Day 3: Parc Saint Paul

Monday dawned as home time approached. We had another early start because we were scheduled to visit a "surprise park" on the way back to the ferry, although by that time a lot of the group already knew it was Parc Saint Paul.

For some reason less people turned up for breakfast that second time, but I was one of those who braved the inevitable cold egg and spoon shortages (sorry) once more.

Just as well there weren't too many more of us: We arrived in the dining room to find just six available spaces, the rest having been taken up by another tour party. Resourceful as we are we went instead to the empty dining room next door, but were quickly herded back out by one of the waitresses who pushed us back into the previous room. Counting was clearly a skill she was still working on as she tried to seat us all on the six chairs. With us trying to explain that thirty people cannot be accommodated on six chairs and the waitress getting increasingly frustrated that we couldn't all sit on each others laps, the manager finally turned up and bellowed her out, guiding us back to the empty dining room to enjoy our mushy egg and sausage.

Before checking out there was just time for one last look out of our room window at the magnificent view of the river:

Not as nice as by night, but it doesn't look too bad this side

Look right and the daylight cannot hide the building site just outside

Off we set for Parc Saint Paul, somewhere in France. More accurate than that I cannot be, suffice to say we went through countless little villages down even more little country lanes for little less than a long time.

We arrived at Parc Saint Paul half an hour late, not that it mattered - that's our coach parked in the second row behind less than a dozen other cars

We were greeted by a friendly clown (not in the picture, honestly)

Parc Saint Paul is a small park which has had more than its fair share of troubles in recent times, having two major accidents on two of its rollercoasters within days of each other. Therefore their only major coaster available to us was the PAX built Wild Train.

However, none of the rides were due to open for another half an hour (lucky we didn't arrive on time!) so we went for a walk around the park before returning for a ride, only to wait again for the ride op to sweep the entire queueline and anything else in range of his broom.

Wild Train was disappointing. The height of the lift in relation to the rest of the circuit made it look as though it should be fairly speedy, but in reality there were some points where the train was close to stalling. Maybe it would have improved later in the day when it had warmed up?

Skilfully avoiding the drop tower, Simon, Richard and I went to ride the park's ghost train, full of very odd robot ghosts with light up eyes. Terrifying.

In search of some real fear, we saw on the map another attraction called Château Haunté and even with my limited knowledge of French I worked out this could be a better version of their ghost train. Nope, just a bizarre haunted walkthrough with everything behind steel cages which took the edge off anything scary that might have been present. Nice revolving tunnel though and it kept us out of the rain for a few minutes.

Téléphériques is unique in coaster terms, if you can even call it a coaster (RCDB does so who am I to argue). It's a cross between an aerial runway and a ski lift.

Riders hang on to a pole and glide along. Trying to hit Justin as you go past is not a standard part of the ride, just an added bonus for ECC members.

When Club Founders Go Bad: coming to ITV this summer

Mini Mouse Cartoon's track allowed the person sitting in the front to hit the person sitting in the back as the train went through the curves

If only Simon was smiling ...

... That's better. If only Martin wasn't pointing. :)

Flying House ride, complete with soundtrack, wind and water effects: because we so needed more water

The local airport. Should somebody tell Richard?

Family Coaster was the last coaster of the trip. Very strange, with a brake on the downward side of the only drop meaning the train never picked up any speed at all.

By that time the rain had set in, so we rode the land train around the park. Something told me the driver wasn't really paying attention when we headed off the road, bumping along the grass straight towards a tree. He got a well deserved round of applause for that!

Normally I wouldn't bother you with details of my moments of relief in these trip reports, but they are not normally worth mentioning. The visit a few of us made just prior to getting on the coach is, however, worthy of comment. Those who have watched Trainspotting will remember the scene featuring the worst toilet in Britain. Parc Saint Paul has the French equivalent. For those of you who haven't seen the film, I won't describe it in detail but let's just say the bits supposed to be white were no longer white but a thick brown colour. Strange then that when we set foot in said toilets we found a gang of French teenagers camped out inside eating their sandwiches. Explanation? Don't look at me.

We arrived in Calais ready to catch our 4:30 ferry just before 3:30. Immigration were obviously having a boring day so were pulling over all the coaches. We all had to get off and troop through their office showing our passports as we went while other immigration officers searched the coach. This delayed us which meant we got to the check in area for the ferry 55 minutes before it was due to sail.

P&O were clearly short staffed and had filled the gap with agency people from Rent-a-Jerk who insisted that we were late (we were supposed to have been there an hour before sailing) and so they wouldn't let us on the ferry. Instead we had to wait to see if they could get us on the 6:30.

Sitting in the holding area just before 5:30 we were caught off guard when other staff began waving for our coach to board the ferry about to leave. I say caught off guard, some of the group were caught off guard more than others.

Talking to one of the other coach drivers once on board, the real reason for our delay became clear. Whilst it was true we were 5 minutes later than we strictly should have been, that had nothing to do with the reason we weren't allowed on the first ferry. It was really because that hadn't been the 4:30 ferry at all, but one much earlier one which was running late. In fact, the ferry we were on which left about 5:45 was actually the 4:30 ferry and we'd just been lied to by Rent-a-Jerk about the whole situation.

Not the nicest way to end the trip, but it didn't spoil anything which had gone before. It was a great weekend away with a great group of people and a chance to visit some more French parks and have my first experience of a proper European fair. It was a time of discovery too: The French love their tunnels, putting their coaster track through them at every opportunity. Secondly, it isn't impossible to take a picture of Simon smiling - I got two!

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