JFF Does Anyone Else HATE Waterparks?

I love them cause my kids can find a couple months of spending money in the wave pools. One time my son came home with 300 dollars. Tell me again why men put money in the pockets of their swim trunks? :p

I love em. It's flippin hot in Texas. The waterpark gives you all the rides of the amusement park, but it's not blistering hot and you get to swim too. What I don't like, is myself in a bathing suit! Other than that, waterparks rule.

I love them. As Tracy K said it is far too hot here in TX, and we have way to many in San Antonio not to take advantage of them. We get season passes and go at least twice per week. The kids have a blast, I supervise, and everyone goes home tired but happy.

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I love them. As Tracy K said it is far too hot here in TX, and we have way to many in San Antonio not to take advantage of them. We get season passes and go at least twice per week. The kids have a blast, I supervise, and everyone goes home tired but happy.

Well, when the kids were 3, 6, and 8 we did the Park A Day thing in the Orlando area.

The WORST day was at Typhoon Lagoon. What a freakin' nightmare that place was! It was like 101 Ways To Make Your Kid's Death Look Like An Accident! Full of trees so your kid was in and out of your line of vision every two seconds. Lots of rocks and otherwise slippery surfaces to fall and crack your head open on! THe wave pool was like something out of The Perfect Storm movie. Geez!

We also did Disney, Sea World (OMG my fave!), Universal Studios.

The BEST day was a 40 min drive to Cocoa Beach. Place was empty, gorgeous white sand, teal water beaches, $3 for parking.

As the kids got older I came to LIKE water parks however. As I could just let them go and sun myself.

We have a Six Flags nearby complete with 2 waterparks, indoor AND outdoor. Now they are 19, 17, and 15, I actually just DROP THEM OFF AT THE ENTRANCE AND DRIVE AWAY!! I promise this will happen to you one day!

:)

Eh...you gotta put the fecal contamination, boogers and band aids out of your mind, forget "being put together" and just HAVE FUN!
If not for the kiddo--I could pass on them, but kids love them, so we just go and have water day fun!

LOVE waterparks. Maybe the one you went to was not a good one? LOVE 'em!

OMG! I HATE them! All I see when I think about them is floating boogers and band aids! SO GROSS!

"honey"-

I WAS going to say water parks are OK...

BUT NOW...'floating boogers and bandaids' is an image I may NEVER forget...LOL

Maybe my local 'Y' will give me a refund???

I only got it for the pool....

**sigh**

Best luck!
michele/cat

I am with the others from TX. It get's way too hot here not to take them. I have found one that is a city one about 45 mins from me and it's cheep and it's easy to keep up with the kids.

The only one I have ever liked isaAbout 30 minutes away from us, is the Best Waterpark in the World.. not kidding or exaggerating. It has been rated Number 1 for years,

Schlitterbaun in News Braunfels, Texas.. I know totally Random..

It would blow your mind.. It is really fun, you can bring in your own coolers and food.. People literally travel from all over the world to go there.. There is nothing that can compare.. even Disney Worlds waterpark was lame compared to this.

Check it out.
http://schlitterbahn.com/nb/attractions

Well, tomorrow my daughter is having her 10th birthday party at an indoor water park! The Waterpark of America here in Mpls has "slumber party packages" where you can rent a room that sleeps six and comes with six waterpark passes, game tokens, pizza, etc. She is sooo excited about it. I like the slides and stuff, don't care for the noise level, but it's great seeing her have so much fun.

We don't go that often, to the indoor ones. We go to outdoor pools and waterparks whenever we can in our short summers.

I LOVE waterparks! and amusement parks.

just one of the many perks to having kids is getting to do all the fun kid stuff again! :)

Yes, I hate them. But we live at one in the summer because the kids LOVE it and its HELL hot here. We get season passes and go 2 or 3x per week. I take my book and read or float around the lazy river a couple times while the kids are playing. It wears them completely out, which is great. On the days we don't go to the water park, we have an inground pool in our backyard so we hang out there. =)

I agree about the ick factor and waterparks - ignore it. The parks are a fun way for kids to burn loads of energy and to beat our brutal Texas summers. I hate amusement parks, though. I get sloshed around the seats and slammed into the retraints. I wind up with bruises in places I feel for weeks afterwards. My collar bone in particular takes a beating. No thanks.

We find Sea World to be a good compromise - some water, some shows and some rides. Something for everyone.

Oh Jo, if I knew about that I would have being in the pools until I as was wrinkle as an old lady! lol.
I don't dislike water parks, I just dislike the waiting on the lines.
Then after almost an hour of waiting on lines, here is the person that is stopping the line because she is afraid....make me want to go and push her!
Never have...yet.
I also don't like much swimming, probably because I don't know how to.
I mean, if you drop me in, I can swing like a dog or float on my back...thank you big boobs.
=*)

They make my skin crawl!!! All I can think if is that it is one big bowl of pee... just the thought of it makes me want to Silkwood myself!!!

i wear glasses can't stand contacts, totally blind and kids in peril, yikes.

I LIKE your question! :) I do not like crowds so much....have to really mentally prepare for things like Disney and Great America. So fairs and amusement parks are not my favorite thing to do, but my hubs and kids LOVE it! That being said, I grew up w/ an inground swimming pool, was on a swim team for 6 yrs and spent summer on a lake and I do NOT love to swim! haha! I think my dislike of water parks is the crowds, for one, wearing a swimsuit, for another! I don't look awful, but I'm not 18 anymore!

Another thing, I am kind of an anxious person, so when I see kids RUNNING around on a slippery surface, not properly supervised, it makes me nervous! Even though they aren't my kids!

Once I am at a water park or amusement park, I DO have fun, but I would way rather have a picnic and hang out on a lake or even by the ocean if I could.

