When it comes to holiday, some of us demand plushy first class seats, salty breezes at an isolated beach or expensive branded loots in clumsy oversized paper bags. If that’s indeed your mental picture of a holiday, or what it takes to justify it, perhaps there’s a valuable lesson to learn from the delirious kids darting around in Waterbom – an enclosed immense space filled with pools and brightly coloured slides is all it takes to keep the young ones content.
As the only boutique water park in Jakarta, Waterbom sits in the famous area of Pantai Indah Kapuk. While it might be considered quite a stretch for some families, it still beats the stressful hassle of booking tickets and itinerary planning. A quick scan over the map promptly reveals the popular parts of the park: those with serpentine slides.
It can be quite an amusing experience, observing children trying to haul floats in the shape of conjoined donuts twice their size, up to the top of the slide before getting spewed out of the tube like an uninvited guest. These gigantic slides, which come in bright green and yellow, look pretty much like objects that the prolific American artists Jeff Koons would proudly display in a gallery.
Just as one would never be satisfied with just one potato chip, the ritual over at the slides is repeated over and over again till the excitement has finally waned from the faces of the little ones. The next course of action then takes place at either the wave pool or Bomblazter, where getting drenched from a humongous pail is its draw.
Some parents lounge jadedly under the gazebos, drifting off to a distance, while some partake in the fun. Perhaps, grasping the fact that there is only a few years left before the apple of their eye grow into late teens and eventually shift their gaze to night parties and booze to fill their holiday schedule.
Waterbom Jakarta
Jl. Pantai Indah Barat No. 1
www.waterbom-jakarta.com
