Algarve Adventure

Sorry for the absence in posts. I’m back from latest trip to the beautiful Portuguese Algarve though.  And I’ve just about got over my holidays blues – it doesn’t matter where I’ve been or for how long I always come back dreaming of what my life would be like in sunnier climes and with a relaxed holiday attitude.  I eventually come round to the fact that unless I win the lottery it’s most likely that I will still need to work whether I’m at home or abroad which means that I wouldn’t be living the holiday dream everyday anyway.

So back to Blightly - at least the weather has picked up again now which all goes into lifting the spirits of the nation!

Having been to the Algarve a few times now I can confirm that I really like it.  Previously I’d visited Villamoura, dubbed the millionaires marina, which is a beautiful place.  It has golden beaches (donned with bronzed lifeguards), delicious restaurants and super shiny yachts filling the marina.  If only I could get on one (mentally plotting).

This isn't quite what I had in mind when I said find me a nice boat

This time my friend Alice, her two young boys and I went to Olhos D’Agua, which is just outside Albufeira.  We stayed in the Clube Humbria hotel on an all inclusive basis.  We’d got a fairly cheap deal on it so we were happy to still go out for a few meals in the evening even though we were all inclusive.
As I mentioned in my previous post we arrived in the glorious sunshine after an early start.  We had a hotel transfer. I’m not a fan of these. I always seem to be at the last hotel dropped off and the first one picked up again which means being stuck on the coach for an eternity.  True to form we were the last hotel to be dropped off.

Waiting for the transfer coach!

The verdict on the kids club was that it was ‘really exciting’ and ‘fun’.  So we can assume they enjoyed it, so much so that each day the boys proceeded to ask from about 11.30am onwards ‘is it time for kids club yet?’ or ‘how long til kids club?’  

Ping Pong anyone?

This gave Alice and I a good hour and half each day to make the most of the sunshine and all inclusive beers.
On Sunday we met up with our friend Claire (who lives in Portugal) who picked us up and took us off to Zoo Marine.  We were heading for Aqua Show but soon discovered that it wasn’t open for the season yet.

Zoo Marine is a sort of animal theme park.  There are a couple of pools to swim in, a big water slide, lots of kids rides like the mini Buffalo, big wheel (its high up there), and carousel etc.  There are a number of animal enclosures/habitats – birds, sealions, turtles and crocodiles as well as various shows.

Hold on tight

We saw the dolphin show, which was a combination of dolphins and synchronized swimmers.  The synchronized swimmers were good if not a little random in some of their out of the water dance moves.  While I’m not sure I totally agree with keeping dolphins in captivity and training them they are very clever and impressive animals.  Hard to take photos of though.

Hands up if you felt silly shaking your booty on the side of a dolphin pool?

It only took 15 pictures to get one with an actual dophin in

We visited the aquarium show but after being rushed in and rushing round because we thought we were going to miss the show it seems there was no actual ‘show’. Or maybe the ‘show’ was the exhibits we rushed passed? Who knows? We saw Nemo in there anyway.

The other show we saw was the 4D show.  An educational film about global warming and not destroying rainforests etc with all the 4D aspects thrown in i.e. filmed in 3D, water splashed at us and wind blown at us.

The rest of the holiday was fairly relaxing and consisted of a fair bit of laying by the pool, a visit to the beach and a trip to Albufeira to ride the little train between the old town and the strip.

Close but not quite right as the second 'e' is missing - as noted by the 6 year old

The hotel was fairly decent.  Not sure about the evening entertainment and the main issue I had was how uncomfortable the sunbeds were and how hard the beds in the room were! The food was as you would expect.  Breakfast was nice, the pool snack bar had some good snacks however there was fairly limited choice for lunch and dinner in the main dining room.  We found a couple of really nice restaurants just near the hotel though.  One was a delicious pizza place with very friendly waiters and the other was a grill restaurant - which did a tasty steak. 

We also had a really nice meal in Villamoura overlooking the marina.  Note for future reference – don’t let children wearing slip on flip flops sit anywhere near water.  They are perfectly safe, their flip flops are not so! 

The gang - minus one flip flop

Now that's the sort of boat I was after!

50 sleeps until the next trip (approx)!