Lions Water Adventure — Attraction in Kinston

We were having a fabulous time with a party of 13 people for my sons 12th birthday until a female life guard decided to pull my sister (an individual with autism and fetal alcohol syndrome) who thought she was in trouble, because the female asked her how old she was & then proceeded to point toward 3 male life guards & told her she needed to speak with them. They then were pointing and laughing at her which confused her so she came and got myself & our family because she didn’t understand what she did wrong & didn’t like that they were laughing at her. I did speak to one of the life guards which was a close description of the life guard my sister gave and she kindly said it wasn’t her so I went to find higher management to handle the issue. He seemed to have promptly dealt with it which we appreciate so much but I am so disappointed that my sister even had to experience such disrespect. Even if she didn’t have special needs she is still a human being that deserves to be treated with equality and respect. Thankfully she has learned to advocate for herself more & was able to speak up for herself because I would hate to know how those individuals would have treated someone who didn’t use spoken language. I truly hope after this situation all employee’s will be trained on how to and how NOT to interact with individuals with or without special needs. It isn’t difficult to treat ALL people with dignity.

UPDATE: Despite our unfortunate experience with 4 of the life guards I appreciate all the prompt attention & responses. I am hopeful that management will ensure those individuals are held accountable for their unprofessional behavior.

NEW UPDATE: My daughter went back with our friends on Monday. She & her friend were being silly, her friend jokingly asked a lifeguard (blond, male, not believing he would do it) in the lazy river, the one you’re not allowed to be out of your tube in, “Will you flip her over?” And the lifeguard flipped her over and proceeded to laugh about it. I don’t know on what planet an employee would EVER think it’s appropriate to flip over a 15 year old girl over in an tube, especially not knowing her history with water, because she and her older brother drowned last year at the ocean & had to be rushed by ambulance to the ER. However, regardless of her history, her tube should have NEVER been touched. I am so disappointed again in the lack of professionalism of these...

I personally didn't like this park the Internet says open s at 930 am, it has no rules or information either. Upon getting there at 10 trying to beat the crowd, I walked to the gate to pay and nobody was there but there was already 50 people in the park, when I asked one of the lifeguards walking by they said it opened at 930 to members only. Well Google says nothing going about members? Telling a 2 year old they have to wait another hour and half while all they can see is water is near impossible. The guard said go into the woodman center so we did, the people in there were very friendly but a membership fee is 65 a month. The girl was nice enough to let us go in with a daily membership, when we get into the park the first thing my 3 year old wants to do is go down one of the big slides ok so we walk over and I ask if she can ride it the very rude guard says she can go by her self but you can't ride with her....well as a dad that's not an option that seems like a good way for a small child to get hurt when not accompanied by an adult. So the big slides were out. Next onto the lazy river, the guard says she must have a life vest on, ok that's cool but no signs saying that anywhere, then we could talk find one for her that was small enough, going around the river on your back the water pressure was very high hitting her in the face. So then we go to the splash pad, no way for an adult to help there child down the slide bc it's completely roped off, granted some children that are used to a water park are fearless but for the ones that have never done that before are nervous and should have a way to have parents to accompany them. When then walked around the splash pad, a life guard every 10 feet it seemed, we walked past a slide and one of the guards was very rude and said do not walk in front of the slide, we'll there are 3 slides so how are you suppose to go around the slide without walking in front of it? I told him he should have said something before we walked in front he was a dick so I was dick back. This is a very unorganized park with no information or signs anywhere we are use to big parks like water country. This is no where near that. I give it a 2 star rating, we will not be returning, and don't waste your time going at 930 if your...

I gave this place a three so let me justify it, and I’m going to preface the fact that I visited while on vacation in NC, I’m from CT. This place is a bargain for the price. It has plenty of seating, numerous shaded areas, decent concession stand with very reasonable prices. It has a regular pool, a kiddy splash pool, a lazy river, and 3 fun slides. It really was close to getting 5 stars from me for what it is, and I will still recommend this place to anyone looking to have a fun time with the kids. However, there were 3 drawbacks that led me to lowering my score:

1. They enforce life jackets in the regular pool for anyone that doesn’t fully know how to swim, which almost makes sense, except that if you’re wearing a life jacket you can only stay in the shallow side of the pool 😳… Enforcing life jackets to kids in the shallow side made the pool not fun to be in because the life jackets don’t let you submerge into the water. The sun ☀️ was beaming with 98* weather and my son was catching sunburn on his face because he couldn’t dunk his head under water with the life jacket on. It felt redundant and ridiculous and it downgraded the overall experience of being in the pool.
2. The bathrooms were not very clean. They had ample staff in concessions and lifeguard duties, but I never spotted a cleaning person. The establishment looks clean overall, but the bathrooms get a lot of traffic with wet people so having someone that to tidy up once an hour could go a long way.
3. This is a minor complaint that I could solve myself, but the floor gets dangerously hot 🔥 with the sun on it all day. Had I brought some sandels this would not be an issue, but since I had none I suffered. Not just me, I saw plenty of people also going though the same problem. Dedicating a walking path throughout the facility that’s designed to not get so hot would have been sooooo appreciated. I am certain I caught some 3rd degree burns on my feet, I left hours ago and they still hurt. All that said, for $10 a person, it was money well spent. One last note, the staff was generally nice, except for when I questioned them about the...