Indoor Water Parks Added Extra Safety Measures

In the winter of 2020, there were still quite a lot of restrictions on businesses. Our family got invited to a 10-year old’s birthday party, and a lot of the things you would normally do to celebrate that milestone were still closed. Bowling alleys, escape rooms, and video game arcades were all still shut down. Hotels never really closed, and as luck would have it, there was a great hotel in our area that has a huge indoor water park, with several tube water slides, splash pad for the toddlers and a lazy river and huge hot tub for the parents to enjoy. These hotel/waterparks are very popular in cold weather northern states because they let you escape the drudgery of bitter cold winters, even if it’s just for just a quick weekend visit.

At this hotel, they hadn’t quite figured out how they were going to operate during COVID-19. The waterpark portion of the property had been closed in the spring like everything else in the country. It took them about six months to figure out how to open the waterpark, and when they did, it brought a lot of pent-up families out of their house to do anything other than sit at home.

We checked into our room and immediately everyone in our party changed into swimming gear and headed down to the waterpark. Here is where it got a little silly. The hotel management opened one of their banquet rooms to serve as the entrance to the waterpark area. They used a second otherwise-out-of-the-way door as the exit. Each door was one-way only, so that the people entering would not have to cross paths with the people exiting. While you were walking to and from the entrance/exit, you were required to wear a face mask. The parents were casually sitting around tables trying to have a conversation, but indoor waterparks are notoriously the loudest places on the planet, and to try and have a conversation through a mask was quite a challenge.

When the kids came out of the water for a drink or snack, they had to immediately mask up. The lifeguards were tasked equally with watching the water for safety, and making sure the out-of-water children were wearing masks. But when the kids entered the water, they didn’t have to wear masks! There is no bigger petri dish of activity than a waterpark, even with the chlorine and chemicals in the water.