Spots in hot salt water pools sell out
Tickets for the first three days of Christchurch’s new hot pools sold out in less than 24 hours.
The Christchurch City Council confirmed on Tuesday that the New Brighton hot salt water pools, named He Puna Taimoana, will open on Saturday, the start of Queen’s Birthday Weekend.
By yesterday morning, the website for the hot pools showed all 600 available slots had been booked out for Saturday, Sunday and Monday. There were still plenty of spots available for Tuesday.
Entry to the new pools is allowed only through online bookings, and sessions are limited to 50 people because of Covid-19 restrictions.
Four sessions will be held each day, lasting 1 hour and 45 minutes each. The pools will be cleaned and sanitised between each session.
The sauna and steam rooms will remain closed at level 2. The showers and change rooms will have restricted numbers.
Christchurch City councillor James Daniels, whose Coastal ward covers New Brighton, said he had booked tickets for himself and Burwood councillor Phil Mauger this weekend.
The complex has five pools of varying temperatures.
An active pool will be heated to between 26 and 28 degrees Celsius, while another pool for relaxation is heated to between 37C and 39C, and a two-metredeep ‘‘plunge’’ pool is kept between 10C and 14C.
About 75,000 visitors are expected in the first year the complex is open and 88,000. About 90 per cent of visitors are expected to be locals.
The pools emerged as an option for a New Brighton legacy project in 2014, and the city council green-lit funding in 2016. Development Christchurch consulted on designs in 2017 and construction began early last year.