Wild Adventures — Attraction in Valdosta

Drove all the way here from Jacksonville to celebrate my son's birthday.

It was gnarly.

Most of the rides we looked forward to were closed "for maintenance" the entire day (no exaggerration) including twisted typhoon, swamp thing, island falls, safari train, swinging safari, Tasmanian river rapids, the wahee cyclone slide, kona cliffs, and hakini rapids. It was super disappointing. The wave pool waves were more like ripples. The rides that were running made such crazy noises that we didn't even want to ride them. The boomerang made a nasty grinding and clunking sound going up the lift hill and then again at launch so we didn't even consider that one. Marsh madness also made a lot of noise that discouraged us from riding.

There is a BAD drainage issue here and they really need an engineer to come in and figure out how to resolve it. There was a short downpour and nearly the whole park was under 4 inches of water. I saw employees with squeegees (useless and ridiculous, made me laugh out loud) and sump pumps placed in the middle of sidewalks.

The boardwalk on the arapahi trail is falling into the swamp and they had to block a section off with a couple of benches. you could also see a whole section of boardwalk that has been closed and covered in debris that no one ever bothered to repair or remove. One side of the entrance to the bear viewing area was so flooded it was not even navigable and we turned around and was full of tadpoles or minnows so it wasnt a fresh puddle by any means.

The animal enclosures are way too small for the animals, especially the lions, and the stench of animal shit fills the park, even after rain. The petting zoo where the goats are kept was flooded and I felt so bad for the goats having to stand in water all day. I was also extremely disappointed to see native wildlife being held captive, one being a red tailed hawk in a small cage that just stared sadly up at the trees, a skunk in a small cage in the swamp who was so miserable there that it sprayed every time we walked by, the black bear, the raccoons, a sandhill crane, and a 14 foot gator with enough room to turn around a few times and no space to actually move in the water. They kept baby gators in a display box and took them out to let kids hold them and take pics (gross exploitation of wildlife similar to what we all saw on tiger king, just a different species). The entire wild boar enclosure was also under about 3-4 inches of water. There was only a very small sheltered area where maybe one of them could get out of the mud, just despicable conditions for any animal, even a pig. The porcupine is in a round cage with about a 10 ft diameter. The lions are in such a small viewing area all day that its like if I locked 2 of my cats in my bathroom all day long. It seems cruel and it disgusted me all around. I didn't even see the tigers because that area was closed, too.

There are way better zoos with better husbandry practices that actually care about the well being of the animals, and other theme parks where they maintain their rides in functioning order on a daily basis and you can actually get the full value of your paid ticket. Based on older reviews it looks like some of these rides have been down "for maintenance" for months. Stay away from this place unless you hate animals AND having fun.

I do not need a canned response like "we would like to discuss this further." Don't waste your time or mine. Unless you can rebuild the entire park, fix the drainage, consult professionals to create a healthy environment for the animals, stop keeping native wildlife captive that shouldn't be, stop allowing those awful baby gator meet and greets, and keep the rides in working order and safe, frankly i dont give a flying hoot what you have to say. No type of excuse or apology would make it acceptable for you to operate this way.

I also had a laugh on the way out. the "campground" is basically just a bare parking lot. Not a tree or shrub in sight, just all of your neighbors. Such a waste of resources when you could have focused on...

Horrible, horrible experience; and insanely frustrating at that.

We go in on opening day for the water park this season. Spent 293$ on 2 gold passes. I’m 7 1/2 months pregnant, and we’re down at Valdosta visiting family, and do so pretty often so it felt worth it to buy the passes. Well, nowhere was it mentioned that on opening day, one of the ONLY things I can do as a pregnant woman is closed; the lazy river. Will it be open at all today? Nope. Tomorrow? Probably not. Ok, that sucks, but at least there’s the wave pool, right?

Nope! As soon as we get to the wave pool, not only is it absolutely crowded to an unsafe level, with children fighting in the water and screaming without the lifeguards doing ANYTHING to discourage horseplay, they aren’t even doing the waves! So it’s just a shallow pool, which isn’t even safe because of all the kids falling over themselves and pushing past you. Spent 18$ on a locker to not use it, misters aren’t even on so it’s insanely miserable at 95F to walk through, and we can’t just stay another day for things to MAYBE be better.

