We paid a five-hour visit to Acqua Plus, Crete’s ‘biggest & best’ water park, today.

Dad sat on the sidelines, but Mom risked seven slides, including the three open tubes where you slid down by yourself that were in orange, red, and blue. One was the closed, very warm, teal tube (where you went down without an innertube), and another was one of the orange racing slides, where Ethan and I sat on either side (I won). Ethan and I manipulated her into taking an innertube down one of the Black Holes—the one with more twinkle lights.

“Did you like that?” Ethan asked, grinning, at the bottom.

“No!” was the quick, sharp answer.

So we went on the Crazy River—over and over and over. The ‘crazy’ part is that it has five or six wide slide segments, each about 100 feet long, that end in pools. Sometimes we got stuck in the pools. To my disappointment, I only flipped over once in the pools, and it was an accident. I flipped over in my tube once at the bottom, but that was intentional and only came after many tries.

Mom also floated on the current-less Lazy River, but that doesn’t count as a slide.

I went on all 15 slides possible: the two Black Holes, the three multi-colored slides, an open teal tube and a closed teal tube, the Crazy River, the orange races, and six others. The two yellow slides were between the two teal slides, and one went in a J shape and the other in a S (more or less) shape. The Space Bowl—a.k.a. the Toilet—was a five-second, blue and white closed tube that shot you, at an angle, into the bowl. You went around once or twice and then fell into the hole in the middle—usually headfirst.

The Tsunami was a huge white structure in the shape of a half-pipe. You went down a short, steep chute onto the first part of the ‘wave’. You went down really quickly and then hit the water from each side as it met in the middle, giving you a wedgie. Then up you went on the other side, then back down and up the other side, and up the other side again, and so on and so forth until you reached the mouth of the slide.

The last two slides were the most scary. On the map, the bright blue Kamikazee looks Jumeirah Sceirah-like (that’s the super-steep slide at Wild Wadi in Dubai that I declined to go down. Ethan rode it). However, it’s open and in the shape of the ‘S’ yellow slide, just longer. It’s also very hard to breathe since the spray from your feet hits you square in the face as you speed into the pool below.

The tube slide is very steep too, but you can breathe more easily. It’s only 12 seconds long.

I went on each of these above rides at least twice. Ethan did the same.

Ciao!