A head of a cartoon cat that strongly resembles a certain mouse

Center Parcs

During my childhood, my family would go on a yearly vacation to a holiday resort called Center Parcs. Specifically, we would visit the one in the Vossemeren of Belgian Limburg. This is right next to one of Flanders' national parks, and the resort was actually visited by representatives of the Walt Disney company when scouting for potential locations for their EuroDisney project.

I don't really want to write about this silly little holiday resort I feel strongly nostalgic for. There's advertisements and brochures for that! I wanna write about what it felt like to me, and the things I fondly remember. I haven't been there in recent times, so things I talk about are not necessarily currently present there.

When possible, I've used photos made by me and my family. These are indicated with a blue border (and subtly indicated in the alternative text as well).

The cottages

The first thing after arriving and checking in would be to head to our assigned cottage and unpack.

It probably sounds kinda silly, but what always fascinated me as a kid was the different kind of toilet these cottages had. To my understanding, the standard type of toilet in Belgium is pretty much the same as what you see in the United Kingdom. The most notable difference to American toilets is the water line, really, which is much lower. But cottages in Center Parcs had German toilets, which have a little shelf at the back so you can (for some reason) inspect your waste before flushing.

Our cluttered table with a Game Boy, a laptop, and some magazines

These pictures are actually ones my family took, though I used a little bit of magic to zap the people away. On the dining table you can see my beloved Game Boy Advance, next to some chunky laptop I barely remember. And on the coffee table there's a Game Boy Color in an original Game Boy carrying case, perfect for my parents to play Tetris on. If not that, my father would be playing Yahtzee on a dedicated device.

There's a bunch of playing card decks scattered around. We usually played some local equivalent to the Crazy Eights family of games, which you can think of as Uno played with regular cards.

Our towels drying on a rack, next to a coffee table and some seats

Market Dome

At the heart of the resort lies the Market Dome, a central market plaza with a wonderfully maximalist tropical interior. To the young Coby, it simply was paradise. Sure, it was just a bunch of shops and bars and restaurants, but everywhere you looked there was something interesting to see! There were even actual animals around, as you can see in this negative I scanned from my family's photos.

A picture I took of flamingos drinking in the Market Dome

Inside the Market Dome, there was this little arcade called the House of Games, with a nice logo in the Jokerman typeface. Outside of arcades in theme parks, this was pretty much my only major arcade experience.

A bunch of arcade cabinets and air hockey tables
Tokyo Cop (Gaelco)
This is probably the one we played the most, and was definitely my dad's favorite. It feels a bit like Crazy Taxi with how you're being guided by a big arrow, but the goal is quite different. You're a cop and need to ram into a criminal's car. In typical Gaelco fashion things get very wacky along the way. This game never got ported, but is apparently able to be emulated us
Ferrari F355 Challenge (Sega AM2)
I played this one very often. Its aim for a relatively realistic simulation, compared to the zanier racers, made it feel more grown up to me. Nowadays I tend to prefer non-sim racers, funnily enough. I can't say I was or ever will be a ‘car guy’, but I feel like playing this game helped me connect better with a childhood friend who was really into Ferrari.

Action Factory

From the Market Dome you could enter the Action Factory, sport-oriented and aimed at teens and young adults. So I don't remember much from it, but for a while they did have a motion simulator there which I was absolutely obsessed with: the Venturer S2.

Ancient Egypt was one of my special interests as a kid, and every chance I got I would let the machine take me to a CGI pyramid in Ancient Egypt.

Food

Breakfast and dinner we had the buffet in the Market Dome. Beyond always over-eating, there are two very specific things that stand out to me.

First, it's where I first learned the notion of Burgundian dining or cuisine, which is often used to describe our rich Belgian meals. It was a word I hadn't seen before, and thus attracted my attention.

But secondly, and most importantly: the way the sauces like mayonnaise were dispensed. For some reason some of my most vivid memories are of loading up a plate with fries and then getting mayo from those sauce dispensers. I've included a generic picture of these dispensers, though this is not exactly what the ones of the resort looked like.

