Sunday 31st May
From Vivonne we could either go straight north passing by Futuroscope or west and then north passing close by Le Grand Parc Puy du Fou, whichever way I went I was going to get clobbered with big entry fees and since Lucy had hinted that she didn’t really want to go to Futuroscope, that’s the way we went.
It didn’t work and here we are in Futuroscope. We were here seven years ago with Dave & Liz, Jack & Dan, Harry & Sara, Matthew and Amy and of course, Emma and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, but then we did have Dave organising us and working his way past the obscure programming schedule so that we all got to see everything with the minimum of walking and backtracking.
Futuroscope is a large theme park famed for the whacky architecture and you’ll see a few photos following. Each building houses a “ride”, not your usual roller coaster, etc, these are all simulators, 3D screens and Imax cinemas.
We went on everything. We arrived at about 11am and parked in the huge dedicated motorhome aire which can hold over 400. The above ride looks like a robot arm salvaged out of Fords with a couple of seats welded on. I talked Lucy into having a go and she loved it.
Up the Gyrator where we actually got to listen to the first bit of English commentary. Futuroscope was opened 25 years ago with the aim of concentrating leisure and hi-tech industries as a show piece. Futuroscope employs 4,500 staff and over 2,000 volunteer staff but they still manage to close some of the rides between 12.30pm and 2.00pm for lunch – sacre bleu!
As you can see, it hasn’t been the sunniest day today and we have had a few spots of rain. On the upside the park was nearly empty by 3pm and we’ve managed to get on every ride and some twice.
One of the nicest things about the park is that you don’t have to watch out for dogs merde everywhere. By the aire is a “Pet Prison” where you can leave your loved ones chained up and under guard.
At the moment, I’m sitting in Frankie after just having some dinner. We’ve got lots of free wifi and we are waiting for the 10.30pm evening extravaganza to start. We think it’s fireworks, lights and water fountains.
So the verdict – not having been to a theme park since Emma was minus five months old I may have lost touch with the costs but overall, if you can pick a quiet day, out of season (not the second day of the French half term) then it was worth it. I would come back again, they change one third of the attractions each year so in 7 year time it will be all different again.