There is one thing nobody warns you about before a day at a water park in Spain.
The stairs.
You imagine the slides. The wave pool. The moment someone loses their sunglasses in the lazy river.
What you don’t imagine is climbing what feels like the stairwell of a twelve-storey apartment block while carrying a giant inflatable ring and pretending you’re still enthusiastic about it.
The first few climbs are fine.
Everyone is optimistic. People are laughing. Kids are already dripping water everywhere. Someone’s dad is filming everything like it’s the Olympics.
By the fourth staircase, the mood changes.
The ring suddenly weighs about the same as a small car. The concrete steps are hot enough to cook a tortilla. And you start wondering if the slide is actually worth the effort.
It usually is, to be fair.
You sit down, push off, scream slightly more than intended, and shoot down a plastic tube at what feels like motorway speed before landing in a splash pool where a lifeguard looks at you with the calm expression of someone who has seen this exact reaction eight thousand times.
Then you look up.
And realise the next slide is at the top of another staircase.
Spanish water parks love stairs.
Some of them are almost architectural statements. Long spirals that wrap around towers. Zig-zag ramps that climb above the park like a slow, sweaty pilgrimage.
And every time you reach the top there is always someone who hesitates.
They stand there looking down the slide like they are about to jump out of an aeroplane.
Eventually a lifeguard blows a whistle, they commit, and disappear.
That moment of hesitation is usually the most interesting part of the whole day.
Because everyone has a different limit.
Some people are perfectly happy on the lazy river with an ice cream and zero adrenaline. Others will happily throw themselves down something called The Kamikaze five times in a row.
Personally I draw the line at anything that looks like it might result in a conversation with a Spanish doctor afterwards.
Which, incidentally, is a real possibility if you’re not paying attention. I once watched a man misjudge a jump onto an inflatable flamingo and smash his toe into the pool edge. The noise alone was enough to make everyone nearby wince.
If you’re wondering how situations like that actually get handled in Spain, this post explains it better than I could:
In the end though, the funny thing about water parks is that nobody remembers the stairs.
You remember the slides.
You remember the moment someone lost a flip-flop halfway down a tube.
And you remember that strange feeling at the end of the day when everyone is exhausted, slightly sunburnt, and still talking about going back again next summer.
Even though you all know what’s waiting.
Another staircase.
