Parque Aquático Do Almargen

Did this one as a solo visit during a holiday to Portugal, I left the Mrs at the Villa and began the 1100km round trip to finally check out this spot for myself. I’ve explored a few abandoned waterparks before, and this was my fourth one in Portugal. I rolled into Viseu at dawn, really questioning my life choices, but I ended up loving this waterpark. If you’ve been to Portugal, especially the Algarve, you know there are tonnes of waterparks that draw in huge crowds during the summer. It makes sense—who doesn’t love slides, tubes, and wave pools? But scattered around the country are plenty of abandoned or half-finished parks that have just been left to decay. One of them is AParque Aquático Do Almargen, which was supposed to open in 2015 but got stalled due to “financing issues.” Now, nine years later, it’s completely deserted.

Construction may have stopped, but the park had already made some solid progress, featuring at least two swimming pools, a bunch of slides, and cool decorations like a shark's head, a whale tail, and a pirate ship. The water park project was estimated to cost over 25 million Euros, aiming to create a northern water park resort packed with wave pools, a lazy river, slides, inflatables, a kids' pool, aquariums, a spa, a restaurant, a disco, and even a bowling alley. About a year back, the Viseu City Council gave the current owner until the end of 2024 to decide if they’re going to finish the project, which is already nearly a decade behind schedule. Mayor Fernando Ruas made it clear that the goal has always been to complete the well-planned project, and if the company doesn’t take action, all the structures will be torn down.