Cambridge Aqua Park — Local services in East Cambridgeshire

Edit: I didn’t give this 1 star but 3 which I thought was fair, but i think you can see from the belligerent reply from this place, there is a lot of truth in my review. I was wrong about the £50 - it was £45 - but again with the pedantry.

In response to the “why not just have fun with your kids” shaming, one of us couldn’t see and one of us couldn’t risk getting an eye infection as she couldn’t wear goggles. Do you see the issue? Rules are important but so is common sense. Make your website clearer.

The AquaPark itself is fine. Not the most exciting but equipment is new and kids had fun. The rest of the experience was pretty terrible. I booked in 5 kids, 2 aged 11 and 3 aged 14. Having been to Wyboston lakes and other water parks and knowing that 9 year olds can go alone if comfortable with open water, I was staggered that we were told when we arrived that an adult must accompany the kids under 13.

The booking system, despite having all their ages, did not alert us to this.

Neither myself or my friend are comfortable in open water and our kids are great swimmers, but no exception could be made and £50 must then be spent to accompany the kids even though were were quite literally no use at all.

It went from bad to worse then:

We were then told we had to wear a wetsuit as women must wear two layers due to them being at risk of “douching” when rapidly entering the water. We explained that we would quite literally be sitting still as far away from the kids as possible to tick the health and safety box. No exceptions.

The hoo haa over booking in and the subsequent issues with having no data to register online and being refused internet access - finally resolved by using one of the workers phones- meant we were late to suit up. But we had to watch the very long briefing which we did, but I walked away when she started telling us admin stuff like where to put the wetsuits etc as I didn’t want to delay the group by getting our gear on. The group had already lost 15 mins in briefing. This didn’t go down well. Subsequently the girls were very rude and dismissive and lo and behold the kids were already in the water - unsupervised (shock horror) by the time we got suited up and had the next debate…. I have an immune condition that causes eye infections. I had grabbed a pair of goggles from one of the kids to prevent risk to my eyes, guess what? Not allowed. My friend is almost registered blind without her glasses and despite explaining this was told, no way! She was so worried I smuggled them in my wet suit but sadly as we sat still not taking part in any of the activities, the life guard approached and confiscated them. Seriously? She was in much more danger without them and couldn’t see to supervise her kid. When we went back to shore the mood amongst team was palpable. It was very obvious we had been discussed. The rest of the group were greeted warmly - we were blanked. When I hung my wetsuit up, turned the right way in as asked, the girls called me back as one of the legs was a little tucked and asked me to “do it properly” 🤣. I’m a 48 year old women who had paid £50 to “supervise” my uber confident swimmers alongside my friend who couldn’t even see her kids after having her glasses confiscated like a naughty schoolgirl. It was the final straw really. It was almost comical.

But no, it got worse, we were at no point rude or aggressive, just challenging and bemused but one of the kids heard some very unpleasant language used by the staff when our backs were turned.

In short, they have clearly scrimped on insurance meaning they have ridiculous rules. The staff seem to enjoy “telling you off” and their booking system provides no clear warning of the, quite frankly, non-standard, rules. You don’t get an hour, the facilities are lacking. We won’t be going again and would drive further for the much more chill and more exciting experience at Wyboston lakes. You are close to Cambridge so won’t miss our business we know and we all know rules are important but yours are overkill and suck the joy...

Have been here twice now, with my 9 year old son and 11 year old daughter. The first time was fairly decent, although there were only 6 of us on the park at the time, which made it a lot less crowded and more spacious. However, our experience today has definitely soured our impressions of this venue.

We were checked in and got our wetsuits quickly. The compulsory safety video is important, however, for the £22 per person fee, it should be done before the hour starts, as it eats into your time in the water (you get approx. 50 mins). The obstacle course itself is quite large, with plenty of different slides and challenges, although some of it is in disrepair (some smaller platforms detached from the main inflatable areas making it harder to exit the water in places). The lake itself seems clean enough, and you may spot some local wildlife if you are lucky, as it is based within The Fens.

The lifeguard on the course was relatively professional and offered help where needed. My son has ASD and sometimes struggles to regulate his emotions and to deal with overstimulation. When it was time to leave the course, it was somewhat challenging to get him back to shore on this occasion. As a result, we were lagging about 30 seconds behind the rest of the group, but were slowly making our way to the shore. There were two "lifeguards" on the jetty where you enter/exit the water, who were playfighting or wrestling each other as we were swimming towards them. Then one of these boys shouted "hurry up, chop chop" at us. I found this to be particularly unhelpful and rude. Again, he shouted "come on". He looked around 18 years old, but given the "receptionist" said she was 16, he may have been younger. Then, as I was looking back to help my son, I saw my daughter being yanked out of the water by her life jacket and dumped aggressively on the jetty by this same boy. As I helped my son out of the water, I asked my daughter if she was okay and if she had asked for assistance out of the water. She said yes, but what he did was incredibly aggressive, to the point that my daughter had marks on her head where the lifejacket had scratched her when he lifted her up.

The "receptionist" was pretty sympathetic, but wasn't really that bothered. I very much doubt I will ever be bringing my children back here, and I would advise that you don't either, especially if your child has any kind of special needs or disability. We feel pretty disgusted and let down, as our first trip here...

The worst thing about this aqua park coming from an induvidual who has visited multiple aqua parks from across the country, is the terrible safety video at the start of the session. I would not expect there to be a 10m+ safety video at the start of my session. I paid £22 for one hour and only got close to 45 minutes since somebody decided it was a good idea to show to the safety video inside of our one hour slot. Playing this video before the session would have made much more sense. In addition, the safety video was much too long - it was littered with irrelevant cinematic shots of the park and long pauses. This made what could have been a short safety video of less than 4 minutes, over 10. Considering this directly cuts into out already limited time on the water, this is blatantly and utterly unacceptable. Telling people to arrive 30 minutes early and then not even showing this video within that time is not OK. Taking into account the fact that alternate aqua parks in the United Kingdom manage to have a safety briefing that lasts a few minutes, this aqua park has the worst system I have seen so far. One suggestion would be to make a shorter, more concise video and play it before the session starts. Another suggestion would be to lower the price to £18 and make a 2 hour session available for £30 and use coloured wrist bands to distinguish who was in what session. Hopefully, when I return, these major issues will be fixed and I will update this...