It is probably a fact that there is not one healthy child in the world that does not enjoy playing in the water.
When you go on a family holiday, you want to relax a bit. That’s where a hotel with a waterpark can be worth its weight in gold. You and your spouse can relax poolside, take turns keeping track of the kids, and enjoy the sun, sounds, and water. Hotels also come with spas, entertainment, good food, and clean rooms. But it’s that waterpark that’s going to keep the young ones busy, happy, and healthy.
Crete, with its ideal climate and long summer season, is one of the best places to vacation for hotels with water parks. Here are some of the best; a top 8 list of Crete’s best hotel/water park combinations.
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Stella Palace and Stella Village
Guests of both resorts have direct access to their shared waterpark, one of the most extensive in the Med. Stella Waterland’s 18 slides comes in all varieties. They includes rides with multiple twists, uphill and high-speed routes, vertical falls, and high-capacity racing routes with multiple lanes and family-sized inflatable raft rides. There is a large kiddie pool with more tame slides and activities, lots of sun beds and umbrellas for mom and dad, and a poolside snack bar serving a wide variety of street-style food. To complete the picture, there is also an adults-only pool and a pool bar.
More about Stella Palace Aqua Park Resort
More about Stella Village Seaside Hotel
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Nana Goden Beach
The Nana Water Park is another massive facility featuring great rides. The Space Bowl is an open bowl, circular, descending ride concept. The Black Hole comes with twists and turns, all in complete darkness. The Aquatube Slide comes with visual and auditory effects. On the Multislide, kids compete side by side. There are 7 waterslides with 9 lanes, having a maximum capacity of 1,200 persons per hour. Park is free of charge to resort’s guests. Nana Golden Beach takes a lot of pride in its family-friendly concept, with large outdoor play areas, and entertainment programs in addition to the waterpark.
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Lyttos Beach and Lyttos Mare
The Lyttos Beach Waterpark advertises itself as a state of the art facility. It features 8 slides, a massive water toy section (sort of a liquid city park-style playground), a dedicated play area, tons of water games, and a convenient Fast Food Spot for when you get hungry from all that activity.
There’s even a quiet, enjoyably relaxing River Pool. Lyttos Beach places special emphasis on safety. The resorts itself offer activities for the young ones such as the Lyttopia Playground, a Kids Club, an Animation team, treasure hunts, a tennis academy, and lots of organized sports.
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Star Beach
Spread across a large area, the water park is popular with locals. It has very long, convoluted tube slides, open air slides 70m long, all kinds of water sports, and a more laid-back, kid-friendly section. There are 2 lazy rivers, a baby pool, and mini slides.
There are several kid’s pools, one of which has a really cool mockup of a pirate ship. Many of the pools are connected by a serpentine waterway. Another of the kid’s pools is a mini water park, with tube slides and mushroom umbrellas in the water, and smaller open slides for toddlers.
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Grecotel Marine Palace & Aqua Park
The Kingdom of Poseidon waterpark is a brightly colored 6.000m² wonderland of playground equipment, circular and straight slides, a tipping bucket tower, with a pleasant, pirate ship-like shaded wooden deck off to the side. The Aqua Tower offers 100 water games in a large paddle pool with waterfalls, jets, slides and a water volcano. The Freefall water slide is a near-vertical, one second drop that’ll make your heart jump into your mouth. There is a dedicated kids play area with climbing nets and water slides.
More about Grecotel Marine Palace
Creta Maris
There’s a lot to love about this park. Its 4000 m² has a number of slides, both straight and twisty, and multi-level aqua tower pools. There’s a splash playground for the smallest children, and river rapids for the larger ones. There’s a water cannon-lined lazy river and waterfalls. The aqua tower pools have huge tipping buckets, water nets, and a water roller coaster. The Spray Action Zone offers an interactive water playground with spray games and climbing towers. There’s lots of room to relax in sunbeds under the shade of umbrellas. The resort has much to offer as well, including a Water Sports Center on the beach, an open air cinema, and evening entertainment choices.
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Fodele Beach
This waterpark has an interesting layout: taking advantage of the local topography, there is a series of three slide-fed splash pools built in a descending configuration following the slope of the hillside. To get to the top of the hillside there is a little train. Some slides include a nearly 80m body slide, a precipitous freefall slide, a 3-lane multi slide, a rafting slide, and a Black Hole slide, which is dark except for some multi-colored rings inside the slide itself. There’s a nearly thousand square meter central pool, a 5 and under kids pool, and a separate children’s pool. In addition, the resort offers a kids club.
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Gouves Waterpark Holiday Resort
There are 3 parallel slides flanked by one open and another closed twisty waterslide at Gouves Waterpark. It has a tower and a tipping bucket, and a very tame 3-slide kiddie pool. There are interactive fountains, sprayers, and shallow wading pools. The award-winning resort itself has a kids playground, 7 sharing pools, a mini club for 4-12 year olds, a games arcade, and an amphitheater for evening entertainment.
As a final word, make sure you read the safety information, heed the lifeguards….and have lots of fun.
