Water Park review…read more
Getting off the motorway at the right exit (9) is the easy bit, after that you're on your own. You've seen your last sign post, and Google maps thinks it's in the middle of a road.
Finally, after getting instructions from a passer by, driving through a sprawling housing estate and then randomly continuing in what you believe to be the direction you came from before it all went belly up, your kid shouts, There it is mum, and right enough, there it is, miles away from the red dot on your iPhone which pretend-signals its location.
Cue noise, bright lights, hard plastic and kiddie gambling, as you pass through the obligatory games arcade to get to the reception. The value isn't bad at 11 euros a whack, and you're in.
The kids can not wait to launch themselves at it and in haste you stuff things into a locker, then a second one which, after you complete a complicated act of stuff-Houdini, finally accepts it all. It's at that point you realise it's broken - that's why it was free, silly - and you have go through it all again, having released your kids with instructions to stay in the shallow end.
You soon realise your depth concerns are unfounded. For Funtasia Water Park boasts among its many features no pool area. Instead, there is any number of places in which to stand, generally under dripping cold water which launches itself at you from every direction, whether through buckets which fill above your head to tipping point every ten or so seconds, to kids with spray guns, who have an unerring nose for the newcomer, and excellent aim.
You tell yourself you will acclimatise, but there being no place in which to submerge yourself in water makes this tricky. You stand in a line for 20 minutes for a kid to climb into a hamster ball. Cold air seems to be being blown at you from vents whose source you can't see, and which doesn't abate regardless of where you move. Why is everyone else not shivering, like you? It's finally your kid's turn and it's great. She wants to do it again.
To your surprise, you do slowly acclimatise. The three kids you brought are now queuing for the hamster ball. The craic is ninety. You wish you had the nerve to try it yourself - aside from anything else, it looks like the only place that might actually offer a scintilla of warmth - but you're aware your dignity is already dangerously compromised, and anyhow, the kids would surely desert you, and then you'd just be a lone, bewildered adult in a hamster ball. You stare out the giant wall of windows to the vista beyond: a grey industrial estate engulfed in a Drogheda day. Say no more. You look for a clock. You find lots of plastic/cartoon pirates, ugly bloke ones and sexy girl ones. You wonder vaguely about equality, feminism, how far we've really come. You soon stop.
You throw yourselves down a few slides. They're great fun, even if you still feel cold every time you stand up. So you keep throwing yourself down them.
You spot the bigger slides on the other side. It takes ten minutes to find your way through the unsignposted maze, over to where they are. There's two of them, one scary/fun looking, one just scary. You stand in a long queue and wonder why people keep running past you to the top. You order the kids to stay put and walk to the top and ask the girl. She explains that they are going to the scary slide, for which there isn't a queue, but agrees there's no way of knowing that unless you already know it. She agrees that the so-subtle-it-defies-belief colour code just doesn't cut it - she's tried telling them. She's nice. You feel forgiving. You go back and continue queuing.
You finally get launched into a slidey thing straight from the set of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. It's great craic. And, yes!, at the end you find yourself submerged in a pool. You swim around for a minute. It's possible you may even get vaguely warm. The bloke orders you out.
Being over 18 is great - you get to go in the Jacuzzi. You put the 12-year-old in charge and in you walk. Blessed warmth. By the time you heave yourself back out everyone is agreed it's time to go, but not before a last go on the Willy Wonka. You scream in momentary delight as you land into the pool that isn't a pool.
Out of there fast enough you can not get, but not before shedding 50c for a go of an as-good-as-useless hairdryer that lasts all of around a minute. Four dripping heads make for the exit.
You note, as you have noted throughout, that the kids are having a great time, and that's why you are here. You console yourself with the fact that you have atoned for all your prior sins of parenthood just by bringing them here, by enduring it. You all eat some fast food and you gain some atonement credit by allowing them slushies. Phrases like, In for a penny, float across your mind. You stop at gambling and hit the road.
On the way home, the kids lament the lack of a pool. More than once. You're glad to arrive home. Your first act is to light the fire.
