Alpamare is a waterpark on Burniston Road above North Bay, opened in 2016 as the first UK site of a Swiss operator, and it is considerably better than most people expect before they arrive.
The most-repeated line from visitors is some version of the website doesn’t do it justice, which is an unusual complaint and a useful one.
Four main slides, which are the headline and are genuinely serious — enclosed tube slides with lighting and effects, a bowl slide, and a family raft ride. They are large, fast, and rated as among the best in the country.
A wave pool, which runs on a cycle several times an hour.
Two outdoor pools at 35°C. This is the thing that makes Alpamare distinctive. They are heated to the temperature of a warm bath, they are outdoors, on a clifftop above the North Sea, and you can sit in them in the rain, in the wind, or in February and watch the weather.
Several visitors say the outdoor pools are, if anything, too warm — which in Scarborough is a sentence worth savouring.
Indoor pools, a spa area with saunas and steam rooms (adults, separately ticketed), and a children’s area with smaller slides and shallow water.
The minimum stay is three hours, which visitors consistently report as plenty — long enough to do everything without rushing, and not so long that children flag.
Queues. There are waits for the main slides at peak times, and shorter but real waits off-peak. This is the main constraint on how much you get through.
The stairs. Getting to the top of the slide tower is a substantial climb, repeatedly. Visitors describe it as a killer, and they are not joking — several hundred steps over a session. It is part of the exercise.
Booking is by time slot and advisable, particularly in school holidays and on wet days when everyone in Scarborough has the same idea.
Confident swimmers from about eight upwards get the most out of it, because the main slides have height and ability restrictions.
Smaller children have their own area, which is decent but is not the reason to come.
Adults without children use the spa and the outdoor pools, and the site works for that.
Admission by timed session, minimum three hours; online booking advised.
Facilities: changing rooms, lockers, café, and lounging areas by the outdoor pools.
Bring: swimwear, towel, flip-flops, and a pound coin or token for lockers depending on the current system.
Access: the main pool areas are largely accessible; the slide tower is stairs only.
Parking: on site.
Open all year, which makes it one of very few Scarborough attractions that works in January.
Burniston Road, above North Bay, about 1.8 kilometres from the town centre — a twenty-minute walk, a short bus ride, or drive with parking.
Peasholm Park and the North Bay Railway are a few minutes away.
A minimum of three hours, which visitors report as plenty.
Yes, to about 35°C — warm bath temperature, outdoors on a clifftop, all year.
Yes for the main slides at peak times, and shorter ones off-peak.
The stairs to the top of the slide tower, repeatedly. It is a real climb.
Yes — it runs all year, which makes it one of the few Scarborough attractions that does.