Caribe Aquatic Park — Attraction in Salou

Access Egress

The park was simple enough to get to and from, a 2 Euro p/person over 4 yrs bus ride that took no more than 20 minutes from Salou, where we were staying, was simple and comfortable. We had a buggy with us which the bus accommodated in its storage hold. Pre-booking is the key, you don't want to get caught in the big queues at peak holiday season. Find yourself a Kiosk in town or at the hotel where the prices are pretty much the same, or exactly the same in our case. We went straight through and queued for around 15 minutes outside the waterpark itself before going straight through.

Setting Up

This is where we were greeted with our first problem, sunbed are prime real estate and if you arent first you are last, we arrived around 10:30am by which time there where no Sunbed in the better locations or near the entrance to the park. We spent 20 minutes hunting before we found a set of beds toward the back of the park. We grabbed available beds and moved them into the shade in an astroturf area which we found out around an hour and a half later we were not allowed to do, so had to move. Also another tourist took one of our beds because we stood up and didn’t leave anything on it’s for around 1 minute, to illustrate the point or prime real estate.

Hitting the Park

For the most part this is pretty easy going, you can go in any pool area with relative ease and not too much over crowding, however this is a different story for the rides. Beware the deception! You will look up to the tall slides and see very few people queuing on the stairs, but by the time you get to the ride there will be an extensive queue at the bottom. I'm talking 1 hour or more in peak season (midweek). And that’s if its just a slide, if it’s a slide that requires a ring or matt, you need to get one of those first, so add another 15 minutes or more depending on the ride. The park will call this safety, a cynic would say its crafty advertising for the rides. My family vanished for an hour and a half and only managed 2 slides. I only went on one main slide the whole day but that’s due to my lack of patience for queues.

Refreshments

Pretty limited but otherwise fine, you have a choice of places to pick from which will be selling the same sort of stuff. Focaccia, pizza, salad, dessert and drink deals were available and prices were reasonable at around 16 Euros for a 3 course meal with a yard of ale. The only problem we came across was at around siesta time when one of the main eateries closed. Simply getting a couple more drinks meant another 30 minute queue. That said there may have been other places to get a drink but I was after a refill which you could only get from the huts rather than the stands.

Other info

Staff were polite and alert. They were quick to stop any questionable behaviour and made sure to prompt everyone to shower before getting in the pool after the foam party (a big foam cannon goes off at 3pm with some music, good fun my daughter loved it). Beware of Mosquitos, a few of us got eaten alive particularly those who waited with our personal belonging for any length of time. At the entrance there is a machine to waterproof your devices, which I thought was a neat touch.

Conclusion

The park is worth going to and the price, access and refreshments are all good. The big watch out are queue times, which can be avoided if you want to pay extra for an express wrist band, the price of which Is on their site. Make sure to wear your bug spray and plenty of sun cream. Lockers are available at 6 euros per locker. The queues for these were also long and there is no express for that but it will save you worrying about belongings. Get there early to avoid the sunbed dash and get yourself a decent spot. Bring some of your own refreshments. Kids will have a great time, parents may despair over waiting and...

This was a tough one to rate. The park has huge potential, offering everything you'd wish for from a water park. It has plenty of water slides, offering different varieties, the lazy river has an enjoyable length and links to the indoor pool.

However, unfortunately the staff and condition of the park really lets the park down. Felt like there was a shortage of staff for the time of year, peak summer season, they were rude and very blunt. We never saw a clearer, so the toilets were horrific, litter was over hanging the bins, which there was also a shortage of, pathways were also littered, but the big one for us was the huge amounts of hair that was built up, it was everwhere in the park. Honestly it felt so dirty, glad we took our water shoes with us.

We upgraded to one of the private cabana for our visit. These were a decent size, offering table seating, loungers, mini fridge, family sized locker and 2 Express passes. Extra passes were available at an extra cost. Also included, two small bottles of Carva, handful of bottled water and a fruit platter each. We had mixed reviews on this, the condition of the facilities was a let down and a refurbishment is certainly needed. However what was offered felt good value for money and provided exactly what was described. We would have liked the inclusion of a waited service, either via an app on your mobile device or someone thats posted nearby, unfortunately this is something that's not offered or available.

