Review of Aquascope

December 4, 2024

‘The park has been designed to reflect its theme of aquatic exploration while integrating cutting-edge technology’

With almost 2 million visitors per year, Futuroscope is the fourth amusement park in France, after Disneyland Paris, Parc Astérix and Puy du Fou.

Since 2024, Futuroscope also has a waterpark, called Aquascope. This park covers approximately 7,000 m2 (the size of an average Center Parcs Aquamundo Waterpark), has an indoor and outdoor area and, as an eye-catcher, a slide tower with 8 slides from the Turkish manufacturer Polin. The kids slides are from WhiteWater.

The park is themed in the style of Futuroscope: modern, colorful and futuristic, designed to reflect its theme of aquatic exploration while integrating cutting-edge technology, featuring bioluminescent visuals and advanced AV technologies, such as 270-degree screens and spatial audio.

To answer the main question: Is it good?! Well yes and no. It’s not a typical waterpark and that makes it both interesting and disappointing.

Architecture and lay-out

The building has a four-sided layout, interconnected via a central tower hub which also holds the stairs to all the slides. The outer facade incorporates sleek, modern materials, but it’s also quite boring and not very appealing because huge areas are covered by the same material. The biggest side houses a small wave pool and all of the slide run outs, the second side is home to a nice kids zone and the third one holds an immersive environment with vivid lighting, digital projections, and environments designed to evoke underwater worlds. Highlights include “Les Abysses de Lumière,” an immersive cave experience filled with mysterious sea creatures​ and the Kiné’eau, a unique aquatic cinema with interactive water effects. The fourth side features the lobby, entrance and change facilities.

Looking at indoor waterpark benchmark numbers, the park is on the small side. Rulantica as an example spans over 10.000m2 indoor space alone and this number is pretty much the standard for newly built parks.

Interior

The interior spaces are very modern and quite impressive with colors, featuring custom lighting that reacts to movement and water effects. This setup enhances the thematic storytelling, making guests feel as though they are submerged in a fantastical aquatic world. The building’s interior design resembles a massive, glowing underwater world, with undulating shapes and features that evoke waves and marine life.

The big problem with the interior is that the designers focused heavily on active features such as slides and interactive zones, leaving little room for extensive lounging zones or comfortable resting areas.

Attractions

The kids zone features a nicely themed environment with lots of things to see and do for the little ones. It offers 5 slides but also water jets, spray features, play areas and a tipping bucket. It lacks lounging space for parents though.

The slide complex looks nice: beautiful colors and the slide lighting is also well done. But as slide guy I will be very honest: the slides they picked are not very innovative or futuristic. The ‘Matrix’ -a family rafting slide- is supposed to be the most iconic one, but it’s very slow and its features make it quite disappointing: a pod where nothing really happens other than some water jet pushing the raft out and a bowl where you don’t get to go round, but where you land in tons of water slushing around and pushing you out quickly.

The spiral shaped slide inside the main tower named ‘Spiral’ is a fancy looking idea, but because it turns in the same direction all of the time the experience is the same throughout the whole slide. The landing zone is kind off in your face as it is situated near the main hub, which is nice.

The ‘Alien’ dueling slide has separator walls that are to high to really make contact with your opponent and that sphere features don’t function that well is common knowledge in the waterpark and slide world.

The mat racer slide ‘Sprint’ is big fun, but a bit on the short side.

The park features a nice tubing river: it’s long, winding and very immersive with cool lights and lots of water features.

Conclusion

It combines state-of-the-art immersive digital experiences with water attractions, making it a standout in Europe’s water park offerings. However, the lack of lounging space at Aquascope has been a recurring critique among visitors. While the park excels in offering attractions, its design focuses heavily on dynamic experiences rather than passive relaxation. The outdoor area, featuring a lazy river and a beach, is relatively small, which limits the available lounging spots, especially during peak summer months when demand is high.

Visitors have noted that while the theming and aquatic attractions are engaging, the absence of ample dedicated spaces for relaxation detracts from the experience for those who prefer downtime between activities. Enhancing lounging areas could significantly improve the overall guest experience, catering better to diverse visitor preferences.

I can fully recommend to go there and experience the park. The atmosphere is amazing and because it is so different from your average waterpark you’ll be surprised and you’ll enjoy your visit. But once you’ve been there and experienced it, there is no need to go back, also because the slide offerings aren’t that special. So I don’t expect much repeat visits and that might harm the park in the long run.