Last year I wrote a post about our trip to Disney and talked some about our local theme park here in town: Wild Adventures. A few people were a little upset about my Wild Adventures “hating” comments (my husband the main one…”support our local economy!” he said “Wild Adventures is great!” he insisted…) and sought to prove me wrong about it’s high cost by filling me in on when to get the best deal on season passes.
Turns out in October the park runs an awesome special where you can get the best season pass (which includes free parking and other perks), take advantage of using the park for the rest of the year, and have the entire following year. I looked into it and had to admit…it was a great deal. So, we did it. I knew I’d be getting pregnant in November and that we’d be sticking around town a good bit with my pregnancy. Britt gets in free so it is cheaper now that it’ll ever be for us! I figured Zach could take the kids out there once the baby is born so they can have some fun. And I figured my big ‘ole pregnant self might enjoy the water park this summer too 🙂
Over Christmas we went to check it out for the first time as pass holders! It was Britt’s first visit ever and it was a good little test run for Disney 🙂
Haha don’t hate on our hardcore matching stripes…you know you wish you could have joined in with us 🙂
I know I need to be supporting my local economy. I know I need to be proud of my town and thankful we have a theme park. I know I’m spoiled by Disney. But y’all. I went into the day pretty excited! We’d spent the money and I had lots of plans to take full advantage of our passes. The park was open until seven. We got there at four and already majority of the things we were hoping to do were closed. Which is ridiculous to me. If you claim to be open until a certain time then you shouldn’t have things close earlier than that time. We got to the safari ride at 4:50 and they wouldn’t let us on because it was set to close at 5. Ridiculous.
But it gets worse. The rides are fine. No, it’s not Disney. But they have a great variety of stuff to choose from that I knew Britt would enjoy. Except…she couldn’t enjoy them. My child is only 2 years old but is 36″ tall. The fact that she couldn’t ride an EXTREMELY slow moving choo choo train is beyond me. What’s worse is they don’t tell you the height limits until you get up to the front of the line. So we had a little girl super PUMPED to ride stuff who was then told she couldn’t. Not even with a parent!!! We were very limited on what she was allowed to do. And, to me, that’s a reflection of the safety of the rides. Obviously you aren’t running a tip top shape ride if you have to be so strict on who can ride in it, right?!?!? At Disney (I’m NOT trying to compare it to Disney…I know it’s not in the same realm but some things I cannot help but mention!) a pregnant woman can ride almost everything (just not the “mountain” rides). At Wild Adventures? I’m not allowed to ride hardly anything at all. Not even that extremely slow moving choo choo I mentioned earlier.
Dizzy Dragons was one of the few Britt could ride…but of course their dragon was busted!
Kye riding the choo choo solo while Britt was bawling her eyes out about it.
Whew, at least she can ride the carrousel!
I had all these grand plans of taking the kids myself during the summer. Ha. Ha. Ha. How the heck would that be possible? Britt can barely ride anything. Some of the stuff she can ride, I can’t. Kye was bored out of his mind with her rides. And there is NO WAY I can ride the ones he wants to!
If any locals have passes and are dare devils who want to ride the big kid rides I will GLADLY go with you!!!! PLEASE let me know 🙂 I hate for our passes to go to waste but I don’t know how else I’ll manage! I can keep the little kids while you, my daring friend, can take the older ones on the big kid stuff 🙂 Good deal 😉
We walked around the park and found a ride that randomly allowed Britt to ride it. Seriously, this park makes zero sense to me in how they decide this stuff. Listen to this rule. As long as one adult (it didn’t have to be her parent) was riding the ride at the same time, then Britt could ride. Why the heck does that matter?!?! So, so strange. And I did NOT know what I was putting my kids on until they were already buckled in and ready to go…
Yeah, that beast goes into the air and bounces up and down some before coming back down. WHY was my two year old allowed to ride this yet not that dang choo choo?????
