Opened in September 2008, alongside the grand opening of Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai, Aquaventure is every bit as extravagant and over-the-top as the hotel. At 42 acres, it is Dubai's biggest water park, which means the screaming kid Kipp elbowed in the morning went crying to his parents a long, long way from our sun lounger.

More importantly, however, the park's size encourages guests to get lost in its well-maintained grounds, which Kipp was happy to do.

Dubai's first world-class water part opened in October 1999, and has since welcomed over 6 million visitors. At just 12 acres, the park is considerably smaller than Aquaventure, which is likely to bring you and that overweight kid's parents together a lot sooner than you hoped.

Most of the park's rides are located in the Ziggurat, a Mesopotamian-styled structure that towers 30 meters into the sky. It boasts seven slides, including the now renowned Leap of Faith, a 27.5 meter slide (roughly 9 storeys high). According to the park's public relations department, it is the tallest, fastest freefall slide in the Middle East.

The park also boasts a river 2.3 kilometer long called the Rapids. It is the region's longest river. As for guests shorter than 1.1 meters tall, the park offers Splashers, a water playground featuring elaborate water games, slides and structures. If Kipp were young again, we would've lost our minds if we saw Splashers.

The one complaint we heard repeatedly was that no one who braved the Leap of Faith could see anything of the shark tank below. We concur. All we saw was mist.

Interestingly, Wild Wadi also boasts the region's tallest and fastest freefall water slide in the Middle East (their exact claim is "outside North America"). The Jumeirah Sceirah is 33 meters high, which is higher than Aquaventure's 27.5 meter Leap of Faith; so, there's either an engineer with a faulty measuring stick running around Dubai, or someone's in denial.

In any case, the park has 30 attractions, 13 of which are inter-connected. The park's best feature is the Master Blaster, which are described as uphill water roller coasters. They propel you up slides by high-powered water jets. In short, you don't need to walk to enjoy the rides. Nice.