Halbe; Saturday, 14 December, 2024

My room rate included breakfast in the buffet restaurant, which I headed down to a little before 9am to find that it was pretty busy, but I was able to get a table – about 10 minutes later and there was a queue of people waiting for tables to become available.

I had a leisurely breakfast before heading back to my room and then down to the spa complex for my massage which was less relaxation and more a form of torture being pummelled and prodded, but I did feel a lot more relaxed after.

I spent a bit more time in and out of the pools and slides before stopping off for a quick lunch and then back into the water.

Later in the afternoon I went for a longer walk through the rainforest part of the park, which surprisingly houses a butterfly enclosure and a number of free flying birds, as well as a small flock of flamingos.

Later in the afternoon, as the sun was setting, I headed back out into the Amazonia area and swam out through the revolving door – used to help keep the heat in – out into the now sub zero temperatures and pretty heavy snow flurries, which developed into a full snow shower as I was floating around. It’s a slightly weird sensation having your head in -1C temperatures whilst swimming round in water that’s heated to over 30C!

The outside area closes just before 6pm so I decided to head back inside a little before then to avoid the rush, which is also when most people start to leave, so I used that as an excuse to grab dinner, though that turned out to be a slightly more complex process as the chip in my wristband wasn’t letting me charge the food to my room – it turned out that they hadn’t upped the credit limit on my chip when I’d paid for the massage earlier and I’d reached a limit in charges, so I had to go to the pay station and settle off my bill so far before heading back to the food court to charge dinner back onto my account.

After dinner I had a bit more of a swim in the two main pools before a long wander through the rainforest and then back to my room for a well deserved rest, and to treat the blisters that had started to form on my big toes, as it turns out walking several miles in beach sandals has some pretty bad rubbing effects!