An aluminum container with a pump

It would take until my college days to see these sorts of dispensers again, in my alma mater's big institutional kitchens. And maybe my fond memories of them contributed towards my appreciation of mass catering. There's no finer way to distribute sauce, I believe. Something instantly elevates the feel of sauce if you have to pump it. If I were still consuming sauce in sufficiently large quantities, I'd feel tempted to get one for myself.

House of Pancakes

Another very magical and maximalist location in the Market Dome. There was a model train running along and through walls, some tables were in big closets, others were held up with giant coloring pencils or stacks of books. There was even a tunnel for kids to crawl through, with all sorts of little dioramas.

Several tables where the legs are giant coloring pencils

Aqua Mundo

Ah, the true highlight of the stay! Calling it just an indoor swimming pool would be doing it injustice! It's what they call a ‘subtropical swimming paradise, a term which I'm not sure is used elsewhere. And it's definitely more than one pool too! There's even a few that are outside! Also one with salt water and aquariums to you can go snorkeling to look at fishes.

A view of the swimming pools

A particular highlight, which we'd do many times in succession, is the Wild Water Rapids. I suppose it's a slightly wilder version of a lazy river?

Discovery Bay

I believe this was the reason we originally started going there! During a school trip I thoroughly enjoyed a pirate-themed indoor playground, and my mom discovered this superior alternative!

An indoor pirate ship

While my parents enjoyed some drinks at the bar, my brother and I got dirty playing on the beach, climbing fake rocks or running across rope bridges.

Orry & Friends

I knew them as PéPéTéVé, which is short for Park Pretters TV: television for kids who have fun (pret) at the park. More recently, they've rebranded under the more internationally friendly name Orry & Friends. They served as another source of entertainment for children during their stay at the resort, with several television specials on the park's own information channel as well as theater shows and special appearances in the Market Dome.

The colorful cast of Orry & Friends

The group consisted of several characters:

Design evolution

The original drawings, with an extended cast (including Miss Nitwit and mailman Peter Paul), were presumably made sometime around the 1993 debut. A TV show—airing only in the parks—existed of this iteration, but other than a few snippets none of it is available online. I definitely encountered these designs and saw some episodes of it. One of the few archived pages of this era is actually in English, funnily enough! You can also find a cassette of a radio show on the Internet Archive.

In 2001, the characters were redesigned for a new generation of children. The new designs were made in glorious early 2000s computer graphics (by Hoek & Havenaar Productions). This was the version I fondly remember. Two new TV episodes were made for this iteration, and these are available on YouTube from VHS recordings. Some web relics of this era: contest involving coloring plates (still live weirdly enough), the wigs, .

The internationalized rebranding to Orry & Friends in 2013 coincided with new designs. While the visual style changed drastically and the characters appear younger, the actual character designs are largely the same.

1993 2001 2013
Drawing showing Orry with one big ear, holding a cake in his hand 3D render of Orry Digital drawing with some clothing as 3D render, but different style
Drawing showsing Woops with a beehive haircut 3D render of Woops Digital drawing with simplified clothing
Rep with a blue cap and a regular jacket 3D render of Rep Digital drawing with some clothing as 3D render, but different style
An unrecognizable Bing covered in leaves, with a big walking stick 3D render of Bing Digital drawing with simplified clothing
Miss Nitwit wears big glasses and has her hair in an upright ponytail Character was phased out
Peter Paul was a fairly nondescript mailman Character was phased out

Souvenirs

These pictures are my own, but putting a blue border around them would ruin the look. They're some of the random knick-knacks I still have from my childhood trips to CP. I have more, but some of it is not visually interesting, and some of it I picked up from thrift stores.

Pssh! Hey! You can open the box.

The top of a wooden box, with the old Center Parcs logo burned into it.
Inside, there's a deck of playing cards, some poker dice, and a themed Quartets game.
A keychain of Orry. A coloring plate with signatures of the characters.

Going home

The summer of 2008 was our last stay at Center Parcs. Familial priorities and our financial situation would change after that. And as we drove home, just like she had during our entire stay, Katy Perry sang about kissing a girl. And she liked it.