Aquasplash

So today the search for the best swimming pools in reach of London continued… A train journey to Hemel Hempstead followed by two short bus rides took us to Aquasplash at Jarman Leisure Park. Part of Leisure World which also houses a skating rink and cinema, Aquasplash looks a little tired and worn from the outside. It did have a tower with three slides snaking into the main building which was reassuring. Not the cheapest of pools — over £20 for an adult and two 9 year olds — but after nearly 3 hours of aqua fun I would say worth the entrance fee.
Its not perfect… one of the large flumes was out of action, the changing rooms are not the cleanest (but there were lots of cubicles and the lockers were 20p — retained), the showers were hit and miss, the pool area was scruffy and showing its age, it was very busy and some of the queue times were long. But none of that mattered — we were here for aqua fun and this had it by the bucket load.
Its not often we visit a new pool and find something totally new — normally we have seen it all before — tried that, done that but today was different. Over and over again!
This is not a traditional pool in any sense of the word or even a leisure pool. Actually its not really a pool at all. Its one long lazy river that circles around a mixture of slides and flumes with a beach style pool area off to the side for under 8’s and their carers. This is very shallow and has a large mushroom shower in the centre.
This is the best lazy river we have seen in 17 years of family swimming. Our obsession (when I say our I probably mean my — with a little encouragement from my youngest daughter) with pools has taken us all over London and in the last couple of years ever further journeys out of London. And in that time I have never seen a pool with a remotely similar design.
So the lazy river — (and so you can start to join in the obsession) — is a river of water normally in a loop with water jets that propel you along. You can be lazy… no real swimming required as the river does the work for you. This one has a clever mix of side jets and floor jets and geysers that bubble up pushing you off course. The currents are strong and even though it was busy that is all part of the fun as you weave your way along the route. There is also well pressured waterfall to stand under for a quick back massage…
We did a couple of circuits to eye up the slides and flumes, get our bearings. and assess the queues. I am sucker for a flume so we kicked off with the Super Flume — a long fast flume with a section in darkness. A better than average flume but nothing new here.
Next we had a quick go on the multi-​lane race slide. They also have similar slides at Waterfront in Woolwich and Spectrum in Guildford. Five race lanes form a short steep straight slide that you race down into water which sprays everywhere. If you are a group you can race each other.
On to the Space Bowl — only ever seen this in water parks in Spain before — a short fast flume that drops you into a bowl, speeding you round and round till you drop through a hole in the bottom. We all managed to slide round about 5 times before dropping. If you or the kids are flume fans then this is worth the visit.
The Falling Rapids had a long queue up a set of stairs that moved really quickly as they let batches of 10 to 15 customers down at a time. If you have visited Center Parcs then this is like a shortened version of their rapid runs but inside and made of plastics. You descend down a wide white water river over a series of short slides, on your front head first, bashing into people… We went on this lots of times… great fun.
The queues to go back on the flumes were too long for us to sample again — it was very busy — and when we come again I will get here at opening time to makes sure we gets in lots of slides early.
Finally we sampled the drag race. This is a doughnut ring ride — you queue from the lazy river and wait for a ring — once seated a series of waterjets speed you down a long straight into the lazy river where you bob along all around the loop to pass the ring onto the next person in line. I think they had only about 6 rings so it took a little while waiting but it was worth it. Again never seen this ride before at a pool.
Water temperature and air temperature were really good — we spent nearly 3 hours here — it does need a deep clean and spruce up though. Staff were young but were professional.
Despite some great slides and unusual layout for us this is a once a year trip for some pure fun… we like to actually swim too much to come here all the time as you really cannot swim here at all. Definitely recommended for a visit bearing in mind its flaws.