Summer vacation: Movie Park, Bottorp, Germany

From Denmark, we drove to Germany.  It was so HOT in Germany, I think the temperature was around 28 to 29 degrees when we were there!  Once we passed the border and drove into Germany, we needed to fill up the car with gas, so we drove into a gas station, filled up the car and went to pay.  Hubby wanted to go to the toilet.  The old guy at the cashier told him, 12 cents (Euro).  Hubby said that he doesn't have Euro, and asked the old guy if could he charged 12 cents more on the receipt and gave him the coins instead. The old guy couldn't speak English and started ranting about in German.  Another young guy next to him started talking to him and told him that it could be done. (Hubby knows some German.... whatever that was left over from his school days...) Then the old guy turned to hubby and said "Ok. Ok." but went ahead and just charged us for the gas! No coins!  We asked him about it and he continued mumbling in German! The young one who obviously knew English won't step in to help.  Hubby found the whole situation so absurd he started walking away, laughing.  I got really angry with the poor service and asked quite loudly about 10 steps away from the cashier,"No coin? No toilet? So we can't go to the toilet because nobody speaks English?! Nobody heard of customer service in this place?!" Directing my questions at both old and young men at the cashier.  The young guy refused to look up and the old man started saying something and waving his hand like sweeping away a fly!  My first impression of the Germans and it was a very bad one!

We continued driving for awhile and decided to stop and eat at MacDonald's at Hamburg.  As my gastric was acting up, hubby wanted to buy milk for me.  So he asked to change the coke that came with the meal to milk instead.  The counter guy told him that it wasn't possible, we could only buy milk if we order Happy Meal!!!! What's up with that Germany?! For such a big so-called first world country, customer service doesn't seems to exist!!!!

Ok, enough complaints.  Here comes pictures!

We stayed at the Chillten Hotel which is a clean and relatively new hotel with very friendly staff.  Only down side is that they don't have air-conditions or fans in their hotel rooms and it was freaking hot!

The Movie Park was about 15 to 20 minutes drive away from the hotel.  It looked quite old on the outside.

But inside was quite alright, kind of like Universal Studio.

With many shops to tempt the weak minded like me.....

Many familiar faces especially if you have Nickelodeon channel! Dora the Explorer! Avatar - The Air Bender! (I think....)

Cool guys under the hot sun!

Angel looking forlorn.... maybe wondering if anybody is gonna build a One Direction theme park someday? 

Up and coming star in Formula 1.

Chris couldn't figure out the situation - why would Spongebob and Patrick want to take a picture with him???

Big kids going on a dizzy ride...

Spin, spin, spin....  Both Angel and I felt sick after this ride!

Yup, the attack of funny-faced Ivan again!

So funny!

So good!

So cute!

Such a baby!

Chris was not in some pictures coz he always had some other stuff to do or in this case, the car was too hot to the touch! =.="

Chris,"Can't believe my folks are taking picture again! What's up with them?"

Weeee! Free as a bird!

Cutest mummies I have ever seen!

Saw this guy with this super cool long dreadlocks when we were leaving! 

Both the hotel and the Movie Park are located in a city calls Bottorp.  The city feels old, dirty and relatively dead.  It used to be a vibrant mining town many many years ago but now it feels like the city is slowly dying.  People living there have a guarded look when they were looking at us.  We did feel like we were gonna get mugged anytime while we were walking on the streets.

Germany doesn't leave a good impression on me.  I can get quite worked up when it comes to poor customer service and this country is really lacking.  Even in the theme park, there were staff who couldn't speak English with poor customer service.  Not being able to speak English is not a big problem but poor customer service is.

I would probably change my view of Germany in future (if someone managed to convince me to visit again) but now... *tsk tsk tsk* *shaking head*