Maybe we're just not meant to have a pool.
The deck was poured on Thursday (just a basic ~850 sq. ft. broom finish), and was looking good until about 2-3 hours into the job when, nearing completion, a heavy rain storm came through. Inexplicably, the contractor (who is not the pool builder... we contracted directly for the deck) opted not to cover the work, despite having plenty of plastic sheeting on hand and ample warning that rain was coming. It rained fairly hard for about 30 minutes, and the finish was ruined (basically turned it into an exposed aggregate finish).
As soon as the rain stopped, they began trying to get the aggregate back down with forceful troweling, but since the bulk of this concrete was, I believe, around 3.5 hours old at the time, they only made it about halfway through before this no longer was working. Next, they attempted to "skim coat" the entire surface with a thinned mortar mix and bonding agent, but gave up on this as well after a while.
So right now the deck is a mixture of areas of exposed aggregate and broom finish (with some of these areas having the thin crust of mortar on top).
Not sure what our next step is. The contractor is proposing bringing in someone to do Spraydeck or Sundek, but I've been told by a trusted expert that the water-weakened surface will be a perpetual spalling problem, even if covered with another type of finish. A tear-out / redo might be the only sound option.
--Michael