Splashdown — Attraction in Great Britain

I brought my 6 year old son here which he was very excited about.

The positives: friendly staff, good selection of rides, and there were no queues when we went.

The negatives: I had an experience here which I considered dangerous. Toward the end of our evening here, my son and I went back on the inflatable ring ride (Mississippi drifter I think it was called). It’s an easy going ride that finishes with a fairly fast flowing slide through a dark tunnel into the shallow pool at the end of it. There were 3 teenage boys ahead of us, which you could see where bending the rules and going down the tunnel slide together (which didn’t really bother me). However what DID bother me was when they went into the tunnel slide, they purposely stopped themselves inside the slide. Irrespective of the inconvenience to those of waiting to go down the slide, what concerned me more was the danger they were not only putting themselves in, but putting my son, myself, and those of us waiting to go down. Had I followed the traffic light system, which tells you you’re ‘safe’ to go down slide when it goes green, my son, or myself could’ve gone down the slide and potentially injured ourselves as well as the boys. The traffic lights were continuously alternating between green, amber, and red, all the time they were still in the slide. So rendered that system completely useless.

Another group waiting behind us said the same boys had done exactly the same thing a few minutes earlier. I ended up shouting down the slide to tell them to get down and out of it. This caught the attention of a couple life guards nearby (who were not monitoring this particular ride). I explained to them what was going on and they radioed below to check when it was clear so those of us waiting could continue down the slide.

When I got to the bottom, I looked out for these boys to have a word with them, however it seemed they had already gone back up the stairs to do the same ride again.

I then spoke with the lifeguard at the bottom, as I was furious with the situation. He said he had just given them a warning, and they had 2 warnings left. This annoyed me even more as the actions of these boys was not only unacceptable, but downright dangerous. Had my son followed the traffic light system and gone down that ride at speed and impacted with the 3 boys stationary in that tunnel, I have no doubt he would have been injured, and so would they. It’s one thing to put themselves in danger, but another to put my son in danger, which is where I draw the line. There is no way they should have been allowed to go back on that ride, or indeed any rides as far as I’m concerned. But the problem is with youngsters (as friendly and polite as they were) working there, they were probably (understandably) too timid to be telling off groups of youngsters the same age as them.

A real pity as it had been enjoyable up to that point, but as is evident from this lengthy review, left a rather sour taste...

Me and my partner visited this waterpark whilst on holiday in Bournemouth. We had originally booked for the Wednesday but due to a pump failure the park was closed so we rebooked for the Friday. The team was very polite and prompt, both emailing me this fact and calling me to inform me of the closure. They were allowing people to move their booking to a different day and promptly issuing refunds also. So we visited on the Friday and fair to say we were not disappointed. We booked for 10.30am and walked straight in, were issued our wristbands and went straight into the changing rooms and into the pool. Seemed very new age for us with electronic wristbands issued for you to scan on rides, these wristbands also indicate when your time in the park is coming to an end. It was quite a large facility and took us a while to get our bearings as there are few staircases but many many slides, but once we found our way it was easy to navigate. We got round to every slide once and some slides we thoroughly enjoyed (dragons lair, infinity & collorado coaster) we went on a few times. It was busy, so some queuing times but nothing too major and queues went down quickly so you are able to enjoy the full 3 hours and not feel like you're wasting it in queues. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip and the facilities we experienced were clean and orderly. Our locker was more than ample for our things for 2 of us with room to spare. When we arrived the womens toilets were closed for cleaning so had to use the disabled toilet where there was a queue but no issue. I appreciate that the staff are trying to keep the facilities clean. There were a lot of children in the pool area and some were not sticking to the advice on the signage which is on every slide, how to go down them properly. We witnessed teenagers throwing their rubber rings into the lazy river and bouncing onto them. The staff were not really paying attention to this as the wristband scanner wasn't working on this (and a couple of the other rides) which can be dangerous when teenagers don't wait long enough after someone has gone down. It does look a bit dated on the outside of the tubes and some of them indicate flashing lights inside which weren't working. But those are the only negatives. We enjoyed our time and had access to both indoor and outdoor slides. There's something for everyone but a few of the drops warn you that they are severe on the signs so you are well informed before going on them and they also have a map in the changing rooms of all the rides and what features they have e.g. no lighting, sudden drop, rubber rings needed. Really thoroughly enjoyed as we don't have anything like this back home. Would definitely go again if we come back to Bournemouth...

The flumes were great and the party host was not bad either but that is all I have to say that was good about the place. We had book a kids party and it was due to start a 12:30. We were told we could arrive earlier to decorate the room and were shown the room we were booking and never said anything about that room being used for other people at the same time as us (I think it’s obvious that if you have booked for a party that lasts 3 hours that you are allowed to be in the room those 3 hours, otherwise what would you do with your stuff?) but we arrived at 12 and they didn’t let us enter until it was actually 12:30 and then took us to a smaller room (where the amount of guests would not fit) and told us to wait as there was already a birthday party going on and we would have to wait in there until 1:30 to then move everything to the room we were promised (so they double booked us). We moved everything to the smaller room and started decorating, blowing balloons and such to not waste more time as already some guests wanted to go to the flutes and were stock trying to decorate and move their stuff from one room to the other. It was over 1:30pm when someone told us the room was clean and ready for us so we went and decorate everything, move gifts, cake, bags, etc and once everything was set we had another member of staff coming along to say THERE WAS ANOTHER BIRTHDAY PARTY COMING AND WE NEEDED TO GO. Triple booked we were. They insisted that the room is available only for 1 hour and that we had to take everything down yet again and go to the smaller room while the other birthday party happens… Absolutely disgraceful. They insisted there was no other place where they could have the other group so we needed to move. After much back and forth we took everything out and what a surprise when NO ONE showed up for a 3rd party there while we were stuck in the smaller room with way too many people. We finally moved everything to the room (again) and then had the party but from 3 hours that were booked we really enjoyed the room for max an hour. The flutes are great so recommended to ONLY visit those but definitely not recommended for birthday parties, from the 9 kids that were in our party, all parents have agreed they will not do theirs in there and will advice other parents to not do their kids parties in there. On top of all that, a member of staff mention “there was a language barrier” as our sister in law didn’t speak English but the rest of us did so there was no language barrier and that was just a rude excuse to try and blame someone else for them triple booking the room. You have been warned, avoid kids...