The one GOOD thing about water parks is how much my kids and hubs like em and that we can do something together! I guess that's a plus, huh?

I don't completely hate waterparks. But I'd much rather go to the city park that's only 5 miles away from me because it it less stressful. It's cheap, and has just 2 slides and a lazy river. My son and I can have fun and relax for a couple hours, and then go home to a clean shower.
As far as real waterparks, I kind of like Seaworld and Six Flags in San Antonio, because they have the mix of waterpark and rides, and Great Wolf Lodge because it's indoors. I hate having to spend 30 minutes putting on sunblock and wearing a hat. I hate being pressured into going on rides that are too wild for me, getting out of breath climbing stairs, and trying to drag my son out of the lazy river. My son gets seasick in the wave pool, and my husband panics if a slide dumps him into 3 feet of water. I get stressed out because my husband wants to get his money's worth out of whichever place we go. He wants us in line before the doors open, before our hotel room is ready, and stay til the park closes. And do it again the next day.

Waterparks are made for kids theme/amusement parks are made for all.

i don't like indoor water parks. i am not crazy about amusement park, but i do the latter because my kids love disney and hershey park. as for indoor water parks, we will never do them. just don't like them. i prefer to rent a cabin in a mountain during winter for a few days and reconnect with each other away from electronics and distractions.

I grew up in SoCalif where I thoroughly enjoyed every theme park: Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, Magic Mountain, Sea World, Universal Studios, LA Museums, Parks, etc.

One day at the water park I had to use bathroom and could not find it. I searched and searched and finally saw the sign. And to this day I have wondered, why are the lines to the bathrooms at the amusement parks just as long as the lines to rides sometimes, BUT at the waterpark, there is never a line to the bathroom???

I do not go to waterparks.

I feel like I'm swimming in someone elses bath water. I'm not a sun lover, so the outdoor ones in the summer are not for me - I'm always looking for shade and I don't think that's the point. My kids don't swim yet so I'm always on high anxiety that they will drown.

I'll look forward to the days where I can sit under the umbrella and supervise their fun. Sounds like I'm turning into an old lady. Oh no!

I have not been to an indoor water park but have done the outdoor. I detest them. I hate the swishing up on the side of the slides. I fear that I will be the ONE person to defy the laws of physics and go up over the top.

When I was still working I went as far as asking the 'know-it-all' engineer in our group why I was not that ONE. When he could not provide an answer I officially gave up water parks ;-)

I too love amusement parks.

I like the water parks, at least the nautatorium near me. That's the only indoor one I have been to. It is a great place to take young children--better than a regular pool because of the splash pad, slides, etc. It is also a great place for water aerobics. Would I rather go waterskiing on the lake? Absolutely, but there's only a few months of the year to do that.
As for amusement parks, I hate them. Too crowded, too artificial. Would rather go for a hike any day.

Now that my kids are a little older and competent swimmers, I don't hate them. I actually enjoyed them with my husband when we went without our kids. But I'm not a huge fan. We do love amusement parks though.

We bought season passes to SummerWaves (here on Jekyll Island, 20 minutes from us) for this year. We'll probably go maybe 3 times... the kids love it. But I don't. Mostly because after 2 hours I'm done. And usually the ground walking around is scalding hot and you can't really wear shoes-- you have to remove them and hold them or throw them down in advance on the slides...

It really is hot here in the summers though (high humidity makes it almost unbearable).... so it will be fun to let the kids cool off there a few times, drag a friend along with them, sort of thing. Generally, I find a big "ick" factor if you don't go right when they open for the season. Our season passes also include free mini-golf on the island, so we'll probably do both every time we go... golf then hit the waters.
We have a pool at home, so just to get wet isn't worth going... but the kids LOVE the slides.

Sorry, I LOVE THEM! Just got back from one in fact. I have always loved the water, and going to the waterslides was always my favorite thing as a kid. We go to the rec center weekly, and it has an indoor waterslide, playground in the kids pool, lazy river, etc. During the winter, it is not crowded so it is a lot more enjoyable than in the summer, I think. I love getting in there and swimming around with the kids. We pretend we are sharks, we do handstands, we practice our swimming strokes, and yes, I go on the slide. BUT when it gets super crowded, I hate it. Crowds just suck, in general, and especially shrieking crowds of kids. I also can't imagine it being fun if you are not in the water. I see a of moms just walking around watching the kids and that seems like a super boring time.

Hate them!

One of my niece worked at a local one here in Omaha and the stories of the things they'd find and the things that would happen grossed me out. The "froth" as she called it every morning when they opened the park that had accumulated on the top that night. Explosive diarrhea, diapers in the filtration system, vomit, floaters.... I heard WAY too many stories. The amount of chemicals they have to use burns my eyes not to mention. Why oh why would I pay nearly a hundred dollars to swim in that filth.

I know lakes are live stock runoff, fertilizer, heck flesh eating bacteria and other such bacteria can be found and is measured weekly. That is gross too but for some reason I expect that there so it bothers me less.

So yes I hate those parks too! No thanks!

I don't hate them but I don't love them either. I think they are fun for one or two days a year as long as the days are separated by several months. For me if they had an actual swimming pool + the fun stuff it would be better. I hate the cold water showers from above too.

I really loathe the idea of public pools in general. I don't care how much chlorine is in them, all those people and kids with varying hygienic standards. Eek.

Two words: FECAL CONTAMINATION

I live right across the street from a waterpark. Not too many yards away to be truthful. In my case, although my children actually got bored,definitely not the same as a lake- I am extremely grateful in the summer. I feel like I live in a motel. It's that close. Sometimes I wish I live back near Lake Michigan where I grew up. I was hoping my children would have loved it more. No one is ever happy.