We’re pretty frustrated at this point, but we chalk it up to a crappy day and we start to head out. Just before the gate to exit, there’s a gift shop on your right, so we go in to cool off and take a minute to look around. While we’re there, we’re chatting to a manager with a bright blue shirt who seems sympathetic, and even she said she didn’t get it. Apparently the day prior, the day BEFORE opening day, the lazy river is empty. She stated they KNOW it takes 2 days to fill, they have all the time in the world to prep this, but they wait till the last minute for it to not even be open the day of or day after opening. We vent to her about this, politely, and she’s super understanding and sweet.

We are told that she will call ahead to guest services to get us a cabana for free so that the next time we come, we can at least have a cabana. This obviously made us really happy, and it felt like a crappy day was turning around. I was still heat exhausted and upset about the river, but this definitely helped. We thank her, and we head to guest services.

We get to guest services, and we are greeted by the rudest associates who are on their phones, and tell us essentially, ‘Yeah that’s not possible.’ Without making any effort to try to track down the manager who promised us this, and actively on her phone, and just seeming annoyed to even talk to us about this. We’re not rude to these associates, but when we see one supervisor radio to guest services in front of us, and we get there and we are essentially told, ‘tough.’, it’s actually insane.

This park has such poorly ran management it’s horrible. We spend 293$ on a season pass, walk about a mile to get INTO THE PARK from the horrible parking out in the fields, because no one is actually working to pick people up, and when we’re faced with a reasonable solution just to get told ‘actually no’ is insane. It just feels like such a waste to even buy the gold passes after an experience like this, especially as a pregnant guest, and we honestly don’t even want to come back ever...

I use to come here all the time in my teen years, it was a great experience, but now it is not worth the time or money. My Husband has terminal cancer ,he wanted to spend a day with our 8 yr old daughter while he still can,this is not what we sighed up for.Let's start out with I bought tickets, parking online, when we 1st pull up to the parking booth I was pulling out my phone to show the girl my parking ticket, she asks me if I bought it online I tell her yes, she says go-ahead in without scanning anything! Umm ,so I could have not bought one and lied about it to save money. Not so professional. We found a parking spot pretty easy, we brought our own walker because I believe $75 to rent a scooter is pretty high. The rules online it says clearly "NO OUTSIDE FOOD OR DRINKS ALLOWED IN THE PARK " when we got to the entrance I noticed people bringing in all kinds of food, coolers.if I would have known that we would have done the same.!! The security at the entrance did not even check our bag worth a crap, the mental detector went off on several ppl and he was like your good go ahead.

When we got in it was ok rode the first Rollercoaster, went to ride bumper cars and the only car left had a exploded diaper sitting in it, told the worker, he grabs a sweat rag picks up the white gel and says there its up . It was very much still there ,visible wet . I told him it wasunsanitary. And me and my daughter walked away.I could not believe it . We were really confused walking into dead ends to double back having to go around ,it was putting alot into my husband. We bought a food pass, asked several workers what to do or where to start on getting a drink cup , nobody has a clue how thoes work , until we googled it. Every bathroom was dirty, smelled of urine, the food kiosks smelled of sour garbage, lots of trash thru out the park.

Me and my daughter had 4 rides close on us while waiting in line, most of the rides were not running . The safari train was closed. The animals were so hot they were not visible. The bird walk had holes in the netting . Told a worker about it she said it was fine. The dining area was dirty, tables not cleaned . Trash on floor.

The splash island was a joke , the lazy river was hot and Dirty. ppl splashing and dunking ppl knocking ppl over .lifeguards were not paying attention. Blisters on my feet from concrete, the splash station got shut down due to a bord come flying off under the dump bucket, that could of hit anyone , most of the slides on the splash area were already closed anyways.

Overall in my opinion, I would not recommend coming , the park I once enjoyed as a kid is no longer here, I had a horrible time and an upset kid and...