Dino Beach

We finally went to the water park yesterday. Had been wanting and meaning to go ever since we got here but time was passing quickly and it would close on 2nd September so we finally made it there yesterday.

This is the fourth water park we've been to in 3 years.

1. Wild Wadi in Dubai, UAE (October 2004)
2. Whitewater World on the Gold Coast, Qld, Australia (January 2007)
3. Sunway Lagoon in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (May 2007)
4. Dino Beach in Shanghai, China (August 2007)

I guess when you've been to a few water parks you tend to have expectations and start to make comparisons, but I'm not going to do that here or else I could be here all day.

We got there about noon, just when the sun was the hottest.

The layout of the park was quite confusing. The area was quite large and they didn't give us a handheld map so a lot of the time we were wandering around not even sure where we were going or what we were looking for.

We started off by riding the inflatable tube down the 'river'. This seems to be a common element in all water parks, but this time the ride was extremely long and dare I say it, I was getting impatient and bored! (this has never happened before). After I got home and studied the map (from the photo I took) I could see just how long it was, it went around the entire circumference of the park but it also went in an out in places too. Mega long!

We then went on a slide where you had to lie on a thin rubber mat face down, hold the finger holes and slide down. The slide was straight down and pretty fun. The second slide we went on used the same mat but the slide twisted and turned and right near the start I did something to my back and I was in pain the whole way down. Thankfully the pain wasn't too serious and didn't last long.

Then, we went to the artificial beach and rode the artificial waves. I had my waterproof case on my camera and filmed us riding the wave. It's so funny to watch in hindsight!

We spent way too long there because hubby lost his cap when one of the big waves pushed us around (and we both fell off our tube!) and he tried to find it (after the waves were turned off of course) but couldn't.

After that, we rode another slide, similar to the twisty turny one we rode before but this one requires you to sit inside the ring and slide down. There was a pretty good view from the top of the stairs and the water park seemed to be built in the middle of nowhere. The whole area (Minhang) seemed to be newer too, like Pudong.

There was something we found that we had not seen at other water parks. There were two of them. The first had cute jungle and forest type animals like crocodiles and frogs (that floated in the water and you could sit on) and the second one had an arctic them with polar bears, and seals. The first one had 'lily pads' which were pieces of foam that floated (but were tied down) and a big long rope above. The aim was to walk across and not fall into the water. Easier than it looked! Both adults and kids loved this 'game'. In the arctic area they were icebergs instead of lily pads - cute! :D It reminded me a lot of an 80's TV game show in Australia called "It's a knockout."

We had a fun day but were glad to be home. It was a bit hellish getting home in peak hour. It was our most expensive taxi ride yet - 47 RMB.