My First Time At Siam Park in Tenerife

It's November 2008 in Tenerife, The newly opened water theme park Siam Park has been open for just 2 months. High time I paid a visit since I'm supposed to know everything that goes on in Tenerife and advise people on holiday at Paloma Beach Apartments where they should be going and what they should be doing with their short time on "The Rock".

Together with my friend Ryan and his pal Dean, who's over on holiday, we arrive at the park around 11am. Ryan is suffering from the previous evenings shenanigans in Las Americas - but like a good host he's made an appearance so Dean isn't going with a virtual stranger.

Once inside the park we're met by some sea lions lazing on the rocks catching the winter rays. We put our shoes and valuables into one of the lockers and make our way to the rides. On the way we go past an aquarium with all kinds of marine life inside, I'm disappointed not to see a human hand floating around like Strombergs aquarium from the James Bond film "The Spy Who Loved Me".

First up the kamikaze "Tower Of Power"! After making our way up what seemed like 10,000 steps we reach the summit. I chuckle to myself as a kid is told he's not tall enough to go on the ride having already walked up all the steps- "Awwwwwww" he exclaims and then begins his decent the long way.

At the top of the slide there's an amazing view of the whole of Siam Park and pretty much all of Las Americas - "Hurry up John!" says Ryan, and off I go down. The ride lasts about 8 seconds and my eyes were firmly shut the whole time which is unfortunate because if I could have opened them and gone in slow motion I could have seen all the fish I travelled through at the bottom.

Once we're all out of the "arrival pool", Ryan looks a little pale, "I'm not gonna lie - I've felt better." It becomes apparent that Ryan is in much worse condition than first thought and he promptly loses his breakfast in he nearby bushes - "I think I need to sit down for a bit, you two go ahead for a bit." he says. So Dean and I press on after suppressing our laughter as best we could. We didn't know it then, but this would be Ryan's last bit of action at Siam Park.

We worked our way through the rides, The Dragon was amazing, a seater rubber ring that goes through dark tunnels and opens out into a half pipe that felt like something out of a James Bond movie.

Up next the Giant, two rides that send you down a plug hole in opposite directions, then the Naga Racer - essentially an 8 lane water sled race, then the Volcano, a chill out on the Jungle Snake and then the main event: The Siam Park Beach!

Siam Park beach has the most amazing sand, sunbeds, bar and - most importantly -it's own wave pool which fills up once an hour after a loud gong warns the bathers. The pool fills up pretty quickly before releasing wave after wave of , err waves at you full pelt!

After this we find Ryan, who is still dying, and head to one of the restaurants for some much needed food. I'm surprised at the quality and price of the food - most theme parks work on the logic that; "we've got you in for the whole day so we'll whip your pants down" , but this can't be said for Siam Park, the food is good and reasonably priced too.

After lunch it's back to business, we hit the Dragon again and again, the Mekong Rapids get the same treatment until at around 4pm, Dean and I are cream crackered and Ryan is showing little sign of improvement - so we decide to call it a day.

Siam Park gets a massive thumbs up from all concerned, even Ryan can see it would have been good and in subsequent visits he had a whale of a time!