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By PAMELA DAVIS
© St. Petersburg Times,
As much as Florida's summer sauna draws people to its water theme parks, it is also the adrenaline rush that comes from speeding and spinning along the slick flumes feet first, not knowing how the ride will end. You can plop your behind in an inner tube and ride a water flume just about anywhere in the state. From the Panhandle to West Palm Beach, Florida is full of H2O amusement. The Orlando area has the highest concentration of water parks with five, including the two most-attended parks in the nation, Universal's Wet 'n Wild and Disney's Blizzard Beach. The bay area is home to Busch Gardens' Adventure Island and Weeki Wachee's Buccaneer Bay. "Florida is definitely considered a water park state," said Dave Bruschi, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the World Waterpark Association, based in Kansas. "It seems that when the kids go back to school (elsewhere), there's a slowdown in the mentality of going to water parks. That's not the case in Florida." According to the World Waterpark Association, there are 850 water parks in the United States (including medium to small parks and those in municipalities). In 1999, the latest year for which figures exist, 68-million people visited water parks, an 8.8 percent increase over 1998. The first commercial water slide, a 350-foot flume, was built at a California campground in 1971. By the late '70s, water parks were a burgeoning industry. Like their big brother, amusement parks, water parks have something for everyone. For the daredevils there are vertical speed slides and twisting flumes inside dark tunnels. For the less daring there are lazy "rivers" and wave pools. Kids can splash around a water-filled playground or swim in a shallow lagoon.
"They have some extreme thrill rides at these water parks, with drops that tickle people's tummies a bit, but most are pretty mild water slides," said Paul McDonald, who covers Florida for Amusement Today, an industry trade journal. Jodi Kleiner, 10, of Tampa is a fan of Adventure Island's newest ride, Wahoo Run. "I like how it goes fast and you're going every which way," she said during a recent visit to the park. Her advice to other kids who plan to visit a water park: "Be aware that most of the slides are fast and most of them are pretty tall, so if you're afraid of heights, don't look down." Large parks such as those at Disney can draw a million people a year, while smaller ones draw anywhere from 200,000 to 400,000, according to Amusement Today. Compared with amusement parks, those attendance figures are quite small. "Water parks have a limited capacity," McDonald said. "The water parks don't make nearly as much money as amusement parks because people are in their swimsuits and they don't have money on them when they walk down the midway to buy ice cream or souvenirs." Yet, unlike amusement parks, which may charge $50 for a ticket, then require you to stand in line for hours to ride an attraction that lasts a couple of minutes, water parks get you in affordably and cool you off while you're there. Austin Dobson and his dad, James Dobson, who live in Riverview, are regular visitors to Adventure Island.
Dad, 42, likes to kick back, have a soda and people-watch, while Austin, 9, and his friends tear around the park for five hours or so, the skin on their fingers and toes wrinkled by the end of the day. "I like going down slides and stuff," Austin says. His favorite attraction is the Tampa Typhoon: "It's pretty steep and you go pretty fast. It's the wedgie monster." Water parks have seen an increase over the years in the number of families such as the Dobsons. "Years ago I would have told you teenagers (are the most frequent visitors), but now I don't think I could say that," said Bob Crescentini, Adventure Island director of operations. "It's more young families. "And that holds true with the type of rides everybody wants to push now: more things everybody can do together." Amusement Today's McDonald agrees. "The multipassenger raft rides are becoming increasingly popular. In the early days water slides allowed only single riders who got on a mat or a tube by themselves. Parks have found out over the last five years that families like to ride together. Rather than Mom going down the slide first, then the two kids and then Dad, now they can all go together."
The proliferation of families is why Adventure Island added Wahoo Run last year. The ride's rafts can each hold up to five people, spinning them along at up to 15 feet per second. At the Wet 'n Wild park, the raft for Bubba Tub, a six-story, triple-dip slide, holds four people. At Blizzard Beach, six passengers can ride Teamboat Springs, a white-water raft ride over a series of falls. More people can also affect the experience. "Each time they go down the slide, depending on where they sit and how fast they're moving, it's a different ride," association executive Bruschi said. Safety concerns
As children, we ran through sprinklers and zoomed on Slip 'N Slides. A water park takes those experiences and pushes them further. But chances of someone getting hurt at a water park are higher. The World Waterpark Association's Bruschi said there are about two drownings per year. In 1997 an 18-year-old woman plunged to her death when a water slide at Waterworld USA in Concord, Calif., ripped apart under the weight of a crowd of high school students who were trying to set a record for "clogging" the ride. The collapse injured 32 others. Adventure Island has about 60 lifeguards on its property at all times. "There are lots of lifeguards and lots of security," Dobson said. "At the beach you got one lifeguard within 500 yards. It's just a lot safer and cleaner here than the beach." And just how clean are water parks? "At most parks, employees are on a system where a certain number of times a day they go to certain spots and take water samples to make sure everything is in line with their sanitation program," Bruschi said.
But sometimes a park's procedures aren't adequate. In 1998 a 2-year-old girl died of complications from an E. coli infection she contracted at an Atlanta water park. According to health officials, the bacteria had been spread through one or more defecation accidents in a children's pool. In addition to health concerns, storm watching is serious business at water parks. Some of them use electronic devices that advise where any nearby lightning and bad weather are located. There may also be visual weather watchers. As storms approach, attractions will be shut down, but in Florida, when the storm has passed, the attractions are reopened.
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