Rødby and Lalandia Water Park - 22-Sep to 25-Sep

Our next trip was out to Rødby on the island of Lolland in Denmark.  We had three goals for this trip, the first (and most important) was to have a relaxing trip after all the rushing around in Wales and our other trips, second was the visit the big Lalandia Water Park and the third was to visit the Border Shop in Puttgarden (for some liquid assistance in relaxing...)

We headed out after work on Thursday and drove the 2.5hr trip to Rødby.... well it should have been 2.5hrs but unfortunately it ended up taking closer to 3.5 due to traffic and roadworks.

Our cabin

I'd originally been thinking that our cabin was beachfront, but it was on the other side of Lalandia from the beach, and the beach was fairly rocky and mostly a ferry route to Germany.

Since we'd arrived fairly late we didn't have a chance to visit Lalandia, so we went for a walk and found some new friends:

Just call her the goat whisperer

The park outside Lalandia had a paddock with a large herd of goats.  They seemed very taken with Kris, but the kids were initially a bit too worried to pat the goats but when they saw that Kristine wasn't pulled down and devoured whole, they slowly softened:

Being brave

Even Tomas warmed to them after realizing they weren't going to take a bite out of his pants like on cartoons

We were given wristbands for Lalandia which would give us access for all three days we were there, the trouble was once we put them on, we couldn't take them off.  Because of this, we decided to head out to the Border Shop first for the Friday morning and head to Lalandia in the evening.

We caught the "Schleswig-Holstein" ferry from Rødby across to Puttgarden in Germany.  It was about 45minutes and we spent most of the way over browsing the duty free and looking out over the water.

Another ferry

Getting closer...

This looked like a collision about to occur

Tom finally smiled when posing

We overtook the ferry we'd seen earlier

Ok so I cheated - this is on the way back - but we ate lunch (schnizel for us, sausages for the kids) on the ferry

I'm guessing they're enjoying the lemonade

First view of Germany - you can just see the border shop - the big white building to the right of the windmills

The border shop is located just a short drive from the ferry terminal and is often visited by Swedes and Danes who want cheaper alcohol or more options than System Bolaget.

Border Shop

The Border Shop is on a barge in the harbor and has an amazing selection of alcohol and a much smaller selection of lollies, candies and toys.

Just a tiny sample of the wine floor

And looking to the right from the previous shot

Aussie wines were decently represented - Jacobs Creek, Penfolds, Lindemans etc

Free trials of wine.  Free triaths of vine... Three files of y...  *thud*

They even named one after me!

More wine

and more wine

And more fee shlamples

And lots of casks (this is just one floor of 4..)

 The first floor (0) was beer and ciders, next floor (1) was wine, floor 2 was scotch and liquors and floor 3 was lollies, chocolates, toys and a small selection of household goods.

First sightings of scotch (this was a random shelf in the wine floor) - including Glenfiddich and Motörhead scotch

Kris found a very small tequila bottle - we didnt buy it and unfortunately we were just a bit too early for the whiskey festival

  
 Next floor time.  Kris got herself a decent amount of wine and now it was my turn to blow the budget on scotches...

Scotches

Kris started panicking when she saw me eyeing the wall of scotches

The final floor was chocolates and sweets:

4.5kg toblerone

Oreos and Marabou chocolate

Eating the M&M

We bought Valhalla as it was a Swedish spirit - it tastes a bit like Jaägermeister but a little more liquorice-ey

The haul

After a lunch on the return ferry we finally made it to Lalandia.

The kids were actually eager despite what this shows

On our way

Outside the aquadome - the big waterslides

The water play area (splash zone in the aquadome). It had three waterslides, a tipping bucket and lots of spraying water

The bucket tips

 Lalandia aquadome had a variety of depth pools, mostly indoors but there was an outdoor kids and mid-depth pool and a spa.  There was a sauna and  a wave pool and then the 3 big waterslides.  

The first was the Tornado which was a four person slide on a big raft.  It starts a little slow then drops almost vertically and thin goes up and down the sides of a big funnel (the round section outside the aquadome in the earlier photo.)

The tornado funnel (with the pipeline - the green tube slide)

The pipeline is the tube waterslide in the earlier outside photo. It is a raft ride for two people and goes very fast around a winding path.

The final one is the Wild River which is essentially a white water rapids ride that has uncontrolled entry so can get a bit crowded and a little dangerous.  There is a pool part way down and you can be sucked into that if you don't stay to the side. Once when I went with Tomas on my lap he got sucked into the pool while I got pushed down the rest of the slide.  He was able to stand and waited for me to come back up and catch him on the way down.

The pool in Wild River

On the way out we stopped to eat monkey brain icecreams (sorbet for the boys):

I think Tom may be having brain freeze

Monkey brains - just like the scene from Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom..

That went fast...

The hall inside the Lalandia complex

We ended up spending most of Friday evening at the aquadome.  Saturday we started with a game of bowling and then headed back into the pools until late.

We had access to the pools on Sunday, but Kris' back was very sore (she ended up on crutches for a week) possibly from the waterslides, so we decided to head home.

I'll end this with some pics of the bowling game:

Bowling

Those pins never knew what hit them - or failed too when the ball went in the gutter

So somehow we managed to block the first aisle - here's Cam on the new aisle

3 down for Cameron

The ramp made things a bit easier

I'm not sure if that's a recovery or a dance move..

Final scores - I was Warsheep (Warsh) and Kris was Keahi

Somehow there ended up with two balls on the aisle - Tom had bowled early and his hit the stopper and got stuck in the gutter.  Later Kris hit the ball and jumped hers into the other gutter - sending them both through..

So we have no idea how the first aisle got blocked...