ACUA WATER PARK — Attraction in La Oliva

Park is clean, toilets too, food was good and the wait for food was alright considering they cook it on demand, so you get a nice hot burger. Lots of sun loungers too, with shade. Lots of rides and several pools. Lifeguards were okay, seemed to whistle for horseplay but were not too draconian. In theory everything is okay. Price might be on the high side, but is about average for this sort of thing.

For us, the inflatables system pretty much ruined it though. You have to hire inflatables or wait forever as there are only half a dozen "free" ones per ride, and that means looking after your rented inflatable when you're not on a ride, in case some smart Alec walks off with it. I'd rather they charged the extra 5€ rental fee as part of the entry fee and had lots of inflatables available for everyone included in the price. It'd make for a better experience. Also the deposit for this has to be cash, not card, so a couple of inflatables and a locker needed €15 cash, which we didn't have. You tend not to go loaded down with cash to these places. The guy was understanding though and let us leave €10 instead.

The park design seemed quite inefficient and meant lots of walking between rides and in places the floor is rough. Flip flops needed, which then makes sorting out where to leave them for rides awkward. The wave pool is good but is only on once per hour for a short time. Water seemed very cold, but I guess that's standard. Lazy river ride is ruined by having just 1 entry/exit due to the inflatables system. The old entries are visible everywhere but blocked off, back from when the park was fair.

The poor woman at the door was on her own at peak opening time in the morning, so a big queue formed. But then to kick you out they don't mess around! Started herding people to exits at 1655h. The laid back island tone suddenly turned to German-style efficiency at closing time. The changing rooms are a bit sparse with just 3 benches, and the cleaners were using one to hold the bathroom stall open as they cleaned it (during peak close out time...), leaving just 2 benches for everyone at 5pm when everyone is trying to get changed. Just say you close at 1630h then leave people leeway instead of trying to rush everything shut. Maybe clean the changing room when everyone has left, not during the closing rush.

This came out pretty negative, but we were a bit disappointed and a few minor changes would have made it...

Cynical business ethics, this place could be so much more. I went there today with my two sons aged 11 and 14. After buying your tickets, which aren’t cheap you are expected to pay a further €5 for a locker and €5 for the key deposit. Every swimming pool I have been to in my life has required a coin which you get on your return, not here, it’s an extra.

Not only that the locker is barely big enough to hold one small backpack and some sliders. I was then faced with a choice of whether to hire an inflatable ring. I was told I didn’t need it but it would save time queuing for a ring. It turns out that two of the large flume rides and the lazy river required you to have a ring or you can’t go on it and there weren’t any rings available.

Basically after spending a large sum to get in you also have to pay to hire some rings to get on the best rides. If you do decide to hire some rings make sure someone in your group is happy to stay behind and guard them when you decide to go on the rides that you aren’t allowed to use them on!

If none of the rings were rented out there would have been plenty to use on the rides but instead everyone was jealously guarding their rented rings, I found that simply a cynical way for them to make more money.

Unfortunately there were only the 3 of us and I wanted to spend time with my sons on the rides not guard some rings that might go walkies if left unattended.

There were 3-4 slides worth going on that didn’t require a ring and my sons loved going on those fortunately.

For a water park this large I was expecting more useable slides. On leaving I asked for my €5 key deposits back. Although I had the key and handed it to them they refused to give me my €5 deposit as I didn’t have the tiny slip of paper that came with it. A cynical bit of bureaucracy that stops the staff giving back your money. I had to leave without it, I wish I had kept the key now as the deposit money is there to cover the cost of cutting a new one, they had the key and my money!

They know they can treat people like this because it is a big tourist attraction and with such a high turn over of tourists it won’t affect...

We had a really great day here yesterday. I was very skeptical having read other reviews so it surpassed expectations. We bought tickets on the door which were no more expensive than on the website and we didn't have to queue for more than a few minutes. The site was perfect for our family, children age 11 and 8 were very happy with the selection of rides plus the lazy river (which was very slow so did require quite a lot of self propulsion), a diving pool and the wave pool. Hardly queued for rides at all despite it being mid August. Only 2 rides plus the lazy river required rings, we did not spend the 5 Euros for these and didn't regret it. There are green\blue rings available for the rides that require rings and the staff were good at making sure they stayed with the appropriate rides. We never waited more than a few minutes for a ring and there were plenty of rides to do without. However, this was undoubtedly helped because so many visitors did seem to have rented the yellow rings and spent the day either lugging them around. The food was much better than expected. I didn't think the meal deal that you can buy with the entrance ticket was especially good value and, the cafe actually had more to offer than burgers and hot dogs. There were also pizzas, sandwiches, pasta and salads. We had an approx 12inch margarita pizza, 2 fries, 2 coffees and a can of pop for 22Euros and this was a nice snack which kept 4 of us going for the afternoon. Drinks were 2-3 Euros and the pastas and pizzas were all about 10 Euros. The food was made fresh to order and was actually very good. We had taken a small, refillable insulated bottle of water in with us in for our youngest who won't drink a can of pop and I can't bear unnecessary plastic waste. I suspect had we made this blatantly obvious then it would have been taken off us but he was able to sip it by the lounger. The park did not feel especially busy and there were lots of spare sun loungers to use.

I was very skeptical after the negative reviews but actually, for a 102 Euros entry plus 22 Euros light lunch we had a...