The water you shouldn't worry about. it's fairly easy to recover on the left side, too. (the left "space," not the Far left though.. well almost everyone dies by then anyways if they fall in that far) as long as you hold right... right when you reach the water. You can jump right after you hear the sound effect of Ike taking a breath of air. it's best to full hop out of the water, then hop again, go as low as possible, then aether.
Just saying because if the water isn't that much of a worry, he wouldn't have to worry about getting gimped all too much, especially if you remain near the center and camp with full hop fairs or platform pressure with your huge range. And the ceiling is so high, Ike can also survive well, and Ike still has really good horizontal kills, too, + aether/fair camping and ledge camping. Even if Aether misses, Ike grabs the ledge and now he can up air or aether underneath the ledge or QD to the other side or do whatever he wants to make the other person move.
If ike isn't afraid of the water, he can attack more vigorously and use his long range and pushback to pressure shields, knock them off of platforms, etc. He can even fall in the water on purpose on the right side to escape nasty attacks.
I'm not trying to say it's one of Ike's better stages, just that I don't think it's Ike's worst against a majority of the cast, but maybe just a few who are already good at the stage like falco or DK. I think some Ike users exaggerate on how bad japes is for Ike.
