Want a day trip that will cost and arm and a leg? Well this is one certainly worth doing. Definitely not in a tight backpackers budget I’m afraid, but still the cheapest out of all the theme parks in this area. We paid $60 each for entry for the whole day and then shared a locker at $10 for the whole day – this did allow re-entry to your locker as many times as you liked, but there was no re-entry to the park if you wanted to pop out to your car! We didn’t have a car so this didn’t matter but we did pay a steep $7 each way on the bus.
This is a water park with something for everyone – they had areas for kids, one which was basically a huge climbing frame with water guns, tipping buckets and everything thing else kids find fun. I was very disappointed to find this area was only for 10 and unders, as I would have loved to play on it! But still this was a plus for any family who wanted to get away from the older guests at the park. The wave pool was another great feature for everyone, with the waves switched on every 10 minutes or so – the only let down was the water wasn’t too warm.
There were a lot of rides with tubes, all which needed two people or more. This was not a place where you wanted to go alone or you wouldn’t be able to ride on many rides. Some of the tube rides were my favourite! The Tornado and Kamikaze were two that really stand out – these you rode down a vertical drop and then up the other side, carrying on like this until the momentum dies. The black hole was maybe my favourite with a two rider tube and a pitch black tunnel that looked like it had flashing lights for half of the ride – this one was also very warm which was welcoming on such a windy day. All these tube rides and the others had height limits between 100cm and 140cm.
There were then several rides which were without tubes: the green river rapids were fun and had the smallest high restriction. Then the jet streamers were more of a ‘hardcore’ ride with a vertical drop to the bottom – these vertical drop rides without a tube scare me, I like to have something to hold on to! They also had a rollercoaster ride Wave-rider, which literally was like riding a huge wave and was much scarier than it looked.
There were several places to buy food from but we decided to take a picnic with us to try and save a little bit of money – we found plenty of places to sit and eat a picnic but the big problem was the park had no water fountains! Around the wave pool was a nice sunbed area which seemed to be a sun trap and one part of the park that was not too windy the day we went. Due to the weather not being perfect and the summer not quite having begun yet, the park was fairly empty, some doubles of rides closed and little to no queues!
And last but not least the scariest ride of the day was Aqua Loop. Wearing a float strapped to your back, you stand in a pod at the top of a vertical slide, count 3, 2, 1 (except the guy did our count down twice – as if I was not scared enough) then the floor of your pod drops from beneath your feet and you are sent flying from the top of the ride around a loop until you hit the water at the end of the ride no less than 10 seconds before it started. It is over in a flash and you never see anything from the sheer amount of water riding with you in the tube to make sure you make it around the loop. Mental but so glad I actually got the guts up to do the ride!
Overall we had a great day at the park, partly because you don’t get water parks as large and crazy in the UK and partly because the weather was a little crummy and there were little to no queues. It was a lot of money and if you really are on a budget I wouldn’t recommend going, but if you can afford it, it really is worth spending a day there. It’s a great laugh and has something for all kinds of people.
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