their tickets. Grrr! So we finally get through the gate and were there. It has a lovely atmosphere, Mediterrania is like a little village. There are loads of shops and restaurants.
Were both starving and decide to have something to eat. We spy a little food hut that sells burgers so opt for 2 double cheeseburgers, a portion of spicy fries and a portion of onion rings we havent eaten since 10pm the previous night so were starving! With a medium drink it comes to 15 Euro. The food is really tasty but its soaked in so much oil. I hate coca cola light its not a patch on our diet coke but its cold and wet and will have to do!
After our lunch we walk towards Polynesia. Andy fancies riding the Tutuki Splash ride which is a water ride. Theres not much to it but its fun nonetheless. Andy uses his park access to get in front of everyone yay! The boats are very similar to the Jurassic River Adventure. Hubby sits right in front so gets absolutely saturated. The drop is pretty tame on this ride but you get wet wherever you sit.
We walk through to China so hubby can finally ride Dragon Khan and hes not disappointed. He loves it and uses the express pass and gets on it twice in about 10 minutes. Its quite a longish ride at about 2 or so minutes with lots of twists and inversions. I watch it the once and get dizzy so dont look again.
We take a leisurely stroll through Mexico to Far West. Andy spots Stampida so I wait patiently while he has a few goes. 40 minutes later, he finally comes out. It turns out hes only had 2 goes on it despite using the express pass option. There arent enough operators on the ride today so it takes ages to get going, plus the bars get stuck that hold you in. Apparently theyre quite worn and the bars have to be physically pulled up at the end at one stage they were waiting 5 minutes to be let out. Despite this, hubby enjoyed the ride. It seemed to me watching the cars that the blue car always wins as it was always way in front of the red car.
We carry on walking lots of uphill walking here btw and we stop for a drink as its really warm. We then decide to go on Grand Canyon Rapids, which is the Port Aventura equivalent of Popeye & Blutos Bilge-Rat Barges. We know its going to be tame as there are no seat belts. Its an ok ride, nothing special at all but it made a good substitute considering I dont get to ride Popeye until Christmas! There was a 15 minute wait for this ride but with out front of the line access we sailed past everyone and got lots of tuts and dirty looks hehe. We didnt see many other people using this option, at the most we had 3 people in front of us which only happened once. I guess not a lot of people stay on-site (although the hotel looked pretty busy!). We ride twice in the space of 10 minutes and the 2nd time I got a very wet back and soggy bottom. It was so worth it though. It was very warm by this time. We looked at the photos taken during the ride and I decide to buy the photo keyring, which makes a nice souvenir.
By now were exhausted and decide to head back. We browse in a few shops and I fall in love with a huge cuddly Donkey from Shrek. I mentally put him on my shopping list and intend to pick him up on our last day.
We walk back and head straight to our room. My idea for a 5 minute rest turns into a 3 hour sleep and we dont wake up until gone 7. We shower and head out for dinner. My legs are aching so we decide to stay on-site for dinner. I suggest the restaurant El Coyote for dinner so off we go. The food is delicious. We shared a mixed starter for 7 euro nachos, jalapeno cheese poppers, buffalo chicken wings, onion rings and breaded cheesesticks, oh and some tuna thing. For main course, hubby had lasagne and I had combo chicken and beef fajitas both were very yummy. We leave pudding as were both stuffed and pay its 35 euros which also includes 2 cola lights for me and 2 carlsberg exports for Andy, which is very good. The pop is nearly as expensive as the beer though there is only 25 cents difference!
El Coyote
We wander round the complex and decide to go into Bar Maya. We really like it so spend the rest of our evening here. I spend some time on the internet there are 5 pcs and at first, there are loads of kids on them. I guess the parents pay the kids to go off and leave them be for a while lol. It was amazing to see so many young kids online and using MSN messenger some of the kids were tiny. The internet is 50 cents for 5 minutes, 1 Euro for 10 minutes and 2 Euros for 20 minutes. Andy drinks Estella Damm, the local beer, all night which he loves, and apart from the cola light I sneak in one strawberry daiquiri it was soooo strong. We finally head back to the room at midnight and fall asleep straight away.
