Serengeti Springs at the Hattiesburg Zoo — Attraction in Hattiesburg

I am shocked. Reconsider going! Even once! There's customer service issues for sure but that's not even my motivation for writing the review. There will be injuries and death(s) here! And it will probably be a little one! I went to report the facility to some regulating authorities only to find out that amusement parks are not regulated whatsoever in Mississippi! If you're going despite my warnings, stay with your child at all times. If they're small, don't let them go under the bucket that dumps. The weight and force of the water is too much for little ones and it's only a matter of time before a small child is hurt from the bucket dumping on them. There's also no warning when it dumps so if you're not paying attention to where you're walking and let's say you're holding a little child, they will be completely ripped out of your arms from the force and weight of the water. The river.... the river is so dangerous. At first I was upset that they didn't have more floats but it didn't take long to understand why. Safety. The floats entrap people between them... usually little ones. The flow of the river will continue pulling a small child under any obstruction (another person, float) even with a life jacket on.

So many parents are allowing their kids to just roam the park and are not watching them. This means that kids begin to be kids and get carried away, cutting lines, rough housing and knocking down or over little ones, etc.

Some of the slides have opportunity to fall off. Not in the way you'd expect. The beginning of some of the slides allows for someone deciding to be "silly" to do a trick to slip over the edge. There's no nets to catch anyone.

The rails at the top of the structure ate NOT high enough. They're standard rails but so many adults are holding their toddlers and all it will take is one toddler doing what a toddler does and jerking away to fall over. Again... no nets to catch anyone whatsoever.

There's this water experiment station where you can move the flow of water. The 3 flow structures move and have relatively sharp ends on them. They're dulled enough to not cut from just grabbing but I believe a child running into the front of them or being caught by someone else moving them will cut for sure.

The place quickly became overcrowded. Lines for restroom (hope you're not in a hurry to go!). Lines for food (1 hour). Lines for each slide... even the small kiddie slides....

People choose to lay their belongings on every chair available so there's no seating due to belongings taking up every chair.

The lazy river will probably down a child before long. They have life guards every 20 feet but it can happen so fast and with so many people it's bound to happen.. I had to help a father who was watching 2 children because one child kept floating ahead and it was impossible for him to hold onto both. The current is very strong in some areas. The boy he kept losing was also struggling to stay above the water. The life guards didn't seem ready to jump in to help either! Most looked miserable and I can't blame them. You couldn't pay me enough to do their job.

For anyone reading this after a tragedy at this park, feel free to contact me for photos of the hazards to help you in your law suit. Last name is Hagwood and I'm sorry in advance for your loss/injury.

Let's start from the very beginning. Our first impression was fair pricing, a nice curb appeal, and then immediate realization of how busy/popular the site was even for a Monday at lunch. We had to park in the overflow lot down the street but they had a shuttle prepared to bring us to the gate. We got off and entered the admission line only to find out the venue is Cashless. So I gave my $25 to my friend so he could pay my entry with his card. Then I was informed I could buy a cashless card at the machine in the park if I wanted to get food and drinks during my visit. However, she then immediately informed me that the machine was also down currently. I noticed that many Cashless Cards were displayed in her window and I asked if I could buy one from her. She said that she could only sell me one if I paid for admission. And I said my friend JUST paid for our admission. And she said I would have had to do it with cash. Then she said there's no way to sell me one now unless I bought another ticket in cash. So I was immediately mad because now I couldn't even buy any food or drink inside without having to have a friend come with me and use their card. Very inconvenient. Then we get to the bar in the pool and the bartender is inexperienced. They were out of coconut rum but still selling the feature drink that requires it and just substituting it with regular rum and not adding any sort of coconut flavor or anything. Just selling what they could because they could. In addition to that they refused to sell us shots of liquor to add to our frozen non alcoholic drinks even thought their daiquiri machine at the bar was down and they couldn't offer frozen drinks. So we walked over to the snack hut and bought frozen drinks and brought them over to the pool bar. They wouldn't even sell the shots separately to us. Also, the food truck purchase area needs to have an adults only line because I got in line behind one kid who had 7 others join him once he got to the window. They cut a bunch of people in line. Nobody is regulating anything. The kids don't know what they want they have partial payment cashless cards they're all trying to use together and they're holding up service from paying adults with time and responsibilities to worry about. Furthermore the food was MEH! I bought one of each of the three tacos offered. The birria taco is not even birria. It was some steak like crumbles in a orange tone sauce. Birria should be shredded and tender and juicy. Not tough crumbles. I'm not impressed. Spent almost $100 over the day and barely got to enjoy any of it because it was over crowded and there should be some adult only days/offerings because the children were plentiful, rude, and unsupervised by any park authority or parents...

Went for Habari Nights, and it was obvious from the start that this event was poorly planned and executed.

They opened the doors 15 minutes late despite a huge line standing in the sun. They also kicked us out of the lazy river (one of only two attractions) 30 minutes before the end of the event. So, essentially, they cut out 45 minutes of a 2.5 hour event.

We went straight to grab a drink when we arrived. The lines were long, they were understaffed, the bartenders are clearly not trained to handle that volume so things moved very slowly, they did not have frozen drinks as advertised, and they were out of multiple other things before the event began. As the night wore on, lines were taking 30+ minutes to get a drink. So, not only did our actual time at the event get cut by 45 minutes, if you wanted a drink more than once you basically had to spend the rest of the night in line. However, I will say that the drink prices were fairer than anticipated.

There aren't nearly enough places to actually get in the water. The lazy river is very small, and the pool is even smaller. There certainly was not enough room to accommodate anywhere near 750 patrons.

I read both sets of rules sent out meticulously before arrival, and very few of their acrual rules seem to have been included. As soon as we arrived, we started hearing whistles everywhere, and the lifeguards were having to correct these adults every 5 seconds, and practically none of the rules they were whistling over had been shared. The management/marketing team could spare their staff a lot grief and their patrons a lot of frustration and embarrassment if they just sent out more of their rules in advance. I also didn't see these rules posted anywhere in the park-- so you basically just had to hope you weren't breaking them until you got whistled at. I think that's poor planning and policy-making.

My group was very excited for this event as it was our first time at the park. I don't think that I'll go back unless they really get...