The drive to Tropical Islands ended with a left turn off of a road through a forest, which opened up to a view of the hangar used to house the resort. The building is an old blimp hangar which was no longer is use, and then converted into the world's largest indoor rain forest.
Parking and checking into the resort was quick and easy. They do not allow outside food or drinks into the resort and they have security at the front entrance going through bags, so don't bother trying. One group was caught and refused entrance until they returned the drinks to their vehicle. It may sound time consuming, but the search process was quick and efficient and delayed us for no more than a minute or two.
Once you check in, you need to wait until 4 pm to get your room key, but every person has a locker reserved for them large enough to store most small sized suitcases and backpacks. You are also given a wrist back which acts as a key fob for the locker, your room if you reserved one, and as a swipe card for purchases so you do not need to carry money around, it just gets charged to your account.
One thing that took a bit of getting used to was the sheer scale of the building. There were two hot air balloons, one which could hold up to 4 people while the other had a seat for two under it, that were pulled around by guys to give people an aerial view of the resort. There are also quite a few two and three story buildings inside and some giant water slides.
Hot air balloon being towed around
Water slides from about half way across the resort
Other than the scale, the inside of the resort had quite a bit else that was simply amazing. The rain forest in it is well laid out and fairly large, taking us about a half hour to walk through. There's a pond inside the area as well with flamingos, turtles, and giant coy fish. You also get to watch plenty of colorful birds strut around the place. There were also dozens of remarkable plants.
Plantain Tree
Pretty white flower
Not sure what these are either, but Roslyn enjoyed them
Sea Urchin Flower?
View from the top of the rain forest
Aside from walking around, we also hit up the water slides, the giant indoor pool, and the not-so-lazy river that started indoors but ended outside. All of the water attractions were really fun to enjoy, but difficult to get pictures of because we tried to leave our phones in our lockers so we didn't have to worry about them.
View of the pool and the island in it
All three water slides up closer
As the day wound down we became more sedate and ended up going to a more sedate pool, and then going to have a night cap at the last bar that was open (there are 3-4 places to drink in the resort). With that done around 1 am we headed to our acoomodations.
The tents we slept in
Because we were used to sleeping in tents, and because they are cheap, we slept in tents! Now these were thick heavy tents, without windows and they had to be zipped shut to lock them. This would have been okay, except that it was about 30 to 32 degrees celsius and really humid. Needless to say our sleep was not the best given the environment. There are other sleeping, the Adventure Lodge and the Comfort Room, which Candace and Omi took advantage of. I will talk about those more in our logistics post.
The next morning we were up early to eat breakfast and then on the road again, happy to have stayed at Tropical Islands Resort.
In Roslyn's words:
You may have seen videos of this place on facebook, that is where I found out about it. The world's largest indoor waterpark and rain forest. It was one of our must see items on our list and I am very glad we went to check it out. The pools themselves were very neat, with interesting features like waterfalls, cave tunnels, whirlpools and fountains and were open 24/7 (there is a cleaning schedule that will close a pool a night). The waterslides inside were lots of fun but my favorite was actually the water rapids “slide” outside in their Amazonia area. It was a little rough but still my favorite. Be prepared for a co-ed locker room, open public showers (gender separated), and nude co-ed saunas (according to my sister).
The way they do nightly accommodations is definitely different. They charge per person per night, not by room, so there is not such thing as splitting the cost of a hotel room. Getting 4 hotel rooms is the same cost as 4 people sharing 1 room. Because of this, everyone in our group selected what level of accommodation they wanted. Connor and I went with the tent which is a cool novelty, but man was it hot and sticky. If we were to ever go back, I would have upgraded to an adventure lodge (where my one sister stayed) that had AC.
It was a little busy, especially for a Wednesday, but you really only noticed when trying to find a lounger or were waiting for a waterslide. It was also, in general, very pricey. They did have a cool way of keeping a tab though. You receive a wrist token that you tap for purchases and then pay at the end. We did pre-purchase a meal voucher which was really not worth it. It could have been cheaper to just pay for supper there. Even though it was expensive, and for us, and uncomfortable sleep, I am still glad we had the experience at Tropical Islands.
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