AquaShow Park opened at the beginning of June and has various new attractions to excite visitors this year. It trademark ride is a long water roller coaster which, it claims, is the biggest in Europe. The ride is 740 meters long and a trip is said to last around 5 minutes in cars which twist, turn, climb and drop through various water channels. If you can cope with the thrills, it's a great way to cool off. The park also has other rides including a vertical drop slide called White Fall, a water play area suitable for smaller children and a huge wave pool for just bobbing around. A bird park and a wide choice of places to find something to eat and drink, rounds things off. The park, which is only 10 miles from Faro airport, seems to get great reviews.

Aqualand Algarve is one of the older water theme parks on the Algarve and has been renamed from "The Big One" to try and keep up with other newer parks like "Slide and Splash" near Praia do Carvoeiro. It has plenty of attractions which are mostly built around the "slide" theme. Their big ride is a 36m drop slide called the kamikaze where riders on two tracks travel top to bottom in only 4 seconds. Their headline ride at the moment is 5 lane corkscrew waterslide called the Anaconda. For the younger ones there's a wave pool and some smaller tradition paddling areas.

There are other water parks on the Algarve and their popularity is a sign that the operators have got the formula right in providing exactly what young families enjoy during their trips to this part of Portugal.