Case Study: Bringing the World of Nickelodeon to Life with Aqua Nick

Just around the corner from Cancun Airport is Aqua Nick Nickelodeon Hotel and Resorts Riviera Maya. Part of Karisma Hotels & Resorts, this property spans nine acres and includes kids’ clubs, six restaurants, three bars and non-stop daytime activities for guests of all ages. Filled with playful surprises to ignite the spark of play for guests of all ages, the all-inclusive property brings Nickelodeon characters to life with meet-and-greet opportunities and one of the biggest themed water parks in the world.

The standout of Nickelodeon Hotels and Resorts Riviera Maya is the water park, Aqua Nick. Covering two-thirds of the hotel’s property, Aqua Nick is the largest theming project that WhiteWater has ever undertaken. Incorporating the intellectual property of Nickelodeon across 11 exhilarating water slides, a RainFortress 5, AquaPlay 200, splash pad, and lazy river, this water park is a testament to the artistry and design skills of Nickelodeon Experience Design, WhiteWater, and Water Technology, Inc.

One “Soak Summit Tower,” Many Water Slide Experiences

Adventurous members of the family will love Aqua Nick’s Soak Summit Tower, an 18-meter-tall (59 feet) water slide tower with exhilarating views of the park. Pulling from Nickelodeon’s pallet of pastel colours, Soak Summit uses Translucent fiberglass to generate an additional layer of entertainment as bystanders watch guests make the journey down the water slides. Featuring multiple levels, the tower offers a variety of ride experiences to cater to guests who have a need for speed and those who chase zero gravity sensations. The tower includes:

Flatline Loop

High-thrill body slide

Beginning with an AquaLaunch, guests enter a trap door before being sent into a freefall drop. Riders will race around in a horizontal loop before zipping into the runout lane.

Rattler

High-thrill inner tube slide

Guests drop into the enclosed Rattler on a 1-to-2-person inner tube for exciting back and forth downstream velocity as rafts climb high in the belly of the snake.

Constrictor

High-thrill inner tube slide

Even at first glance, Constrictor’s tight coiling slide path leaves an impression on water park guests. Full of tight corners and high-banking turns, the slide will leave guests on a 1-2-person inner tube breathless from screaming.

Freefall Plus

High-thrill body slide

Freefall Plus sends guests dropping straight down over the edge of the slide tower. Visible from a distance, the slide causes guests to stop and watch as brave riders test their mettle.

High Speed AquaTube

High-thrill body slide

Playing with gravity to double the thrills, the High Speed AquaTube at Aqua Nick delivers speeds of up to 52 kph (32 mph).

Whizzard

Mat racer

Riders are dispatched into enclosed high-speed AquaTubes that bend alongside each other through multiple lanes of twists, turns, and a 360-degree loop before a surprise drop into open lanes, for side-by-side racing.

Super Bowl

High-thrill inner tube slide

Thrill-seekers are launched into the large, cavernous bowl on a 1-2-person inner tube where centrifugal forces keep riders high on the wall for several rotations. The Super Bowl provides prime viewing opportunities as eagerly awaiting guests can watch riders circling below, building anticipation for the fun that is soon to come.

PAW Patrol Adventure at Bay

The PAW Patrol television show was created as a fun way for kids to learn about bravery and heroism, and this area of the water park helps them do just that! With specially designed Life Floor, including the PAW Patrol Lookout, kids can run and slide with confidence. Moving up to the structure itself, AquaPlay 200 is packed with exploratory and interactive water features, including water cannons, sprayers, and a 60-liter (15-gallon) tipping bucket to keep kids entertained for hours of fun. Perfect for younger guests working their way up to Soak Summit Tower, the slides at Aqua Nick’s PAW Patrol Adventure Bay are the pint-sized versions of the larger slides, such as Mini Rattler and Mini Boomerango. For imaginative journeys and making new friends, this area will entertain children and their accompanying adults for fun under the sun.

Bikini Bottom Beach

Hosted by SpongeBob SquarePants and his friends, Bikini Bottom Beach is a multi-level aquatic playground with non-stop action, eight body slides, and over 100 water features. The custom-designed RainFortress 5 will get hotel guests soaked with water guns, tipping buckets, water jets, and more. Visitors will feel transported into this underwater world as they walk through SpongeBob’s iconic Pineapple house or crawl under Patrick’s rock. Plus, no where else in the world can you find an aquatic play structure that drenches guests with “green slime.”

Aqua Nick’s Lazy & Adventure River

Guests can also enjoy scenery and themed sculptures from their favorite Nickelodeon stories as they float around Aqua Nick on the 375-meter (1,230-foot) Adventure and Lazy River. WhiteWater’s team hand carved several sculptures for eagle-eyed visitors to spot, including:

• Avatar the Last Airbender
• The Fairly Odd Parents
• The Loud House
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• Olmec & Shrine of the Silver Monkey from Legends of the Hidden Temple
• SpongeBob SquarePants

Immersing Guests with Intellectual Property

Guests attend theme parks to escape everyday stress and engage in a transformative experience, and the use of intellectual property (IP) is a particularly effective way to do so. For park owners and developers, the use of IP offers the opportunity to capitalize on an established story’s content with a built-in audience and a proven track record. As a result, the right IP can be a powerful means for a destination to gain and retain visitors. Aqua Nick has proven its success with visitors and has also won World Waterpark Association’s Leading Edge Award in 2022.

See the Aqua Nick project page here.