It’s #NationalWaterPark day today which the perfect opportunity to share my experience of the Bewl Water Aqua Park in Kent!
I was lucky enough to be gifted 4 tickets to the park and visited with Mark, my best friend and her boyfriend a couple of weeks ago – The Aqua Park at Bewl Water is a ‘Wibit’ floating obstacle course – The 1500sq meters of inflatable fun includes an XXL action tower, bridge, flip mattress, cliff, monkey bars, aqua slide, dome, roundabout, halfpipe, hurdles and lots more!
Tickets to the park are usually priced at £20, this gets you rental of a wetsuit and life vest plus 50 minutes of fun in the water. You have to arrive at least 45 minutes before your session time so the whole experience lasts around 2 hours once you’ve got changed after!
So how did we find it?! Bewl Water is located near Tunbridge Wells in Kent – I had never been before and didn’t realise it’s so big! You can find out more about Bewl in general on their website but here’s a taste:
‘Bewl Water is the largest stretch of open water in the South East. The 800 acre site is set in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, in the heart of the High Weald. Open all year, a visit to this stunning lake is fantastic family fun and great value.
Looking for healthy, outdoor fun for all ages and abilities? Bewl Water offers a fantastic range of leisure and recreational activities, including fishing, cycling and boating, on and around the reservoir with a centre, conference venue, restaurant and café on the shoreline.’
The Aqua Park area looked so professional – The sign in desk is well branded and themed – Once you’ve checked in you are given wrist bands which give you access to the changing area – You are each given a wetsuit to put over your swimwear. They have changing rooms which also contain lockers for your belongings – These need to be padlocked so make sure to bring one, if you forget they also have them for sale at the check in desk. I always really worry about leaving my things but it all felt very secure with staff manning the doors of the changing rooms too.
Once changed everyone is given a life vest to slip over the wetsuit – You are allowed to take a go pro or other waterproof camera into the park but only if you use a chest strap – We put the chest strap and the camera under the life vest to make sure it was extra secure – The staff said that they have lost many a go – pro in the water!
Once everyone is suited up you enter the safety briefing area and watch a quick video – The group size can vary, we had maybe around 50 other people with us? maybe a few more but the course is so big it still felt like enough space!
After the safety briefing everyone is led down to the Aqua Park! You have to wear shoes for the walk down so I recommend taking some flip flops – we didn’t do this and our shoes got a bit wet on the way back up! There are lockers to store your shoes down near the water.
Then it’s time to hit the course! You get 50 minutes on the water which is more than enough time to get round the whole thing, even if you are old and unfit like us! There are ‘rest zones’ if you need to sit down and take a breather, we did this a few times because oh my god you don’t realise how unfit you truly are until you are using muscles you didn’t know you had to climb up an inflatable rock wall!
There were so many sections to the course… slides, monkey bars, stepping stones and more – It is impossible not to spend the whole 50 minutes laughing! I don’t think I have laughed that much in years, it was so so much fun to go back to being a child for an hour – Also it is HILARIOUS to watch your husband / wife / friend / anyone slip and slide all over the place, for the first ten minutes we were just in stitches at each other falling in and out of the water!
My nemesis was the rock climbing wall… it took me SO many attempts (check out the concentration on my face in the pics below haha) but I finally made it! Once you get to the top you have the choice of sliding or jumping off – The water was actually pretty warm (and the wetsuit helps!) so there is no shocks to the system plunging into cold water.
Once your 50 minute is up you are led back to the changing rooms to return your suits and jackets and get changed – There aren’t any showers on site so it is useful to bare that in mind! We went for lunch after and didn’t feel that fresh haha
Overall the Aqua Park was amazing and a totally different day out – Perfect for adults and children this summer! I am so grateful to the Bewl Water Aqua Park team for our complimentary tickets – You can find out more about the park and read all the FAQs here!
