chermside aquatic centre & water park

The Chermside Aquatic Centre & Water Park tries to be a swimming pool and an amusement water park at once. It really only works as a water park. The 25m swimming pool is shallow and too busy for lap swimming and serious training and most water park visitors use it as a pool to hang out in as well despite notice boards.The Water Park has a very confusing pricing structure and was extremely busy Saturday morning - they open at 10 am and they were already queues forming. There is an area for smaller children and then 2 smaller slides that end of in a 2m deep pool and 3 big slides, 1 open, 1 enclosed, 1 to be used with inflatables (seating two) ending up in a small lagoon.There is a height requirement for the inflatable slide of 125cm (around 7 years of age).The park was extremely busy and most of the shaded tables were reserved for birthday parties with not enough space left for other guests.It's very hard to keep your kids in sight, as they are so many different areas. I would also recommend to visit with the under 5s and then over 10s. There isn't really an area for the 5-10 year olds. They are too little to go on the slides on their own, as the stairs are extremely steep and it's high up and they are too big for the smaller kids area. My 6 year old tried to find somewhere to just swim and splash and was a little disoriented.The long queues were also off putting - up to 20 minutes wait on the slides. Standing wet high up exposed to the wind had many kids shivering. Not that enjoyable.Overall the place is well organized and all the kids had fun,I would try to avoid a weekend, if you can.Don't go if you are not going to use the water park or don't have kids, it would do your head in, the noise levels and chaos are pretty amazing.