More water park fun: A review

In my quest to tour local water parks, today I took my son to Coconut Cove in the South County Regional Park in Boca Raton. I'd heard from another mom that it is really good, and with a glowing testimonial like that, how could I not go? Coconut Cove is close enough to go to casually, but not exactly nearby, but I had to try it out.

After I paid to get in, the cashier gave me two bracelets to put on us. My son -- being a boy and all -- has never worn a bracelet of any kind. I have never put anything like that on him. And apparently I suck at putting these bracelets on, because both of them ended up too big for him and shaken off onto the floor. I returned to the cashier and asked if she could give me two more bracelets, and she told me she wasn't allowed to -- I should just show the bracelets I had if someone asked me about them. By this time, though, I had crumpled the bracelets into a wad, which wasn't very impressive.

The disheartening part about our trip to Coconut Cove, though, is that my son -- the same child who played for almost two hours at Splash Adventure just last week -- refused to so much as stand in one inch of water here. I guess he's just having an off day. With my son clinging to me, I tried walking him around the water playground, up the stairs, showing him the cute foam sea turtle just under the surface of the water, pointing out the other children who were happily playing.... He wouldn't take the hint. So I gave up and went home. (Notice the lack of photographs in this post.)

To compare it to Splash Adventure last week, though, I would rather have gone there than Coconut Cove today. The water playgrounds at both parks are almost the same, and Splash Adventure is closer to my home and about half the price. True, Coconut Cove has two tall water slides and a river float, but they were closed today -- and my boy wouldn't have been interested or able to use those features anyway.

Next week, I hope to try out yet another water park.

My work is so hard.

Oh, and I just found out about the City of Miami's first water park, Grapeland (what is up with that name?!), which just opened. Yay!

Living my water-park dreams

About zbdlkjt years ago, there was a huge water theme park called Atlantis in Hollywood right by I-95. Anyone been there? I totally loved that place. One summer in high school, I spent the whole day there and got burned so bad that I had sun poisoning for a week. My forehead swelled up so bad I looked like a beluga whale.



Fun times.

Even though I am a goofball responsible adult now, I dream at night about water slides. (That is, when I'm not dreaming about Jason Taylor.) I just love water slides.

So I was excited yesterday to read in the paper that today would be the first day county water parks would be open every day for the summer.

Guess where I went today?



I took my son to Splash Adventure, which is in Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach.

I have to say, the water park was much better than I could have dreamed. Splash Adventure is like going to a playground that's been flooded. I think I read that it's 18 inches deep at its deepest, which is perfect for the boy. There was a gentle water slide, a corkscrew slide, a tunnel slide and a short double slide. The whole thing is set up where there are levers and wheels to turn to make water come out of holes in the floor, or fall from above, or spurt out of a tube. There were plenty of lounge chairs and big umbrellas around the water play area, too. Plus, there were always two or three lifeguards standing by.



If my son had the language skills, I'm sure he would have asked me if we can come back every day. I am thinking about taking him to a different water park every week. Even though my beloved Atlantis is gone, it's amazing how many county and city parks have added smaller water parks.

That's definitely one good reason to live in South Florida.