Niche travel

WHEN IT COMES to pools, some hotels just try harder.

At the San Alfonso del Mar resort in Chile, management has gone all-out to break records with its offering. Its lagoon-style pool, which hugs the coastline, measures a whopping 1,000 metres in length and covers an area of eight hectares, making it the Guinness World Record-holder as the world’s largest.

Others have gone for something a little less obvious. The €5 billion Marina Sands Bay development in Singapore has a pool with a view. Not for the faint-hearted, the infinity pool here is situated on the 55th floor, 200 metres up a sky-scraper, making it the largest outdoor pool in the world at that height. Just don’t go off the deep end.

The rooftop pool at The Joule in Texas looks pretty tame by comparison, particularly as it’s a fairly standard rectangular affair. The only difference is that half of it is cantilevered out over the city below, with a glass bottom for added thrill.

Unsurprisingly, Las Vegas is one city that is not keen to be out done on the cool pool stakes. To this end, The Golden Nugget recently pulled the cover off its new $30 million (€23 million) offering which features, wait for it, sharks.

Having renamed it The Tank, guests now get to swim with the (seriously dangerous) fishes, fins, fangs and all, separated only by reinforced glass.

It has some great waterslides to add to the adrenaline, one of which is three stories high.

Climb up it and gravity pulls you down through the shark tank at breakneck speed. Just as long as it’s not break-glass speed too.