Ice-cream? We prefer swimming say UK kids

It’s no secret that kids love the water, but when First Choice asked them what they like to do on their holidays, a staggering 92% said that they were in the pool every single day with over 46% saying they spent nearly all of their holiday swimming.

A huge 60% said swimming was their favourite thing to, putting it well above sightseeing, playing on the beach and even eating their favourite foods while on holiday.*

When asked what was the most important consideration to them when booking family holidays, 50% of children looked for top pools, preferably complete with flumes, slides and wave machines. When the same question was asked of their parents, perhaps unsurprisingly, great value for money, good standards of accommodation and reputation of the holiday company were all cited as important factors.

The recent survey found that water-related activities scored highly with both adults and children alike, with 42% of adults saying that swimming and lying by the pool was their favourite activity.

As a result of the findings, First Choice has put together a research team to hand pick the very best pools across all of its programme. All boasting fantastic water features such as flumes, wave machines, bubble pools and lazy rivers, the pools have been included in First Choice’s new Splash Resorts collection and are featured in its new summer brochures. Their seal of approval has been denoted with the new Splash Resorts logo to make it that much easier for kids and parents to find the swimming pool of their dreams.

To make sure only the finest of pools are given the much coveted Splash seal of approval, First Choice has even employed a cool pool tester to make sure they make the grade. Tommy Lynch, a lifestyle development manager for First Choice has travelled over 27,000 miles in order to try out the best pools. His job involves checking the height, speed, water quantity and landing of the flumes as well as all the safety aspects.

Tommy has become somewhat of a pool expert, through his flume touting adventures and explains: ''The pools and slides are such an important part of family holidays so it is vital everything is right.''

“My favourite pool by far is at the Holiday Village in Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol. It has it all, flumes, slides and even a wave pool!”

In 2008 Tommy tested flumes at the company's nine holiday villages in the Costa Del Sol, Lanzarote, Majorca, Egypt, Turkey, Cyprus, Algarve, Dominican Republic and Mexico.

And this year he will quality control First Choice's new Splash Resorts in far flung destinations including Greece, Turkey, Florida, Jamaica and Ibiza.

For further information see First Choice’s website at firstchoice.co.uk.

* In a survey of 1000 of First Choice’s parents and their children undertaken in December 2008.