Tropical Islands. In Germany.

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Wednesday, we went tropical. Or maybe we should say Tropical, as in Tropical Islands. Something of a cross between Club Med, an enclosed stadium, and your typical suburban mall, Tropical Islands boasts the world’s largest indoor rainforest and the highest water slide in Germany. It also has a “spa,” which translates into English as “naked sauna” and to Russian (I think) as something about “nudystlow,” or “place for the nudies.” Not surprisingly, TI also appears to have the world’s highest prices for a mall-quality burger and fries and the most-understaffed ice cream bar. Despite this particular annoyance we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. And no fear of sunburn!

We found ourselves at TI thanks to a lovely (and much appreciated!) gift from some parents in my class. As we weren’t going anywhere in this dreary February vacation, and we had gift certificates that covered the entrance fee (which isn’t unreasonable), we decided to give it a shot. Sadly, the beach tents and hotel rooms were all fully booked for the whole month, so despite assurances from the folks on the phone that it would be OK if we just wanted to sleep on the beach, we decided to just go for the day.

Up and out early (for us), on the train by 9, arriving at TI via a shuttle bus ride through the abandoned air base where it’s situated (ah, capitalism!). Having fought our way through the crowds, we are assigned lockers, each of which is opened magnetically by a numbered wristband. This is genius. There is no need for money at TI (see the ClubMed bit here?) because all you need is your wristband. Just wave it at the register, or the entrance to the water slide, or whatever, and the cost is added to your bill. The problem, of course, is familiar to those from Boston—kind of a Charlie and the MTA issue. Whatever you spend, you have to pay to get out. We all wondered what would happen if you didn’t have the money.

Anyway, the first sign that things were different was the woman changing into her swimsuit right there next to me in the locker area. Not like the good ol’ USA where you could get arrested for something like that. We all managed to get changed (some of us in changing rooms, some not) and headed out to the beach.
The beach turned out to be about 5 yards wide, facing the “sea,” a giant 1.5-meter deep swimming pool faced on the other side by a giant blue wall painted to look like the sky. If you’re thinking “The Truman Show,” you’ve got it about right. People are packed into every available millimeter, and we had to shoehorn ourselves into a spot. It’s not really summer-hot in there, and it definitely isn’t sunny, but it was nice enough to go swimming. Lifeguards (and space) seemed to be in short supply, so there wasn’t much in the way of relaxing on the beach for the grownups.

After an overpriced lunch, we swam some more and then headed to the spa area to try to relax and warm up. Our children demonstrated their deep-set sheepiness and baa’ed their way after Mommy despite assurances that they didn’t HAVE to go to the spa. Well, anyway, it really was for the nudies. They even had an attendant come over to the whirlpool and tell those cowards who tried to sneak in with their suits (not us!) that they had to get out and take them off. We saw a lot of different comfort levels with this concept…some folks kept a towel wrapped around them while they stripped down, looking around nervously, some just couldn’t bring themselves to do it at all, and others just strolled about in their nothingness. It didn’t take long for the kids to recognize that although they were mostly OK with the naked thing (after all, we’re not so modest at our house), they didn’t really like sitting around in a REALLY hot room doing nothing. So it didn’t end up being all that relaxing as we kept having to get up and go back out. I never did try the room which was listed at 85-90° C (about 190 F) and 5% humidity. Now THAT’S hot.

We waited in an excruciatingly long line for excruciatingly mediocre ice cream, then split up for mini-golf and a trip to the lagoon, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Two water slides in the dark, a huge waterfall, kid-friendly depth, and warm water made it a great place to play. Should have come here first! Then we chose play time over another excruciatingly overpriced food experience and headed to the WATERSLIDES. No joke here. The red one was cool, big enough to ride with inner tubes. The yellow was high, lots of twists and turns, fast and much fun. The blue slide…a different kettle of fish all together. Straight. High. Steep. Very narrow and closed, so you can’t sit up. Once you’re in, there’s just about time to say “Oh my God, this is too stee—“ before you’re whipping around the corner, water shooting up your nose, and into the tank at the bottom. Worth doing once; maybe the second time, when you know what it is, it’s more fun, but none of us were interested after one trip down.

By the time we finished on the slides it was 7:00 and we were running out of steam. We watched a bit of the “show,” (clearly still in the rehearsal stages, though there were some cool acrobatics) then packed up and headed out. Stood in the changing area with daughter no. 1 in full winter dress while a woman at the other end walked about in her bikini. Strange juxtaposition. Missed the shuttle bus we wanted, and had to wait 45 minutes for the next one.

The bus was late. We knew the train wouldn’t be (it IS Germany, after all). The driver seemed in no hurry…stopping to chat with his pals, taking his time, casually meandering through the parking lot…it wasn’t ONLY us uptight Americans who wanted to grab and shake him. The next train, after all, wasn’t leaving for TWO HOURS. After 15 agonizing minutes of cruising back down the deserted taxiways, past abandoned hangars, and out onto the local roads, we arrived in time to send the bus full of people sprinting through the tunnel to the Berlin side of the tracks. We all made it with at least two minutes to spare…and so, home.