Job Tips for Campsite Courers 12 : That's Entertainment!

Click on the link below for Part 1 of the series.

Job Tips for Campsite Couriers 12 : That's Entertainment!

It's not all work you know and you need to enjoy yourself in your summer season abroad.

If you work hard and do the job right during Montage then that makes things easier during the season.

You should find that you'll hardly need to work a whole day.

So have as much fun as you can and make the most of what the resort and the country has to offer.

That can be onsite or offsite.

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Before the great Dutch invasion and 'Little Amsterdam', we had so many Irish guests in late June and early July that it was like 'Little Dublin' in the campsite and I felt like renaming one of our areas as 'O'Connell Street' for the duration.

But as I said the Irish are great folk to have around when they're on holiday, they like to party and they like to have fun. One night two young kids even went up and sang at the karaoke.

A lot of the singing was pretty dire, and that's just the presenter I'm talking about. A nice guy but he did tend to mumble the English songs before launching into a clear chorus.

"Dum dee dum da da dum dum da dee da da dee dee dum da dee.....we are the Sul-taaaaaans of Swing!!"

Tip: Be prepared for complaints about the campsite entertainment.

I thought he also resembled 'Penfold' who was the sidekick of 'Danger Mouse' in the famous cartoon. But the Irish weren't impressed by his singing:

"Stevie! We've 'ad a great holiday but I tell ya, the entertainment's shoite!!"

"Yeah I hear what you're saying" I replied.

"Ohhhh! we know it ain't yer fault"

"No, we don't have anything to do with it" I said,

"But ye get better singing from the feckin pizzaman"

That was absolutely true as the guy who made the pizzas in the campsite restaurant was a great chanter. At the end of the night he would go up and sing a song or two and bring the house down.

The Karaoke presenter would join in on the keyboards with great gusto. But too much gusto apparently as I heard he got a bit carried away one night and stripped down to his underwear on stage which some parents thought was taking things a bit too far.

"Stevie?" said the big Irishman approaching me next morning,

"Hi there!" I said,

"Hello, Can I 'ave a word" he asked,

"Sure!"

"It's about yer man last night at the karaoke" he explained,

"Yeah?"

"Aye, him on the piano"

"Oh him?"

"Aye, Penfold" he said, "Stripped down to his gips"

I couldn't help a wry smile as I obviously wasn't the only fan of the 'Danger Mouse' series.

Fair enough that parents have sensibilities about such things when it comes to their kids. But then some allowed their youngsters to walk around the campsite wearing Michael Jackson t-shirts.

Tip: Let your hair down and enjoy yourself.

Talking of that Motown kind of scene, one night we had a 15-piece Soul group performing with fantastic renditions of ABBA, Diana Ross, James Brown etc. They were a great band and probably too good for a small campsite. But they went down well;

"Encore! Encore!" went the crowd,

"What d'ya wanna hear?" cried the lead singer,

"I'd like 'Sex Machine'!" a woman asked,

"I show ya later honey"

Tip: Seek out the bargains at the local attractions

Talking of Michael Jackson we went to the local theme park one night. We were told that the park usually drop off free tickets at the campsite. We never saw them appearing but I reckon the office staff grabbed them for themselves.

Strangely there were no maps at the entrance of the Theme Park and we had to walk about quarter of a mile to get one, obviously without the aid of a map. The booth was just past an old Wild West town which had a tarmac road right through it which kind of spoiled the illusion a bit.

Tip: The safety harness might not need to click into place.

After uplifting a couple of maps we went on a roller-coaster which seemed to last about 3.2 seconds but was a thrill ride anyway. My only worry was that the harness didn't go 'Click!!" when I pulled it down. "Isn't it supposed to click into place?" I thought, "Isn't it? This can't be right, is it secure?"

"Have I pushed it down far enough? It's coming off? I know it! It doesn't feel tight enough. It'll bounce back up once we pick up speed! Why doesn't it click into place? I want to hear it locking! Metal on metal!"

I need that reassuring sound. I need to know that I'm not going to be launched off at the fastest point and thrown halfway across the lake!!

Thankfully the restraint held firm and after that we went onto a revolving, pendulum-type thingy machine that held about 30 people and also jolted you back and forth for good measure.

The harness on this one didn't go 'Click!' either and this monstrosity would turn us all upside down in a few seconds.

"Why didn't it go "Click!!", why didn't it click and fasten me in? But it's actually too tight as well!"

"It's squashing my stomach! If it doesn't spring out and drop me 40 feet to my death then it's going to cut me in half until I turn purple and chuck up my innards. Then I'll catch the mess as we spin back down."

Tip: Queues can be huge at the theme parks so make the most of it.

I really enjoyed myself at the park although the queues were a bit longer than expected-

We were wating for around 20 minutes each time so that ate into our evening.

I suppose if you enjoy queuing then Themeparks are perfect for you.

The best queue was undoubtedly the water ride as it snaked around a fenced corrider under a thatched roof.

Full of gorgeous dark and dusky Italian girls in the late evening sunset and a few blonde-haired Dutch lassies too.

The fastest queue though was at the revolving, pendulum type thingy simply because it took about 30 victims at a time. So it kept up a fairly fast pace.

The anticipation built up as the electronic readout counted down the numbers boarding and you sweated in trepidation that you might miss out and have to wait for the next spin. We stared at that readout and as the numbers went down it would read;

'16', '15', '14', '13'......

"Oh no!!" you'd think, "There's five of us, we'll never make it!! We'll never make it!!!

Then into single figures,

'10' '9', '8'....

"Skip the queue! Hurry up! Hurry up! Jump in front of those kids, throw them aside!!"

But then we're through, we just made it. Wow! The excitement never ends. What a great queue. What a buzz. I want to go back and wait again. I'm an adrenalin junkie.

In fact, stuff the ride, just let me stand in line and stare at that scoreboard, jostle for position and enjoy the suspense.

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