jianantonic | Water Park!!!

Wow. Totally wow. Jer, Ray, and I spent the evening at the water park. Today was the very first day of operations, open to employees and their guests only, and I have to say, it's totally worth the hype. I've been thinking all along that this was just a lot of fuss over a dinky little thing, but it really is all it's cracked up to be. And then some. I loved every minute of it. You simply must experience it for yourself. It opens to the public on Monday. I think it's kinda pricey, but well worth it. What a blast.

I didn't make it to the gym tonight because of all the water parking we did, but I definitely got my workout anyway. My favorite slides were ones where you have to walk up five (maybe six? seven? lots) flights of stairs to get to the boarding area, carrying a big inner tube all the way, and we went down those close to ten times in all. Definitely got my workout:)

I decided I did want to get into the details:) It's a three-level building. The top floor is a retail area and restaurant (which isn't open yet but looked fantastic). The middle floor has a bar and the gigantic arcade. It's one of those arcades where you can win tickets and exchange for prizes that work out to have cost you $150 for a cheap teddy bear - but the games are rad. There are all the regular arcade games, but they also had Dance Dance Revolution Extreme, a virtual rollercoaster where you lay in a chair that moves and you can select five different rides - totally rad. Then all the water park stuff is on the bottom floor - but some slides are several stories high, you just enter on the bottom floor. Of course the outdoor stuff isn't open yet, but most of the slides on the inside actually are built outside the building, with just the entrances and exits indoors. All the tallest slides are tunnel-style, but three of them allow you to ride inner tubes. One slide, which looked to be the best of all, wasn't operational yet - you'll be able to ride triple tubes down that one. The others allow single or double riders. One of the tube slides is completely dark on the inside, so you don't know which way you'll turn or when you'll exit. The bottom has an eight foot vertical drop right at the exit. I didn't know that when I first went down. Jer and I went down that one in a tandem tube for the first time, and we were both really surprised when it was dark, and we both screamed a bit at the end - but it was definitely a joyous experience. There were a couple of tall slides that didn't require tubes, but the segments hurt my back so I rode those once and moved on to something else. There's a three story play structure with smaller slides (some child-size, and some respectably-large ones as well), and all sorts of ropes and buttons and such that you can use to dump water on other people. The lazy river surrounds this area. There are two hot tubs, one that is indoor-outdoor, and one off in a little grotto in the lazy river. There's a water basketball area here, too. The other main attraction on the ground floor is the flow rider. It's a giant wave simulator where you get a boogie board and just jump on. I was really nervous to do this one, but I figured the lines would never be shorter, so I'd better find out if I like it. The people ahead of me in line were doing really badly on it - getting caught in the currents and just spinning, getting disoriented and flung off the back of the wave, or just doing things that looked totally painful. But talking to a lifeguard in line, he assured me they were just being a bunch of dipshits and if I kept my cool, I'd be fine. So I did it, and I must say I had great form. Not even a drop of water up my nose:) Dismounting is tricky. You have to either let the wave carry you off the back, which usually involves resigning yourself to some discomfort, or you have to manuever yourself to the edge - also not easy. I managed to steer myself to an edge and make a relatively graceful exit. So those are the highlights, I guess. We had a blast. I can't wait to go back!

Now I'm worn out from all the excitement, so I'm going to have a snack and read.

Peace.