The alarm wakes us at 2am wed gone to bed about 9pm the night before but it was really hard to switch off as you knew you were going to have to get up. We dressed and were out the door at 2.30. It took us an hour and a half to drive from West Ewell to Stansted, the roads were really quiet. We park up at the Midstay e-parking car park which wed booked online - £28 for 3 days parking. A bus was waiting for us to take us to the terminal building. Our check-in desk wasnt yet open so we wait. We had no idea Stansted was so big or how many check-in desks Ryanair actually have they have 4 lines of check-in desks! It finally opened and the queue was horrendous. At first were miffed when people from a huge basketball group keep pushing into the queue instead of queuing behind us but it turns out they were all in the 1st queue on one ticket, so were ushered passed them into the 2nd queue. The check-in guy is really irritable and starts swearing at the basketball players for not queuing properly hes obviously not a morning person! We finally get our boarding passes (which they have to write out as Ryanair are a ticketless airline!) and we go through security. I manage to set off the alarm walking through and I have my first search and she certainly was thorough!! Still, she found nothing and we were on our way (maybe it was the poppers on my cardy that set the thing off!). We wander through Duty Free which really wasnt worth it, not much in the way of discount really. We stop at WHS so I can buy some goodies. The queue is heaving and leads right to the back of the shop! I find High Fidelity by Nick Hornby so buy it with some drinks for the plane. Considering the size of the queue, it only takes us about 10 minutes to get to the tills, and there is only one person working. We take the monorail and then walk to our gate. Again, its heaving and everyone is just stood around the gate so no one can get through. At first they called for people with children and who need assistance, then it was passengers 1-65 which is great as were 61 and 62 woohoo.
We walk to our plane a Boeing 737-800 series and get on through the back entrance. Once on, the seats are a free-for-all so you just sit where you want to. We chose the middle. We were seated and waiting for ages it turned out 3 idiots had gotten lost so their luggage had to be removed! We finally took off, an hour late. The flight was very basic I had my iPod and book to keep me occupied. It seemed that wed only been above the clouds a short time before we started our decent. We landed an hour and a half after takeoff, half hour early which was cool. We didnt have any turbulence either thank god. We got off the plane and headed straight for baggage collection. Reus Airport is tiny with not much seating and a café. We didnt have to wait long for our case so we headed straight for Sol-mar rent-a-car (or rent-a-wreck we were calling it!) We were quoted 75Euro for 3 days hire and had to pay 122 which included fuel, and we were told to bring the car back as empty as possible. We were amazed to be given a brand new Citroen C3, and very nice it was too! We were on our way very quickly.
hubby with our rental
The signposting is bloody diabolical! We were told to head for Tarragona but in fact, we shouldve headed straight for Salou. After a 10 minute detour, we finally found a sign for Port Aventura hurrah! I think it took us about 20 minutes. We drove through the entrance for the Hotel El Paso and we could see how close it was to the parks. We were stopped by security who had to check a list of people due to check-in that day.
The reception was packed with people checking out it was 11am after all. We queued for about 20 minutes and were shocked to find our room was ready for us result! We were given our spandangly room keys/passes and our voucher for breakfast which lasted the length of our stay. We had to pick a timeslot of either 8-9.15am or 9.30-10.45am, so we opted for the earlier slot so we could get in the parks quite early.
El Paso reception
Our room was located in the Jaguar building on the ground floor, which was very close to the main building.
The room is very clean and spacious. You have your bathroom on your left as soon as you walk in, which has a very powerful shower in the bath and a big sink area (and loo of course!) The main room has a huge bed with a table and chairs, TV and a wardrobe and safe. There are also cupboards and chests of drawers.
We have patio doors shame we werent higher up as wed have had a lovely balcony. Still, it was handy for Andy and we had a tiny patio area surrounded by a little hedge.
We chilled for a few minutes just to take a breather then we headed straight for Port Aventura. Its a 5 minute walk from the El Paso complex. You can either leave via reception or there is a gate by the El Coyote restaurant, which we found out after walking back on ourselves!
The weather is very warm but breezy. The 5 min walk takes a little longer as its mainly uphill and we just have a leisurely stroll.
