My wife follows a blog or facebook group etc, that details days out for people within Newcastle. Example posts include things like top 5 water parks within 3 hours distance from Newcastle, etc and since our daughter really enjoys swimming we thought we’d try one out.
There where three that looked appealing, the Calypso Cove in Barnsley, Blackpool Sandcastle and Alpamare in Scarborough. The weather wasnt the best, with a forecast for rain so Scarborough was wrote off immediately (it’s partly outdoors from what we could tell). We therefore compared Calypso Cove with Blackpool Sandcastle and concluded that it would take longer to get to Blackpool, than Barnsley, so more expensive in fuel and the price for Sandcastle was double that of Calypso Cove.
This resulted in us selecting a trip to Calypso Cove. Now I want to provide some real figures to this as well, so if you plan on doing a trip from Newcastle Upon Tyne to Calypso Cove you know what you’re expecting to pay.
Fuel (used all of the fuel): I topped up £50 in the car
Tickets (two adults + one child): £28
Food: We took our own (free)
Total cost just short of £100, but we also purchased a swimming vest for my daughter, so it was over £100 in the end.
The amount of time you get in the pool is 90 minutes, which to be fair in the summer holidays you either love or hate. It is crowded, so if you can handle being around lots of people it’ll be too short but if you are the kind of person that just wants to treat the kids and dont like being surrounded so much, then it’s the perfect amount of time.
For all slide lovers, from what I could tell there was 4 main slides. Only one of them you could go on with your child (the four lane slide, where you race). Other slides you need to go on by yourself, and for those slides expect to wait anything from 10 minutes to 20 minutes to get up the stairs and onto the slide. The longest slide was the “Kraken” (atleast I think that’s what it’s called), which was green and lasts about 20 seconds. Therefore if you’re a slide lover and there’s big queues, maybe you’ll manage to go on them a total of 6 times in your allotted pool time.
All in all, a good day out, quite expensive but that’s due to the fuel cost at present (I believe I was paying 184 at the station when refuelling). Great place to visit if you lived in Barnsley. Would I go back? Probably not, it was a one time thing.
https://calypsocove.metrodome.org.uk/
http://www.alpamare.co.uk/
https://www.sandcastle-waterpark.co.uk/
If WetnWild was open in North Shields, I would definitely have went there instead. My understanding is that it is still closed but currently owned by Serco Leisure. They purchased this for 3.2m and it has been closed since 2020. I couldnt figure out why it was closed, when Sandcastle charge almost 25 per person and Alpamare being not much cheaper.