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.

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.

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 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!

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.

They've gone through several visual redesigns, which I might eventually try to cover in depth. But I am mostly familiar with their second design, in glorious early 2000s CGI.

The group consisted of several characters:

Orry So Sorry, curious and mischievous, with his spiked green hair.
Woops the Wave, all in blue, representing Aqua Mundo. She was my favorite one, and once I even got to meet her performer at the time after hours!
Rep the Reporter, tech wiz, and she probably should have been my favorite!
Bing Bush, a ranger representing the park's trees and other natural areas.

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.