Aquaventure Cabana

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My flight from Doha was super late. And delayed. We arrived after 2am. Since my passport expired last month, I have to renew my e-gate. Apparently, at this time of night and in the Emirates terminal, this is fruitless. I was still able to go through the e-gate station without having to wait through customs, but I doubt they'll let this happen a third time. Therefore, I did not get home until almost 4am.

Jamie, Addi and I planned to leave a little after 9am to reach Aquaventure at the Atlantis on the Palm at 10:00. I had to take a good shower to shave my legs - it's been weeks. At least... Hope I didn't clog the drain! We drove to the Palm, parked and took a shuttle to the water park. Jamie had booked a cabana and we were expecting 12 people, maybe more. Instead of one large one, they gave her two "small" ones side by side. After paying, we were given an attendant, Elias, who showed us the way to our cabana. We stood there and looked around - day-amn... We just kind of laughed - Um, we have 12 people, just the one side will do! There was a bed, two bean bag lounges, a hammock, 6 lounges, and a table with four chairs. It came with a cooler full of ice cold water, our own locker, a bowl of fruit and dozens of towels. Plus, our attendant was awesome. He showed us the best places to go and went to meet our friends when they (finally) arrived. This being the middle east, meeting at 10am meant that we had guests arriving anywhere from 11am to 1pm.

So Elias showed us how to get to the "new rides". We jumped into a pool entrance area and each grabbed an inner tube. You float along and turn off at the entrance to the water rides, where you slowly meander to the conveyor belts which take you to the top. It was lazy and pleasant; you can also walk up, but this was nice to get introduced to the park. At the top, you take off one at a time and go through the chutes. I love love love falling in the dark and the interior of the first tube we rode was pitch black! You get shot out back into the lazy river. From here, we kept going, hitting an area called "The Rapids", which took us back to our cabana.

A few more people showed up by then and we went back to the rides. The best one was the group ride. The six of us got into a round raft and held on for dear life because you go down a giant slide and then immediately up a wall of water before running back down. It. Was. Awesome. The guys tried the falling slide/chute - here, you are put basically into a pod and the floor drops beneath your feet. Not for me. The girls went down the other slide, which is a race. Jamie and I were up against each other and she had the slowest time I saw all day: 42 seconds. Mine was 24. The guys tried it too, getting times like 18 or 19s.

We went back to the cabana and found more people waiting. They had gone on their own rides at various point. We had left a sign saying to be back by 1:30 for cake, and by then it was almost 1. So we got lunch, hung out and almost everyone was there. We sang happy birthday to Addi, having got the cake earlier in the day from the restaurant - Elias hooked us up on that too and he and his manager put candles on the cake and brought plates.

After we digested, we all 14 of us went back and everyone tried out the group raft, a couple of times actually. A couple of girls braved the drop slide and we rode the slide again. I was before Jamie, but I got to see her emerge on the second one. Actually, she basically completely stopped at the end of the chute with an improved time of 35s. Then we went to some other raft rides, more dropping in the dark in tubes (at one point I got turned around and it was so dark with so many turns that I literally did not know which direction I was facing until I came out), a doubles raft that I rode with a guy named Bukor (?) where we were shot up and over multiple humps and fell again in the dark. I got lots of water in my mouth from screaming on that one. I decided my last run would be on the raft ride through the aquarium - a wussy chute (through darkness again) but the end is kind of slow push through the aquarium where you see fishes (a few like Dory) and lots of types of stingrays. However, when I got out, I was talked into trying the "Leap of Faith" - I'd heard about this slide and it sounded dreadful. Basically a straight shot slide. I have ridden one like this ages ago and the only memory I have of it is the giant wedgie I wound up with. I got up to the top, which was right next to another tube ride and I saw an empty tube. I grabbed it and was happy I did as this was one of my favorite rides of the day.

The day was perfect. The cabana was awesome and our attendant was awesome. The weather was absolutely perfect and there were no crowds. I think the longest we ever waited was 3 minutes. Enjoy the photos. And Happy Birthday Addi!

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Photos

Lazy river
doubles tube ride conveyor belt to the left

Lazy river
our view from our cabana

Dubai Marina
with the monorail track along the Palm visible

Comments

[Amber]

Saweeeeet!
That looks awesome! Exciting, fun, and relaxing all at once! Woo-hoo!

[Candice]

Fun!!
Looks like a blast! I am super jealous...it is a balmy 30 degrees here today w/ freezing rain and an ice storm warning.