Once the boys return to school after the long Summer break, we often take ourselves away in September, to help us recover from the mayhem 😳. My hubby also celebrates his birthday in September and is frequently teased that he’s never home to celebrate with the family. As I’m one of the teasers, this year,  he offered to take me away for a long weekend to celebrate my birthday. 🥰

There was no need, but being a February baby I was open to persuasion, that a short break away could help to blow away the Winter blues 🥶.  I’m not sure where, but he’d discovered a company called Potters Resorts and a brochure was on route 👍

On it’s arrival, we perused its contents, and invited the Besties to peruse too. It gave the impression of being like a cruise on dry land. Lots of activities, an indoor pool, shows and all inclusive food and drink. What’s not to like? And with one of the resorts being exclusively for adults, we opted for a weekend break at Five Lakes in Essex.

The beauty of a cruise on land is we could pack as much as we could fit in the car 🤣, so we had an assortment of casual and “posh” outfits, dry weather and wet weather gear and possibly enough shoes for a month 😬. But hey it was safely stowed in the boot and we were on our way 🚘.

Well, first impressions were very good. The hotel had a huge, elegant foyer, with comfy seating alongside a sparkling piano. The reception staff were very welcoming and efficient. Within minutes of our arrival we had information packs, complete with wrist bands ( you’ve got to love an all inclusive wrist band 🥰) in hand and had been directed to one of the restaurants for lunch 😋

Our rooms and all inclusive package weren’t available until 3pm, so we took a stroll around to check out the facilities and discover where all the action would be happening. Inevitably we found ourselves in the Garden Bar, with glasses in hand as we checked out the entertainment schedule.

First on offer was puffin throwing!! For all my nature loving readers, I assure you they were toy puffins not the real deal. Each participant had 4 attempts, needing to toss the said puffins towards a goal net which had four holes in. Each hole scoring different points. First shot throwing with your dominant hand,  second with your non dominant hand,  third with your back turned to the target and finally a random shot of your choice. The hubby and the Bestie did extremely well, with the hubby coming joint 2nd and the Bestie winning with 150 points. She was very proud of her winning pin badge. We also entered the Treasure Trail, finding clues around the bar, trying not to alert our fellow guests to where we’d spotted the clues, and then having to unscramble the resulting letter answers to make a new word. From the inevitable multitude of correct entries a winner was randomly chosen. The team drawn out first had left the room and forfeited their prize. 2nd team drawn was US and we became the proud recipients of another winning pin.

We couldn’t take anymore excitement, so took a wander to explore the sports hall. What a great set up, activities for all ages and abilities, from darts, to table tennis, to snooker and pool. We had a silly session, rolling marbles and attempting to bounce ping pong balls into fish bowls and then onto a target. We tried our hand at curling and more tossing, this time of bean bags, before moving onto the Shuffleboard, which was harder than it looked, but such good fun. Exhausted by the activities, we joined a quiz back at the Garden Party, before finding our rooms.

Equally impressed by the space and quality, we had been allocated rooms with an adjoining door! Made life easier when we were getting sorted to go out and about rather than loitering in corridors for each other.

 

But the night was still young, we had a three course evening meal and a “Born in the USA” show to enjoy yet!

With our preset table, avoiding the need to queue, we could stroll into the restaurant and get seated immediately. Wine and Prosecco was free flowing and served at the table, but we could have anything else by just asking at the bar, which conveniently for us was a few steps away from our designated table. The food was delicious, with a variety of choices each day, some dishes delivered by our waitress and some self service at the hot buffet.

Overloaded with food and possibly one or two glasses of wine we headed to the large theatre for the evenings entertainment. Now we have been fortunate enough to enjoy a variety of West End theatre shows together with Cruise spectaculars and I wasn’t expecting tonight’s show to match the quality, but WOW we were in awe of the voices, the costumes, the professionalism and the set. Combined with the drinks service to our table, it was a perfect way to spend an evening.

With half an hour before the midnight snack bar was open, there was time put put our feet up and partake of a nice cup of coffee ☕️

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Day 2:- Having perused the activity programme and highlighted our options, today was going to be a busy day!

♦️Wacky Races – which turned out to be whizzing  remote controlled cars around a small course in the garden.

♦️Laser Clay Shooting – Exactly what it said on the tin

♦️A wander around the gardens – After the recent heavy rains everywhere was a bit boggy, but we saw the pétanque, archery, golf, ninja plunger and welly wanging areas.

♦️Scattagories – A weird but fun word game alongside the first drink of the day 🍻

♦️Chillout – I had a little relaxation listening to some music whilst the rest of the gang got a bit active

♦️Archery – A bit of indoor arrows, attempting to knock balls off cones. The Besties came back victorious, having both secured medals. Smug faces as the hubby returned empty handed 🥲

♦️Play your cards right – Being of a certain age, we remember the TV game of our youth. The entertainment team were hilarious and made the simple game a riot

♦️Bingo – We headed to the theatre, eyes down hoping to win the main prize.

Having failed to clinch the Bingo prize, we decided to head back to our rooms to chill, before glamming up ready for another party evening

Most of the theatre team had a night of rest this evening and we were entertained by an outside group, The Soul Brothers. A fantastic trio, with a great mix of Soul and Motown music. The sort of tunes you used to sing along to with a hairbrush as your mic 🎤 in your bedroom. . . . .  Oh yes you did 🤣. A lot of the guests in the front row seats were up on the dance floor, reliving their youth.

Another fabulous evening, but after a busy day, we only stayed at the after party for a short while, heading out for a hot chocolate before bed

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Day 3:-

Our final day was set to be another day full of activities and laughter.

