Family thrills galore at this all-singing Italian resort
WERE Indiana Jones finally to retire and decide to go into the hotel business, this is surely the kind of joint he’d open. It’s a brand new ‘adventure’ hotel with four types of themed rooms that will have your children squealing with delight.
It helps that we’re only a couple of miles from glorious Lake Garda in northern Italy, about two hours’ drive from Milan.
The Gardaland Adventure Hotel, admittedly, has a view of the car park at the front, but a lovely vista over vineyards behind. It’s an annexe to the Gardaland Hotel, whose swimming pools it shares. But the extraordinary decor makes it feel completely different.
First, there’s the Wild West-themed rooms, just like jail cells straight out of Blazing Saddles. The Arctic rooms make you shiver as you walk through an igloostyle entrance; the Arabian-themed rooms have carved Arabic windows and a jolly mural of Aladdin’s genie. The fourth type are the Jungle rooms and this is where our son Mike, 12, and nine-year-old Alice want to stay. In fact, they insist on it.
The room looks like an overgrown Mayan temple, with a 6ft head of a tribal god perched above the main bed.
There is a huge Captain Nemo ‘steam punk’ submarine out at the front of the building, through which you walk to get to reception, where Indiana Jonesstyle music blares so loud you have to raise your voice.
The noise is grating; not that the children mind one bit.
They just can’t wait for breakfast and dinner, served in a long dining room that replicates an ancient Egyptian temple.
Just when we think it can’t get any more kitsch, we discover the nightly shows where Cleopatra appears among diners with her dancing girls and struts her stuff to more blaring music.
Alice loves it, and is bouncing up and down with excitement.
BuT rest assured, this is a holiday you can split into Parent Days and Kid Days. The hotel is a short hop from Lake Garda and its dazzling lakeside towns. Verona is half an hour to the east, and we enjoy one night there having dinner outside the Roman amphitheatre.
Whenever the children groan about too much culture and not enough gelato, we cajole them with the ace up our sleeve: the Gardaland theme park, which is the biggest in Italy.
There’s a short, free bus service from the Adventure Hotel, and then you find yourself plunged into a vast park packed with sights, noise and action.
The sheer size and terrifying drops of the biggest rollercoasters have me quivering. But there’s something for everyone — and Mike and Alice make a beeline for the new Kung Fu Panda ride, which whooshes us up and around in spinning cars.
One delightful surprise is a kind of huge flying saucer which raises slowly on a metal arm about 150ft in the air, giving you glorious views across the lake.
We find that a happy medium is to spend long afternoons at the hotel pool, which is a lagoonstyle affair with lots of sunbeds on a wide lawn.
Lazy days there are punctuated by lunch at the poolside bar (about £40 for a family of four), and a doze in the sunshine — as you gird your loins for the curse of another Cleo show right in the middle of dinner.