Hayway Park

The best waterpark within driving distance is called Haway Park and features no less than 5 swimming pools varying in size and suitability for all ages, 4 water flumes from fearless to gentle fun, a respectable lazy river and a wave machine. The entrance fee provides exceptional value with adults and children paying €10.00 Euros per head for the entire day. Infants under 3 feet will get in for free, infants under 4 feet will pay a reduced entrance fee of €8.00 (around £4.60)

The waterpark opens at 10:00 AM and closes at 6:00 PM. The park is well supervised and life guards stationed at every water ride, however it is important to note that some of the smaller chidrens pools are unsupervised where adult accompaniment is assumed, and evident.

For mums and dads you can purchase a very combfotable sun bed for the day for the low price of €2.50 (around £1.60). The sun bed has a handy canvas sun visor which can be moved and angled to keep the sun off your face while you read or sleep in the intense sun.

Cassino, unlike the other mountainous towns and villages in the region is below sea level. As a result temperatures can, and often, soar above 36-37 degrees celsius in the midday sun.

You must purchase the sun bed ticket along with your entrance ticket. The cashier will hand you a sun bed ticket for each sun bed - keep these to hand if possible. From then on you must find a suitable location with free sun beds where you intend to make base camp for the day. As you setup camp beckon one of the many members of staff that are walking around over to unlock and setup your sun beds - he/she will also take your sun bed ticket that the cashier issued you.

Plastic chairs are provided for free by the one of the 3 designated sun bed areas.

Deck chairs can also be hired for the day at the cost of €1.50 (around £1.00) and provide adequate comfort.

Hayway park stops all rides and swimming pools at 13:00 PM for one hour so the lifeguards and staff can eat lunch, naturally evreyone uses this opportunity to eat and plan the rest of the day. This is standard practice in Italy and understandably will be uncommon to English custom.

The oyster shell shaped wave machine pool runs activies for children throughout the day, games simple enough for non Italian speaking children to participate in and perfect for brothers and sisters to join in on. The wave machine operates once an hour, and as has now been standardised, is signified by the now familiar siren heard across all waterparks. The wave machine lasts for 15 minutes and the waves are gentle enough yet still enjoyable for all age groups.

There is a "restaurant" within the waterpark that serves the equivalent of Italian junk food, bread rolls with cheese, ham, mozarella, parma ham, mortadella, hamburgers, hotdogs and the perennial cornerstone of any diet, chips. The prices are not cheap but well within the accepted boundaries of eating on site. Cold drinks, ice creams, crisps and the Italian equivalent of slush puppies ("Granite" [pr. Gran-eat-ay]) are readily available. As is becoming frequent place, you queue up to pay for the food, then take the receipt to the food till where your order is bought to you. This method serves a dual purpose, one is to stop the people preparing and cooking food from handling money and also to ensure that food order mistakes are minimalised.

There abundant shower and changing room facilities are combined as one cylindrical stone chamber with plenty of room and light to manoever inside and wash.

Parking is free and limited. If you arrive to late on a hot day however you will have to leave the waterpark and park in the hotel parking, conveniently locate right next to each other. By all accounts, parking in the hotel is easier and only extends the walking time by 2 minutes or so.

The steps leading up to the rides are coated with special grip textures. There is also a 5 a side football pitch which has a clay surface, surround netting. There is a volleyball court which is made of sand.

There is plenty of space, under tasteful man made canopies and seating areas along with a more popular dining area that resides under the protection of gracefully positioned willow trees. In each of the areas dining tables and chairs are provided, as is common place in Italy large groups and families combining tables together is standard practice so feel free to add more furniture where required. The facilites are very clean and hygenic with toilets, changing rooms and showers provided in all 3 of the major sections in the waterpark.

Queing for the rides, especially on a busy day, can be frustrating on the more popular attractions. Younger generations will try and squirm and riggle past you, however, if you do not give them the space then you will have no problem. I recommend that you visit the park during weekdays where it is noticeably quieter.

In Italy you have to be careful where you park, naturally you run the risk of being clamped if you attempt to park in a yellow lined indicated space but in the countryside towns you will rarely (if ever) come across these lines. The real danger is being hemmed in, if you park somewhere busy where it appears another car may make use of a space that could hem you in chances are they will. If needs be park giving yourself plenty of room to manoever out of any tight situation.