The Jacana Resort in Suriname, South America was designed to have natural boulders stacked to over 20 ft high. RicoRock was able to transform a limited area footprint into a dramatic water wall with a narrow cave feature and shallow pools as a place to hang out.
The Radisson Aruba does not allow for swimmers to engage with the rockwork (for liability reasons) but has a dramatic entrance. The pool area water features resemble natural cliffs, an effect that cannot be achieved with natural stone at a reasonable cost.
Here are four additional reasons why resort hotels prefer cast rock to natural boulders:
1. Designers for resort hotels know their guests want fun and splash with their waterfalls and that’s far easier to accomplish with cast rock than natural boulders.
2. Grottos and caves are bigger and safer when built with steel reinforced concrete that happens to look like a rock formation.
3. The surface of cast rock is actually safer than the surface of most natural stone that tends to be slippery.
4. By controlling the way water flows over the surface, artificial rock gives more splash per gallon of flow than natural stone where the water clings to round corners and won’t splash without doubling the pump horsepower.