I know I promised so here it goes... Waterworld... what a freakin nightmare! I think the service at WW was the worst I've ever seen anywhere I've ever been, even worse than the movie theater and McDondalds! I come from the unique perspective of having worked there in the first year they were open as a gaurd so yes I can say I know what they are doing at least the gaurds.
Dade and I get there with fresh season passes in hand and walk up to the now combo park. It seems they just did AW and WW as one park this year, no seperate ticket. So we walk and head for the Season Pass Processing Center over in the Coney Island section of the park. This is pretty good, short line it went sorta quick and we had our passes in no time. This is where the first problem occured. In order to get to WW you have to go to the Tidal Wave and walk under/past it. Well how do you get to the Tidal Wave? Go to the Mexicana area. How you get there? Oh you have to go through Main Street Plaza area to the old Nottingham area past the new roller coaster, then up to the Skyway in the Oriental Village, loop around that and head through the Mexicana area until you see the Tidal Wave then take a left. Now walk up the path eventhough it seems like your going the wrong way keep going across the RR tracks and then you'll see the entrance. HUH! All of this without a sign in sight... it's a damn good thing I have been here like 100 times or I would have walked around and been lost for an hour trying to find the damn entrance. Well we made it and Dade was tired from the 2 mile hike and I was sweaty too, and that water looked damn good at this point.
First things first, let's get a locker and put our gear in it. We get in the 7-10 person line at the locker/tube rental shack and about AN HOUR later we were one person from the front. That person was an employee there on her off day trying to scam some free tube and locker or something. She said what she wanted and then wouldn't give the guy any money, meanwhile the line is now 30+ strong and I'm pissed at the amount of time it has taken and they are fartin around and I'm about to lose it when a supervisor shows up and send her on her way. So I pay the guy for the locker and he gives me a wrist band(for the deposit refund) and then he just stands there and looks at me. After about 30 seconds I remind him I did not get a key yet so he goes into ultraslow motion and bends down and start to pick up something. It took a full minute for him to slooooowwwwlllyyy take his time in picking out a key for me. Ok I'm about to blow at this point but I've got my super excited 4 year old tugging at my arm so off we go.
Our first stop Lil' Bucaneer Bay the kiddie section. First thing I notice is that nothing is working. The slides are pumping but the trees, the cannons, the coconuts and ship spouts are not doing anything. Dade doesn't notice so I'm happyish that he's happy. So Dade goes up and waits his turn for a slide but gets stuck at the top because a 1 year old is there without a parent in sight as far as I could tell trying to climb up the slide. I'm sitting in the pool about 10 feet away expecting to see a gaurd help out or a parent get her but nope 3 of the 4 gaurds in the area are having a powwow about whos screwing who or something by the sound of the language (in the kiddie area) and the lone other gaurd is way over there looking after another slide. So Dade is patiently waiting for this "baby" to get out of the way so he can go when finaly a parent shows up AND HELPS THE KID CLIMB UP THE FREAKIN SLIDE! WTF! Dade slides down and I convince him we need to be somewhere else so we head out to the Lazy River. On the way I see a 20'x30' section of astroturf, which covers everything in this area, covered in brown/black slime from standing water. It's obvious by the gooeyness that it has not been attended to in weeks. There were a couple of little kids "skiing" through it though... hmm maybe it was a new ride in the making... again not a gaurd to be seen, anywhere!
The Lazy River was uneventful and provided a moment for me to "come down" from the rage I had been building up but this was short lived. Our next stop was the racing slides. We get in line to get a mat and there are only 8-10 people ahead of us. Six go at a time on this slide so this should only take a minute to get a mat. Well first only one person comes down. Then they take their sweet time getting off the slide so the next set can come down. The one gaurd down here is more interested in talking on his cell phone than hurrying this lone slider along too. Next 2 come down oh but before that one of them sent their shoes down ahead, well the guy at the top won't let them go since the shoes are now at the bottom of the slide and not off the slide. So the gaurd has to go and get them out of the way... oh and you can tell he's not happy about having to get off his phone call so he going to stroll out there and get them as slow as he can and looking as pretubed as he can. Finally they send down those 2 then a run of six come down and we get a mat. I guess it's been 10-15 minutes for what should have been 2 minutes at this point so I start the timer on my watch. We get in the "we have a mat" line and we wait and wait and wait and I notice that 12 minutes has gone by and no one is behind us... they aren't even running! It turns out someone in an area not even adjacent to the slide got hurt, they fell or something. So the gaurds shut down the slide so they could watch! Eventually they gave her a band aid and everything started and we got to slide.
At this point I wanted to complain so I start to head back to customer relations when I notice Dade bounding along beside me like a gazelle! To him this was the way it was, he didn't know that all the employees were acting "put out" to be there and that things were all crappy, only I knew this and I was about to show him that the fun he was having was not fun at all, so I decided not to do it. There about another dozen or so incidences throughout the next 3 hours we were there, and in the end we were at AW and had bad service there to. Now I want you to know I'm not being unreasonable here. Employees singing "come on rain, all you people need to go home!" to my face is not acceptable. I would have been canned on the spot if I had done that in '83... I guess it's just sign of the times... I must be getting old or something, even the family places are not that "family" anymore. Next time I will take names and make a note of times and send in something after the fact...I don't want to damage my son's dreamland.
