A Weekend Away at Splash Landings Hotel Alton Towers 2023

This year, we are focused on doing a bunch of little mini-vacations and weekends away as family adventures! Normally we pick a theme each year for the type of adventures we are going on, and this time it’s weekends away, so for my birthday weekend I booked up Splash Landings Hotel at Alton Towers, during their Pirate Takeover weekend. This was an amazing deal, as it included one night at their Splash Landing Hotel, a time slot in their indoor hotel water park, a day at the Pirate Takeover part of their park, and a mini-golf session, as well as breakfast on the second day.

Pirate Takeover at Alton Towers

When we arrived at Splash Landing, we came far before our booking time to enjoy our first day at Alton Towers. The Pirate Takeover had a portion of the park open, full of pirate decorations and activities. We had never been to Alton Towers before, and thought this taster was a very fun way to explore part of the park. The Pirate Takeover included a map for each of our children, along with a bunch of pirate activities that they could go and do in various parts of the park. This map was really clear about where to go, and we ended up doing all of the activities.

One of the Pirate Takeover activities had us all go into a dark room to trace around a map on the table, to find a button, which gave us a letter. These letters were what we were collecting, for a Pirate word. Another had Robin, Amelia and Kai all digging around in a bucket of fake fish looking for a letter. Another was a dance, and another had a math problem about pouring kegs. All of these had different pirate cast members running them and were fun, though most had a line so you did need to have patience.

There were a few rides open in the area as well; the twisty tea cups were a favorite of our family and we spent a lot of time in the arcade and on the pirate boat! The coral reef was open too, so you can walk around and see all the fishes, and there were tons of pirate themed shows running all day, with live performers. At the end of their takeover event, we were able to find the word and change it in for a bag and a pop badge for each child. It’s a full day out, and a very fun one, even with the limited park access.

Splash Landings Hotel

We had checked into the hotel before going to the Pirate Takeover event, seeing the large reception, and the massive windows that overlook the even bigger water park. This water park is really the center piece of the hotel, but there is also a restaurant as well as an arcade too inside the building. There are several floors of this hotel, and everything is sort of in a circle so you can easily find your way around. The breakfast in the morning was classic, all you can eat, full English breakfast – it was what you’d expect.

When we got to our room in the evening, we really enjoyed the beach theme! The carpet is really fun, showing sand and ocean slabs. There were bunk beds for two of our children, as well as a pull out bed for one of them, and a double bed for Dann and I. It had everything we would need, really. We were on the bottom floor of the hotel, so right by the splash park, and did a cheeky look at the park itself. At the end of the day, if the splash park isn’t too busy, you can just go in so we quickly changed and spent around 45 minutes checking out the park before closing.

The splash park at Splash Landings Hotel is massive. It’s got several layers to it as well. We spent all of last year checking out leisure centres and water areas, as swimming and splashing around is literally our families favorite thing to do, so I feel like we are sort of experts when it comes to water parks! This one had several different indoor slides, that you can just queue up and go on! Our favorites was one where you could hit on a control panel what song you want to play before going down, and watch the lights on the slide light up as you go down!

The place had a massive dump bucket that would pour water on all of us, as well as tons of tubes and pipes that were interactive and even a hot tub indoors. There were so many areas to hide in, run around, and explore expanding up three floors – it was amazing. Splash Landings has a lazy river too, which you can collect a tube for, and float around. This river was fun and relaxing. There were also an entire outdoor area to the splash park. It’s worth noting we went in February, where it was a big cold outside, but we still spent quite a bit of time outdoors. Inside, you can go to the top floor of the splash park, and then go outside. There is an upper floor water area, that then has two slides leading to a midpoint, with two more slides leading to the bottom. There is an outdoor hot tub, a deeper pool, and a way to swim inside again. There is also a separated toddler area in the park, for those who are smaller, which is just as decked out. Splash Landings also has plenty of life guards watching at all times, which is great.

Splash Landings Hotel has plenty of places to store your stuff too, and we had a table the whole day. If you do not want to use a table, there is this netting to put your towels in if you want. Inside of the water park, there are normally two different food areas. The more quick grab-and-go food area was closed, so we went to the more sit down area to eat. This was probably my only complaint about the place. This food area was quite small, and didn’t have much seating at all. We ordered off the menu, but found the menu itself to be quite limited (jacket potatoes, chicken strips, fries, burgers, that’s about it). Robin had ordered a jacket potato with cheese, and then beans (for an extra charge), which came with a side called “cucumber sticks”. When our food was ready, Robin’s potato did not have beans, so I brought it back up to get the beans added. They then re-made the potato, but it was cold and the cheese was not melted at all. They also didn’t let me know it was done, and just dropped it on the counter by the ketchup while we were sitting and eating our other food. There was also no cucumber sticks. When I asked about this, they said they were all out, but I could take “anything from the grab and go fridge”. This fridge contained only apples, most of which were deeply bruised or actually covered in mold. I do wish I was told this before paying for it. It was just a bit disappointing.

We went on a holiday weekend, and the park was always a bit full, however, we went in right at opening and stayed for eight hours. When you purchase a park pass, they do say that they may kick you out after your two hour slot, if it gets busy, but it really didn’t seem like anyone actually would and we did end up staying for so long, it was wonderful. At the end of our time, we ended up packing up and going home! I’d totally go back just for the splash park.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!