Food and drinks service felt difficult in this park. Even during peak dinning times, some of the food and drink stalls were closed, only to open later in the day when requirements were lower. Food was very average but massively over priced but the service was the biggest issue. I waited almost 40 mins, with only 3 people in front of me waiting to be served, whilst we had 2 young lads completely queue jumped and our server didn't even challenge, the food was already made and sat under a hot plate. Very frustrating to see such slow service without any explanation as to why.

I appreciate we were there on a busy day, and I really question if there's any park capacity, there wasn't any spare loungers anywhere, people were laying everywhere, even on the path ways, which made it so difficult to walk around. We also witnessed far to many arguments following misbehaving guests removing, taking or just using other guest loungers, towels and personal belongings. All lockers were taken, leaving people with no choices.

The crowds, cleanliness, guests behavior, staff and service during our visit really dampened our day and we would certainly question visiting again. Even with the cabana, other guests tried entering and sneaking into our cabana to take our seating and drinks we had as part of the package. We felt we couldn't leave the cabana unattended without someone being spiteful and taking advantage.

I appreciate a visit to this water park is great value for the number of attractions on offer here, but unfortunately this represents the type of behavior you'll witness during your visit. The lack of consideration and appreciation of others or the facilities hugely impacts the parks massive potential, and maybe a review of the staff structure and the added importance to enforce rules would create a better guest experience. People being able to run wild isn't my idea or environment of fun.

I'd love to give this park another chance, maybe on a very quiet day sometime, but I've got my fingers crossed for Universal...

Terrible service. At closing time they started rudely throwing everyone out. There was no warning about closing, there are no clocks in the whole park, and you don’t take your phone into the water, so you just don’t know the time. I was putting medicated cream on my child, because she developed severe dermatitis after swimming. I only needed a minute. The employee didn’t even give us that minute, he was rushing us to leave. As a result, in a hurry, we forgot our clothes in the park. When we came back to get them, the park was closed. The staff didn’t react to us at all, they just watched us scream at the gate and indifferently walked past. Then another family came who had the same problem, they managed to shout to the employee. He brought them their clothes, and when he went to get ours, he just disappeared. He didn’t even bother to come back to tell us that he couldn’t find them or anything. Maybe he didn’t even look for them, and we stood and waited. I called the cleaning lady, but she just told us to go away. We were standing with a child in bathing suits outside the gate, we needed to go home to Barcelona by public transport, and we couldn’t go without clothes. And we needed to be in time for the bus. The clothes were lying very close to the entrance, I explained where, it was enough to let me in or have someone look, it would take 2 minutes. The employees of the water park didn’t care at all. After a while, I found the information desk, it’s quite far from the entrance to the water park. The girl called by phone, and the employees of the water park told her that there were no clothes there. So at first she refused to help me several times, saying that the park was closed, nothing could be done, I needed to come tomorrow. I kept asking her, and she took pity, went for the clothes herself, and brought them very quickly. Thanks to her and to our luck, we were in time for the bus. I just can't understand what the problem was in helping us, why the park employees couldn't solve the problem they themselves created in an attempt to quickly kick everyone out of the park. While I was sorting out the problem, my child was waiting near the entrance to the water park at the closed gates, and during that time the cleaning lady swore at her and rudely told her to leave. This area is not closed or prohibited, the cleaning lady had no right to kick the child out of there, especially since she saw that the girl was standing alone and waiting for her mother where she was told to wait. I don't know how they recruit staff, but these people definitely shouldn't work with visitors.

To this should be added the big problems with food in the park. You can't bring your own food, and the cafes in the park have a very limited menu, they are constantly closed or they run out of everything, the cafe with a normal menu is open only 3.5 hours a day. In addition, the staff of some cafes are not able to cope even with heating up frozen pancakes, we waited 30 minutes to get 2 pancakes. So be prepared to leave hungry and disappointed in terms of food and service. Considering that people usually come here with children, this is a real problem. I like the park itself, but I don't want to visit it again because of these things, been there twice, both times the same problems. Will look for other...