After refuelling to build our energy at breakfast, we were off to eliminate aliens 👾 👽, of the virtual reality kind. It was so funny sitting waiting for our turns, watching our fellow guests shooting the invaders. One lady, bless her, was attempting to catch them in her hands. She didn’t quite understand the mission 🤣. I’ve only tried virtual reality a few times and I have to confess I find it quite a weird, queasy, sensation, but with a little unease, I took my turn. However, this being mixed reality, I have to admit it was a better experience. With the headset on, you could still see everything going on in the room, together with the landing of a virtual space ship and aliens attacking you from all sides. Fortunately they couldn’t run too fast and I managed to exterminate quite a few and much to his hidden disgust, beat the hubby by 20 points, scoring 942 against his 922 💪. Overall it was a team Wallis victory over the Besties.

With the challenge on, next stop was an interactive quiz back in the bar. It was very clever, with multiple choice answers to each question being flashed on the screen, we placed our answer via our little remote controls. Some easier than others, but if we didn’t know we at least had a one in four chance of getting it correct. Lots of groans as the correct answers were announced, however Team Wallis came in bronze medal position 👍

Time for a celebratory drink, before our next adventure on the indoor bowls green. (It was actually a blue carpet but I don’t think you call it a blue 🤷‍♀️). Anyway having never played before this was likely to be a riot. It took a few ends to get used to the weight and direction of the balls as we watched them trundle on to our neighbours pitch 😬. However they were equally as good and shared their balls with us as well 🤣. Initially the hubby and I were ahead of the game, until the Bestie decided to distract our concentration. She took a step back, her foot going down into the edge gully, did a back flip over the little wall, then appeared to perform a triple salchow down the step, landing on her back and bumping her head. She was unhurt, apart from a slight bump, which was fortunate as the rest of us were in a heap, crying with laughter 😂 attempting not to actually pee our pants 😳. Once we had helped her to her feet and brushed her down, we resumed the game. Her hubby obviously trying to repair her honour, played a blinding next few ends and wiped the floor with us 👏👏. An emphatic Team Bestie victory, but it was hilarious fun.

We felt a short break for a spot of lunch and a nice glass of wine was in order to regain our composure and give anyone who needed to change their pants a chance to do so (only kidding!)

Next we were off to the races 🏇🏇. An interactive, screen based, horse racing meet. With our little multi choice remotes we were once again choosing our favourite from a list of silly named horses and locking our choice in before the race began. The entertainer had us all then shaking our remotes assuring us it would make our chosen horse go faster. We were a little suspicious, but along with 90% of our fellow guests, we succumbed to the ruse. None of us chose very wisely and all came way down the list, but it made for an energetic, enjoyable half hour.

The Besties weren’t done with virtual reality and whilst I enjoyed a nice hot chocolate listening to a bit of jazz, they set off to speed their way along a twisting, turning and looping roller coaster 🤮. Then as they tried to settle their stomachs, we grabbed our tickets and set off to try our luck once again in the bingo hall. There weren’t so many of us today, so the prize money wasn’t as high as the previous day. However the hubby was very excited as he was the first to grab a line on one of the games and bagged himself £36 👍 He would have preferred to get the full house and the £400 prize, but hey at least he could call himself a winner 🏆

Buzzing from his win, we had a celebratory drink, and us girlies had a second, whilst the boys had a game of snooker, or maybe it was pool ? All I know it was a game with a stick used to poke balls across a table and hopefully pop one into a net at one of the corners 🤷‍♀️

We’d had a fun filled busy day, but the finale was yet to come. After a spruce up, we made our way to dinner. Being a Sunday there was a full roast on offer, of which the hubby partook. He was never going to stay awake through the show 😴. We’d need to find some comfy seats.

The theatre was bursting at the seems. It appeared everyone had come to party their last evening away.  The comfy seats had been taken and we were left with some bar stools at the back. Once I’d been given a leg up, I was going to be there to stay 😂 but we had a perfect view.

The comedian, who was part of the in house entertainment team, certainly knew his audience. He soon penetrated those funny bones and had the auditorium filled with laughter as he chatted about bygone days. I’m not sure the young waiting staff understood what we found so funny, but most of the audience had jaw ache by the time he left the stage.

 

The main show was titled “Simply the Best”, so we were expecting a tribute to Tina Turner. But as the theatre team exploded onto the stage, it transpired we were going to be treated to some fabulous songs from some of the best stage shows and films 👏👏👏. From the Jersey Boys, to 007 theme tunes, to Les Miserable, which was so powerful it moved me to tears 😮. There was no movement of scenery, the stage was transformed for each different set, using the projection of light and animation. So so clever and so mesmerising it was an amazing, colourful attack on the senses.

We then toured the UK, 🇬🇧 and familiar songs from our wonderful four home nations resonated around the theatre. There was amazing Irish dancing, powerful songs from the valleys of Wales and the highlands of Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, the young men in their kilts being a little distracting 😂. Then as we arrived in England to the magnificent “We’ll meet Again” the eyes were once again welling up.

The voices, the choice of songs, the sets, the professionalism were perfect. Such a fabulous show, worthy of any West End Stage.

With the stage now empty, the party continued for those who still had some energy left, at the silent disco. Bit weird, but very funny if you take your headsets off and listen to everyone singing along to different songs 🤣 But at the midnight hour it was time to retire to our beds.

Wow, what a wonderful way to spend a Wintery weekend. So many activities to try, or not, as the mood takes you. Although we were busy, we sampled only a small amount of what was on offer. The food was delicious and plentiful, the drinks flowed freely, with the entertainment team holding it all together. 

Probably the highlights, for me at least, were the quality of the evening shows. A great find and I’m sure we will return again in the future.