Wet 'N' Wild Waterworld — Attraction in Anthony

Last Friday, my wife and I, together with our two kids, headed down to the water park called wet’N’wild in Anthony, Texas, expecting to spend a relaxing family summer day in a water park. However, wet’n’wild truly makes honor to its name since you can definitively get wet, but it is also pretty wild. The rides seemed fun, and our kids spent the entire day enjoying them. However, they reported that the people in charge of the rides do not always follow the security rules that they have in place for them. We witnessed and experienced several close calls that could have easily ended up in the ER. The water quality in the lazy river is questionable at best. And the wave pool is rather lame. The rest of the park is really, really wild.

At the entrance they had a sign that says that if you bring your own music, you can only play it at a conversational level. However, people largely ignore this. Multiple people bring their own speakers and blast their music for everyone around to “enjoy.” This happens everywhere on the grounds, and there are so many people doing this that you should prepare yourself to enjoy a cacophony of noise during your stay. I highly recommend bringing earplugs or very good noise-cancellation headphones. Otherwise you will leave this park with ringing in your ears. Also, the most common music that people played out loud was reggaeton with lots of foul language like F-bombs and explicit sexual material. This apparently is also against park policy but obviously not enforced. We complained about this to the people that go around with the “crowd control” T-shirts. They said that the loudness was ok and permitted since they could hear us complain about it with no problem. About the language and explicit sexual content of some of the lyrics, they said that unfortunately that is the culture that we live in and that they can’t change the culture. And speaking of culture, they also have a policy of not drinking alcohol after 2 pm; however, this is not truly enforced, and we saw several people leaving the park clearly intoxicated. Police had to intervene in a dispute in the parking lot. We also experienced people smoking pot. The grounds people seemed concerned about this, but once again, they did nothing to stop it. And while we are on the topic of smoking, apparently it is also part of the culture of this place that people bring food to barbecue. So starting around lunchtime, prepare yourself to be surrounded with people burning different types of foods and filling the air with smoke. If you enjoy the inability to breathe clean air, I would highly recommend you set up in the area inside the lazy river. This was by far the worst area of the park in terms of air quality. And speaking of setting up. What other reviewers have reported here about how they nickel and dime you for absolutely everything is true.

So, would I recommend this park to other people? Well, apparently it is a culture thing. If you do not mind lackluster water rides with loosely enforced rules, and if you belong to the culture in which you do not mind invading your neighbor’s space by playing really loud reggaeton music (with sexualized lyrics full of curse words) while burning meat in the barbecue, drinking alcohol throughout the day, and smoking weed in front of your kids, I guess you will fit right in, and you will probably have a blast. Otherwise, I would recommend staying away as far as you can. This place is only interested in making money, and they do not seem to care about the well-being of the people that...

Very nice park with friendly and professional staff. We did have a great time here but unfortunately, had a few things that I felt could be better and felt like I was unable able to fully take it all in because of this.

Arriving at the park, I found out that tube rentals were all sold out and that there are no locker/change rooms. Patrons are expected to change in the small bathrooms, in a toilet stall. Gross. This was the most surprising thing about this place. Who has a waterpark with no locker/change rooms? There were 2 showers out in the open, 1 of them with cold water, to rinse off before you leave. Being on a bit of a road trip, it would have been nice to take a proper shower before getting into the vehicle.

There seems to be no limit on capacity at the park. The first 3 hours there, we were only able to get on Zele Rush, Zele Scream and Condors Secret. All were very fun and worth the wait but not wanting to spend more of our day in line, we chose to stay mainly in the wave pool and lazy river for much of the remainder of the day. Part of the problem for the long waits I noticed, were on Condors Secret. The two employees seemed to be getting lost on their own conversations with one another instead of rapidly lining people up for the next turn. I watched as people would go down the slide, get to the bottom and out of the pool and these two employees on top just continue their conversation until they blessed us with their discretion on when to prepare the next riders. Not very efficient. Sometimes the 2 lines would move rapidly, while other times they seems to move 1 turn per every few minutes.

Towards the end of the day and as the crowd started to thin out, we were able to catch a couple of the other smaller slides. I'm glad the tubes were sold out when we got there because it would have been a waste to purchase for the 2 slides we went on that required them.

This place nickel and dimes you for everything! Parking is $2. If you would like to sit and eat food that you've paid for there, you must purchase a table for $10. (there are a few areas under slides you can sit on the grass.) Lockers will run you another $10. If you want to take a cooler in with drink for the day, there is another charge for that. People seem to be free to smoke cigarettes and marijuana anywhere they see fit in the park. I don't mind people smoking but I don't want to smell it and feel like there should be designated smoking areas.

All in all, we had a good time. We will be back next time we're in that area but on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Never again on a Saturday. But, Denver is the same distance from my home for me. I think I'd rather go there, where that water park has a change room and efficient moving lines....

I’ll do some bullet points here: •it’s overpriced for the size that it is. $200+ for our family, and 2 of our kids didn’t even get charged because they’re small. So 2 bills later — to go around a lazy river 7 times. • They definitely didn’t accommodate the amount of people to the equivalent of rides, so it was mostly just people walking around. • I wouldn’t consider this park excessively kid friendly. There’s kid activities… ish? Mostly just a splash pad with a little slide — you could just go to the park and save your bank account. • everything is so spread out you basically dry off just trying to walk somewhere else. I needed 45 minutes of exercise today and to break a sweat — mission accomplished. • should have a big sign that says “this is a giant party” or “byob” — it would have been a lot more fun if I was trashed and wasn’t worried about my kids disappearing into the mass amounts of confused people. • the “lazy river” should be called “crazy river”. My kids almost got knocked tf out by some teenagers that decided it was the appropriate place for an MMA smash down. • we spent the first 20 minutes trying to get a locker open — thankfully didn’t have any of our stuff in it yet — so the staff helped us get a different locker because the one we paid for decided it was done for the day and clocked off. •there are no maps anywhere — it’s anyone’s guess where you’ll end up. • lines are normal — but holy cow — the lines just never ended • you basically pay an arm and a leg to walk through peoples BBQs. •there is nowhere to sit unless you pay for a cabana — which after paying to get into the park, you should consider selling your house to enjoy a nice day here.

Pros: The staff was really friendly. Everywhere smelled like a 5 star restaurant.

What I’d do different? Probably not go here — or maybe pull my kids out of school in the middle of winter when no one will be there.

My kids had a good time — so at the end of the day that’s all I care about. Probably won’t do this one again though. That, or someone should build a few more of these so not everyone from New Mexico and El Paso are condensed...