The entrance is heaving but only because there is a huge party of irish kids on a school trip with only 3 teachers! Again it turns out they are blocking the entrance and they are still waiting for their tickets. Grrr! So we finally get through the gate and were there. It has a lovely atmosphere, Mediterrania is like a little village. There are loads of shops and restaurants.
Were both starving and decide to have something to eat. We spy a little food hut that sells burgers so opt for 2 double cheeseburgers, a portion of spicy fries and a portion of onion rings we havent eaten since 10pm the previous night so were starving! With a medium drink it comes to 15 Euro. The food is really tasty but its soaked in so much oil. I hate coca cola light its not a patch on our diet coke but its cold and wet and will have to do!
After our lunch we walk towards Polynesia. Andy fancies riding the Tutuki Splash ride which is a water ride. Theres not much to it but its fun nonetheless. Andy uses his park access to get in front of everyone yay! The boats are very similar to the Jurassic River Adventure. Hubby sits right in front so gets absolutely saturated. The drop is pretty tame on this ride but you get wet wherever you sit.
We walk through to China so hubby can finally ride Dragon Khan and hes not disappointed. He loves it and uses the express pass and gets on it twice in about 10 minutes. Its quite a longish ride at about 2 or so minutes with lots of twists and inversions. I watch it the once and get dizzy so dont look again.
We take a leisurely stroll through Mexico to Far West. Andy spots Stampida so I wait patiently while he has a few goes. 40 minutes later, he finally comes out. It turns out hes only had 2 goes on it despite using the express pass option. There arent enough operators on the ride today so it takes ages to get going, plus the bars get stuck that hold you in. Apparently theyre quite worn and the bars have to be physically pulled up at the end at one stage they were waiting 5 minutes to be let out. Despite this, hubby enjoyed the ride. It seemed to me watching the cars that the blue car always wins as it was always way in front of the red car.
We carry on walking lots of uphill walking here btw and we stop for a drink as its really warm. We then decide to go on Grand Canyon Rapids, which is the Port Aventura equivalent of Popeye & Blutos Bilge-Rat Barges. We know its going to be tame as there are no seat belts. Its an ok ride, nothing special at all but it made a good substitute considering I dont get to ride Popeye until Christmas! There was a 15 minute wait for this ride but with out front of the line access we sailed past everyone and got lots of tuts and dirty looks hehe. We didnt see many other people using this option, at the most we had 3 people in front of us which only happened once. I guess not a lot of people stay on-site (although the hotel looked pretty busy!). We ride twice in the space of 10 minutes and the 2nd time I got a very wet back and soggy bottom. It was so worth it though. It was very warm by this time. We looked at the photos taken during the ride and I decide to buy the photo keyring, which makes a nice souvenir.
By now were exhausted and decide to head back. We browse in a few shops and I fall in love with a huge cuddly Donkey from Shrek. I mentally put him on my shopping list and intend to pick him up on our last day.
We walk back and head straight to our room. My idea for a 5 minute rest turns into a 3 hour sleep and we dont wake up until gone 7. We shower and head out for dinner. My legs are aching so we decide to stay on-site for dinner. I suggest the restaurant El Coyote for dinner so off we go. The food is delicious. We shared a mixed starter for 7 euro nachos, jalapeno cheese poppers, buffalo chicken wings, onion rings and breaded cheesesticks, oh and some tuna thing. For main course, hubby had lasagne and I had combo chicken and beef fajitas both were very yummy. We leave pudding as were both stuffed and pay its 35 euros which also includes 2 cola lights for me and 2 carlsberg exports for Andy, which is very good. The pop is nearly as expensive as the beer though there is only 25 cents difference!
El Coyote
We wander round the complex and decide to go into Bar Maya. We really like it so spend the rest of our evening here. I spend some time on the internet there are 5 pcs and at first, there are loads of kids on them. I guess the parents pay the kids to go off and leave them be for a while lol. It was amazing to see so many young kids online and using MSN messenger some of the kids were tiny. The internet is 50 cents for 5 minutes, 1 Euro for 10 minutes and 2 Euros for 20 minutes. Andy drinks Estella Damm, the local beer, all night which he loves, and apart from the cola light I sneak in one strawberry daiquiri it was soooo strong. We finally head back to the room at midnight and fall asleep straight away.
