Trip date 11th June 2010
The Alton towers waterpark is one of the main attractions in Alton towers itself. It is a standalone attraction located right inside the splash landings hotel. The hotel is one complimentary to the water park and is one of the 2 hotels which is owned and serves the Alton parks directly.
Both the splash landing and Alton towers hotel were all fully booked for the summer, forcing us to search for nearby hotels around the area. The Alton staff were very helpful in suggesting nearby hotels in the area (also as recommended on their website), explaining that demand is usually exceptional in the summer, as the hotels themselves only have very few rooms, it’s a bummer as all their hotel rooms are individually themed as well, the rooms themselves are an attraction! Nonetheless we found a rather nice travel lodge inn not too far away, but with no direct buses serving the region, we are stuck with calling a cab to and fro from the park itself using the contact we had from yesterday’s trip from Alton. We checked out the morning on our last day and brought all our bags over to the splash landing hotel itself. Upon arrival, we were greeted by an iconic fountain at the front of the hotel.
The fountain is located where the free guests car parks are also located. We arrived early and the park’s not opened yet, so we hung around the area checking out the sights and theming around. A short board walk links the Alton towers hotel to the splash landings, passing through the water park itself. The splash landings hotel is one of the two hotels (the other being the Alton towers hotel itself) serving Alton guest for their trips. The setting of the splash landing hotel is synonymous with every other theme park hotel, often with very heavy setting to go with the theme of the attraction itself. The hotels are extensively landscaped with a medieval sci-fi look for the Alton towers hotel (decked with jet powered airships and rather steam-pink like contraptions around) and a Caribbean tropical hut style for the splash landings hotel, complete with boogie truck and surfboards.
The park itself is rather small in size, but is built on multi-leveled piers which uses vertical space to house more attractions within the park area itself. The whole place is heated and shielded from the elements allowing the park to operate even in the winter, this at the same time being a limiting factor for the park size.
There are 2 parts to the theme park, the indoor side as mention as well an outdoor slide pool area. The indoor section houses many wading pools and an artificial beach known as the Lagoona bay. There are tanner benches by the mini bay despite the fact that you can’t get any significant sun rays from the shielded roof, allowing only ambient light in to natural light the place up.
The flash flood outdoor flume adventure is essentially a 3 tier heated outdoor pool consisting of a linking slide system where users get to ride only after climbing and accessing the start point near the top levels of the indoor park. Despite it being summer, the outdoors are still relatively cold and the slide is only accessible only after sometime the park’s been opened (about 12 noon where the day is relatively warmer) all the staff members and lifeguards are decked in thick jackets outdoor, reaffirming the coldness of the outdoor. Good thing for the water being heated. The rising mist of certain sections of the pool mimics the look of a traditional Japanese hot spring.
The upper part of the park are home to the tube slides, being the main attractions of the park itself. As short 3 floor climb up with your tube will bring you to the launching point of the slides. There 3 tube tunnels here in total, namely the Master blaster and the Rush ‘n’ Rampage. Strangely only small children are allowed to use the large double tubes and not adults (restricted only to the single ring donut) on the master blaster don’t see why is this so as almost all other water parks I’ve been too uses the same kinds of double tubes for couples too. Traffic on the slides are regulated by a staff member and motion sensor red/green traffic lights. The ride has a photo point and even a giant connect 4 at the rubber ring collection point to keep patrons occupied while waiting for the next tube to arrive.
The intermediate floors of the park houses several bridging walkways serving to link all the various attractions together. All the walkways including the stairs are all cladded in a rough painted concrete like texture, which serves the rocky sandy setting of the park as well as a rather goo non-slip surface in the park too. Many of the play areas along this walkway feature water canons which you can use to douse unsuspecting people in the lagoon bay below. There is a jacuzzi called the volcano springs on the level as well. Though, not all the jets are working, but that provided some really amusing (not to mention priceless) underwater portraits!
Of course, no water park is complete without a pygmy water works playground, this is linked from the paradise plumbers theming which feature a normal playground sprouting water in all areas. Like with every visit to a waterworks playground, boys will be boys, it’s all mind chasing and catching each other around the wacky playground. There are many incentives to get onto the high grounds first, given the arsenal of water canons and fill-er-up buckets which you can topple over at the top, splashing it’s full load on unsuspecting guests before. Even the kids around the playground got the hang of the traps, proving a fair share of resistance whenever we try to claim the “fort” from them. We had our own share of awesome water-based warfare with the kids and adults on the playground. Did I mention there is a doomsday bucket above the playground which will set off it’s ton load of water on everybody below every 15 minutes or so?
The lower floors of the park feature a small deep wave pool as well as a small continuous lazy river. The river will see you through several cavernous areas with splashing water and waterfalls lined along the course. We found the river lacking in size and length, it might be better if the lazy river were to circle the whole circumference of the park. Nonetheless it proved be quite a small ring suitable for mad tube paddle races, often seeing all our arms spinning in cartoon-like circles with our tubes racing along the river faster than a jet boat. The waterfalls on the course serving as excellent start and end points themselves.
There are ample lifeguard coverage within the park, with staff stationed at the start and end of every slide and strategically throughout the lazy river. All staff members are equipped with buoyancy flotation devices and are trained for rescue. Despite the park itself being much smaller in size, it’s actually more physically demanding than our bigger park visit the day before. The park itself is good for a 3-4 hour playtime, where anything thereafter starts to get repetitive with only a small selection of water rides.
We left the place after 3 hours in and were starved after a day of mindless fun in the park, particularly in the playgrounds. We left our bags in the park lockers and as recommended by the staff as well. They are free to use by all waterpark guests and are surprisingly large enough to even take on the largest of our backpacks! We headed straight to the splash landing’s cafe for a great chow down of platters to share with the gang before heading to our next attraction for the day, the mini-golf.
Read on to the Alton towers mini-golf.
- Alton towers theme park
- Waterpark and Splash landings hotel
- Extraordinary Mini Golf whack out!
More photos in the Alton towers waterpark album.
