So I went to Rulantica last Saturday and Monday also. I'll give you an verview of my experience rather than a full blown review as such.
The first thing I noticed was that the initial doorway leading into the reception area is quite un assuming. As soon as you walk in though, wow. Two floors of what can only be described as looking as part of a museum and not a but of water to be seen. You get directed either upstairs or downstairs as they have changing rooms and lockers over 2 floors. Once you have redeemed your ticket, you get your rulaband and off you go. It's worth noting that if you lose your Rulaband, they will charge you 150 euro, this is the cap on it. The band was quite secure though with an old school plastic watch strap.
Once you're in, its a linear corridor with changing rooms down corridors to your left. Each of these sets of changing rooms then open out into their own locker area. Helpfully there are screens showing how many lockers are available after which set of changing rooms. You enter one side of the changing rooms and exit the other side to the lockers. Once at the lockers, it's very straight forward, find a locker with a green light, load up your stuff and scan your rulaband over the green light to lock it, It's worthy noting here that tickets booked through the hotel has a free locker attached, failing that it's 1 euro for the day that is payable when you first arrive. The lockers are pretty big and would easily hold 3 adults stuff, maybe even 4. At this stage, don't worry too much about remembering your locker number/
So at this point, it still has a very museum feel, you exit the locker room and into a long corridor which stretched along the back of the water park. This makes it super easy to find your way back and it's also the same on the first floor.
Once you walk in, you get the big reveal! I was on the first floor and when you walk in, you get a good view over the main park, there's so much eye candy. On this floor are also the sofa's you can pre purchase and the cabanas. My initial impression was WOW and it was hard to work out how I would navigate the park but this was very easy.
We settled for a place right in front of the wave pool. Now the wave pool is not very deep and appears a bit boring when you're watching the waves. The waves come on every 15 minutes or so. Once entering i soon realised that the wave pool was good fun, with 3 wave machines at the end, offering different directions of waves, super fun!
I then sat and looked around, once inside, you can't see the top of any of the slide queens and you forget how tall the flumes actually are, the queues are all behind theming which I liked. For any first time goers, to find the slides, it's quite simple. The main big slides are in the 2 corners at the back of the park.
So onto the slides, none of them were pretty ground breaking. The park is clearly more about atmosphere than killer slides. All if them were good fun and queues on the saturday were about 20 minutes or so per slide. I also got the impression that Saturday was a busy day for them.
My favourite attraction was the wild river outside, the way to ride this is by doing a Klinsman diver onto your front. Super fun but could be wilder. It's a lamer version of the center parcs rapids.
Snorri's saga was the lamest lazy river I had been on. I feel it's missing some water effects. the caves are nice though and it is very relaxing. When we visited, staff were giving out the tubes at the start of the ride and taking them off you after 1 lap. Going forward I'd like to see the tubes floating around and people being able to enter/exit at will.
As for food and beverage, we opted for a Snorri cup for 17 euro as it is super hot inside the park. We figured that we would drink a lot. I held on to the cup and got refills again on the Monday for a 10 euro re activation fee. There are 2 main restaurants in Rulantica. One that serves your standard burgers and chips affair and one that has more healthy options and flat breads etc.
The burger option utilises order screens like you see in McDonalds where as the other one is more your typical counter service affair. There is ample seating at the latter, not so much at the burger place.
The indoor pool bar was very nice, you can get your normal Erdinger or Carlsberg and a select few cocktails. What I liked about this is that you don't have to sit at the bar and are free to take your drinks around the lagoon with shelves around the outside to sit on. Very relaxing,
I ventured into the out door pool/bar area one but the water was freezing and the bar wasn't actually open as it was too cold. This looks to be a nice area for the summer.
Anyway, on the way out the park, there are band readers outside the lockers. Scan your band and it helpfully reminds you of your locker number. Upon exit, you go to the cashier and pay your band balance then you can only leave through the turnstile by placing in a zero balance band.
Overall, I was very impressed with rulantica. if you are going there for thrilling water rides then perhaps it's not for you. I went back on the Monday as it was a rainy day and it was a nice place to be.
There seems to be loads of chairs and loungers and chairs for people and although it was clearly busy on the Saturday, it didn't feel too overcrowded. I think it is slickly run at the moment and every part of the customer experience has been considered.
Once a trip will be enough for me, but I really did enjoy it. I think it's a success.
Side note - If staying at the hotels, then make sure you get there for 9, good loungers and you can get most the rides done.
