Monday, August 22, 2011

Babyland Parc! Amusement park without all the consumerism.


Sabine was invited to a birthday get-together of the soon two year old friend, Tjark at a unique destination.  It was a beautiful day for sure, but Sabine was unfortunately under the weather.  She took an extra long nap that day so we arrived later than we planned, leaving us with about an hour and a half to enjoy "Babyland Parc".  Here is  the link to their terrible (typically French) website: ParcBabyland

As always to see the picture BIGGER, click on it.



Babyland is a unique concept though, really.  It is a large plot of land with a lot of trees and animal sculptures, filled with various rides for the younger set.  The ages permitted are 0-12.  It was also unusual for two other reasons as well.

First it cost double the entry price for the child.  Eight euros per kid and a mere four for the adult, clever huh?

Second, there didn't seem to be anyone working there really.  The rides were started by the parents.  Talk about a grassroots style amusement park.  No characters walking around, no plastic crap to buy, no overpriced food and drinks.  Trees, rides, benches and tons of little people.  All the kids would get in their animal, car, boat or chair of choice and a parent standing nearby would start the ride.  I particularly liked this car:



It had a really positive, fun vibe - except for Sabine who although wasn't sick enough to stay home also wasn't her most expressive self either:

But she did make the most of her laid back state:



It was really cool though that Sabine could just go on as many merry-go-rounds as she wanted and pretty much have autonomy to choose where to go and what to do.  Of course, it does require some negotiation:

Hicham and Sabine pointing in different directions.


She looks like such a big girl here!  How is this already happening?  19 months old going on four!



So, we went to Ikea a couple of weeks ago to return something and Sabine found a kid's ride there was powered by pushing a button.  She seemed sure that she was single-handedly powering any and all of the rides there by pushing any buttons (or round things that looked like buttons).  When the rides stopped, she would furiously push the button repeatedly like the ones in Ikea.

Button pusher (like in Lost)

The seat was pretty little for our two adult butts .... two close for comfort, thus the expressions.

Me and my girl going round.

One fun day at Babyland Parc! 

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