Mom confession: I was FREAKING out worried about her the whole time. I kept smiling really big and cheering but omg I was panicking!
Whew they survived 🙂
And she loved it. I’m zero percent worried about her doing okay on Pirates of the Caribbean 🙂
We walked around the park some trying to find out what all we could actually do together as a family and Miss Independent enjoyed walking solo!
We finally decided we had to split up. I hated to miss seeing Kye ride roller coasters and such but there was no way Britt could handle watching him when she couldn’t ride. The boys went to ride the “big kid” stuff while I took Britt to see the animals, ride what rides she could ride, and then play on the big play ground. Those animals and that playground are, legit, the saving grace of the park for parents with little ones. Thank you lions. Thank you monkeys. Thank you playground 🙂
She LOVED climbing up and down the steps and getting her jump on!
Once the boys found us we decided to call it a night and go ahead and eat. I packed dinner for the kids and we found a place to chow down.
In the summer time the park does have a water park area…the downside is that it doesn’t open until 11:00. Seriously. Don’t they know we live in South Georgia? Where it’s 100 degrees by 8 am? The park is a decent drive for us and with naps and lunch I’m not sure how I’ll work it out, but we WILL be going at some point for sure! Thankfully both kids are old enough where as long as we were to get home by 1:30 they’d probably be okay for nap so I figured if I have to be a little late a couple times to be able to use our passes to our full advantage then that’s okay.
They also have a petting zoo and I do think that would be fun for BOTH kids and something I could manage solo. The family safari ride would also be fun if it is actually open next time we go 🙂 We had a really negative first experience with our passes (like seriously Z and I both talked about whether or not they’d give us a refund for them). And I REALLY went into it feeling positive so that was disappointing. However, I’m trying to be optimistic about it. I mean it stinks that it’s closed until like March?!?! And even then it’s only open certain days…but I’m sure we’ll make the most of it when we can.
When we left Zach said he will enjoy the passes but he just wants to come with Kye alone. That won’t be super helpful with a new baby haha! But I understand why…Kye LOVED the roller coasters and they will have fun doing that together! Our passes also include putt putt golf and go carts, neither of which I’ve ever seen there, so that will be cool to check out.
Honestly, I don’t get why they haven’t taken advantage of the fact that Zombieland was filmed there. Why not have a Zombieland section of the park or a cool Zombie experience or something? PS: If you haven’t seen Zombieland…it is awesome. Seriously! I may not be a huge fan of Wild Adventures (at least not yet) but I am a big fan of the movie that took place there 🙂
My plan going forward is to find some of those dare devil friends to do playdates with out there, review the times calendar prior to going so we’ll always know what rides are opened and when, and go as often as we can! I figure the more we go, the less I will feel like I wasted our money on the passes…and the more likely it will be that I learn the park, and grow to love it. I know SO MANY people hate Disney. And Zach and I have said it’s because they don’t know how to plan for Disney. I think hope that is how it is with me and Wild Adventures. Put my planning to work and maybe we will end up buying passes again for next year 🙂
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In a few of the pictures, it seems like Kye isn't having fun….I am assuming it's because he realizes Britt is missing out. What a sweet brother he is! We still have never checked out Wild Adventures as we head down I-75 but I'm leery of it! I hope your next visit goes better. Megan was almost 3 when we went to Disney and she loved Pirates of the Carribbean!
2 summers ago, when Bo was almost 2, we went a couple of times and I was pretty disappointed too. We did the same thing…Bo cried about not getting to ride the train, then did the TERRIFYING frog hopping ride. I mean, I rode WITH them both and was scared myself! Bo never cried, but he looked like he was on the verge. We really went for the water park and both times we started at 11 and by 1-2pm it was raining and storming, so they closed the water park. Maybe when the kids are all older (like, pre-teen!) we'll go for it again, but totally NOT worth it for us at this point in our lives when we have to drive 1.5 h to get there.