Ayia Napa Hotels with Water Slides and Splash Pools

The east of Cyprus has one big water park, and it is in Ayia Napa: WaterWorld, on the western edge of the resort, about 1.5 km from Olympic Lagoon. Hotels with their own slides are fewer than the search results suggest, so the right plan is usually a hotel with a good children's pool, plus one or two days at the park.

Olympic Lagoon Resort is where I would send children who want slides every day without leaving the hotel. Its Little Monsters family pool has a pirate ship, slides and water games, and a lazy river runs through the grounds. Children are split by age into the Little Monsters and Junior Monsters clubs, and teenagers have the Teenz Club with its own arcade room. Parents get adults-only pools as an escape. The catch: the resort has no beach of its own, and Landa Beach is about a 5-minute walk. Guests rate it 9.1 from 385 reviews, and WaterWorld is about 1.5 km away.

Chrysomare Beach Hotel & Resort on Nissi Avenue is the beach-first choice. It has a splash pool with water slides next to a shallow children's pool, a playground, and a kids' club that runs from April to October, which covers the whole Cypriot swimming season. With 2,800 reviews and a score of 8.8, it is the busiest hotel on this page, so expect a lively pool deck in July and August. I would pick it for families with younger children who want gentle slides in the morning and the beach in the afternoon.

Three hotels on this page have no slide I could confirm, and I would not book them for slides alone. Alion Beach Hotel at Kryou Nerou, on the eastern side, is the best rated of the five at 9.5, with an outdoor pool that has a children's section and an indoor pool. Nelia Beach Hotel & Spa is about 3 minutes on foot from the small Limanaki Beach and has outdoor, indoor and children's pools plus a playground, rated 8.9. Atlantica Sungarden Park, now run under the TUI BLUE name, has a 30 cm children's pool open all year.

WaterWorld is the reason to come to Ayia Napa for slides, and its height rules decide how much your children can do. The speed slide Drop to Atlantis needs 120 cm and The Fall of Icarus 140 cm, so two siblings may not ride the same towers. Minotaur's Labyrinth, the newest area, is a large water play pool for children. Trojan Adventure is the family area with small slides, climbing frames and water cannons. Older children head for Poseidon's Wave Pool, the Aeolos Whirlpool and Pantheon's Flume. The park stands at 18 Ayia Thekla Road, on the western side of town.

Where you sleep changes how you reach the park. Olympic Lagoon is the hotel closest to WaterWorld, on the Xylofagou road west of the resort, about 1.5 km away, so a short taxi ride does it. From Nissi Avenue, where Chrysomare and Atlantica Sungarden Park stand, and from Nelia and Alion further east, bus 102 runs through Ayia Napa and Protaras to the park, which saves a taxi both ways. Alion is the furthest of the five, at Kryou Nerou, so I would plan one long WaterWorld day from there rather than several short trips.

Timing matters as much as the hotel. WaterWorld is a summer park, and the period worth planning around is April to October. July and August are the busiest months, with the longest queues at the towers and the hardest midday sun for small children. May, June and September give the same slides with fewer people. I would arrive at opening, do the big rides first, and keep the afternoon for the hotel pool. Outside the season, remember that the slides at Olympic Lagoon and Chrysomare are in outdoor pools, so a winter stay is not a slide holiday.